lomcevac540T

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Got my Wilga 19x7 prop installed this week. That thing looks great! I will try it out this weekend if the weather holds out. I also ordered 100 tiny button heat screws to simulate rivets around my wing fillets. Plus I am hoping it helps hold the fillets in place. I am planning to do some work on it tomorrow.

I forgot to tell you Pete, I almost lost my Extreme Flight Laser last week [:@] due to the same thing you had, only it was a loose wire on the aileron extension. One aileron had locked at full deflection. Luckily I guess the vibration helped it make contact again before it hit the ground. I landed the plane quickly and inspected, found the wire pulled out of the crimped connector. I have since pulled them all apart and soldered the wires at the crimped connection...

lomcevac540T

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One more thing... Good luck on the new build!

lomcevac540T

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Just in case you need another prop, I bought the same one you had from Troy Built Models a little cheaper.
[link]http://www.troybuiltmodels.com/items/BP197W.html[/link]

clockguypete

Wow, close call! I too have learned to inspect every little connection, and not take for granted the factory did it right. Just one little mistake will undo all our hard work putting these planes together. Glad u saved yours! I am definitely excited about putting another Gee bee in the air! Did you see the smoke working? The guys at my field got a kick out of that extra feature ;-). Let me know how your bird flies on the 19x7 wilga. The 1.80 four stroke really moved my Gee Bee around the sky with a falcon carbon fiber 18x6! Going to try the 18x8 on the next one since I swear I saw 13,000 rpm on the ground with the 18x6, unless my tach was giving me a wrong number in the sun. That engine is only rated to 10,000 rpm!

lomcevac540T

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Got all the screws put into the wing fillets. What a difference it makes in the looks of the plane. I find myself looking at them while flying the plane
It also helped pull the fillet tighter on the fuse. Pretty happy with the outcome. I went inside the fuse and wicked thin CA on all the bolts to keep them from working out of the soft balsa.
Wilga prop works pretty well. I didn't tach it, mainly because I need to lean the engine now and I don't have a hole on the cowl to get to the needles. I will try to lean it this weekend and get the tach on it.

clockguypete

That's sounds good, might try that myself. I purchased a lot of button screws at the toledo show this spring.

lomcevac540T

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Put about a dozen more flights on my Gee Bee last weekend. Great airplane, it stole the show while it was in the air!

clockguypete

That's great Ronnie! I have my new GeeBee still in the box. I got to working on a great planes 1/3 Pitts Special, added smoke, and restored many things on this 6 year old plane I bought at the Toledo show last April. Will get the new Gee Bee together after I see the Pitts fly ;-)

Zampa

Hi everybody, even if this looks like a very good plane, my main concern is the landing gear. However I downloaded the manual and it mentions a completely different landing gear system, with just a fixed wire. Has it been updated?
I'm thinking of putting an Evolution radial 7-35 in it, which should fit effortlessly, give me scale performance and maybe a bit more.
Anybody using this combo?

Cheers from Italy
Federico

tailskid

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My major concern was the wheel and the 'spats'.....OPEN up that opening a LOT - mine kept hitting the wheel on the strut and flipping the model over! I'd love to hear that engine in yours - wow!

clockguypete

Most of us who built the latest Arf took apart the oleo struts, filed flats on areas where set screws held upper z wire to wing, and lower socket head screw to lower wheel yolk connection. Gear was installed into wing per manual, but wires were connected to wheel splats by gluing a small piece of metal tubing inside opening of wheel pant to attach flying wire. Keep the metal tubing low in the opening so wire angle can clear bottom of belly pan when attached. The gear are strong and do not need any additional bracing. I trimmed a 1/4 inch from bottom of fiberglass pant opening, and installed 5" Dubro light weight threaded wheels for easy takeoff from grass strip. The wires to wheel splat's ( or pants) keep the grass from pushing them into wheels on not so perfect landings. As far as your engine choice goes, I powered mine with a Saito 1.80 four stroke glow which weighs 880 grams. The GeeBee CG was perfect without and additional weight added. The Saito 1.80 is 29cc and more than enough power. I have several photo'showing in previous pages of this thread. Good luck, it is a great Arf, and easy to fly!

mbgbe696

A lot of us took the struts completely apart and JB welded the lower and upper parts of the struts, along with the set screws.

lomcevac540T

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I have a couple dozen flights on mine. Just make sure to loc-tite and flat spot all the set screws in the struts, even the anti-rotation screws. The design seems to have changed a couple times over the past few years. Mine has the oleo struts and work great. Use the cables to hold the wheel pants in place instead of connecting them to the struts.
I am running a Mintor 33cc gas engine and this plane flies great!

Zampa

Thanks for all the answers! I guess balancing will be a problem, with the radial weighing 1400g and the CG being ok with 880g. The short tail moment doesn't help either. Uhmm...

lomcevac540T

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There is lots of room inside the fuse, so knowing that you will be looking at a possible nose heavy situation, you can move the servo tray aft, or possibly tail mount the servos. I think there was someone earlier in this post that mounted a 3 cyl. radial in his.

PSJDBF

Took my Z out yesterday, shes one of the original 1st batch models, with a saito 170R3, sounds awesome i reckon, any way Jason did well filming it with his iphone !!.
Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY3eR...ature=youtu.be

lomcevac540T

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That is a great sounding engine!

clockguypete

Nice job guys, that engine sounds sweet, and moves the Gee Bee throught the sky with authority!

PSJDBF

Hi Guys, fitted up an Orange RX3s flight stabilizer ( 3 axis ) to see if it helped with take offs and landings on the old GeeBee Z, well have to report it is amazing and recommend u all to try one on her if u are having tracking issues taking off or landing.
Have a vid of my last landing but none of take off yet, she use to have a terrible pull to the left on the take off roll which if over corrected ( which wasn't hard ) would end up flipping onto her back, now she's as straight as.
Cheers Guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSlpR47ftDk

mbgbe696

Does it help with elevator and bouncing on landings?

lomcevac540T

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I found that the bouncing on landing is caused by landing too slow. Keep your speed up a little and "wheel" land the Gee Bee. This plane lands like my GS P-40 which will do the same thing if I get it too slow. It's not that the plane won't fly slow... because it will fly super slow and still be stable. What is happening is when it is landed at slower speeds, the tail stops flying and it drops when the mains touch down. When the tail drops it increases the angle of attack on the wing and makes the plane take off again which starts the bouncing. Keep the speed up with a high idle and drop the throttle when the mains touch down. This makes for a nice landing, and it gets a lot of attention.

PSJDBF

You'll be suprised how well behaved it is now on take off and landings, I was amazed as were my flying buddies, the only negative thing i have found with it is it reduced the roll response a little so just increased the throws a little.
It can however be turned on and off via a switch on your radio.
As for the GeeBee bounce I dont have much trouble with that on mine coz i spent a little extra on spring and greese dampened struts on the mains that have a lot of travel and being dampened dont spring back out quickly, they absorb heaps and I have even run over mounds of dirt on the side of the strip with no issues.
Think a good set up on the mains is key to GeeBees and as lomcevac said, a little more speed.

dderst

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Can you please give some detail on what you did to your gear to make them better

PSJDBF

dderst, if you look back on this thread to Pages 3 & 4 I have some pictures from my assembly of the GeeBee, and some pictures plus a link to Unitracts UK where I got the struts from.
Should give u a good idea of how I set mine up, theres also some vids of the early flights with a couple of landings in there which may give u an idea of how they perform.
Good luck.

lomcevac540T

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Got my engine back yesterday and plan to install it and get the Z back in the air. Love this plane!