RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Well I maidened my Escapade .61 today, Hitec A9, Telemetry, Tower .75 (Brand New), 13x6 E-Sys Prop, 5% Cool Power, dual 2000 mah NiMh, one for receiver (SPC), and the other for servos, JR-DS-821's...I ran one tank through it at the field, did a rich-lean breakin, idled good, HS good, throttled very well. Refueled, time to take her up, took off wanted to roll pretty hard right, and needed a lot of up elevator, whizzed around at full throttle, really hard to trim, then throttled back to 50%, and got her trimmed in. It actually started behaving and flew nicely. I then set it up for an approach and landing with a 5-7 mph crosswind, she settled in very softley, balooned up a little as I was a little fast, touched back down, landing gear plate ripped out, on to the belly then, broke both aileron servo arms, and poked a hole in the wing. Telemetry stated max altitude of 4490 ft., and max speed of 93 mph. My club is at 4'000 ft. ASL, so about 500 ft. in flying. The bird handled great once trimmed, so I will do a few repairs, and hit it again. This is my first flight this year, but the old instincts are still there, like riding a bicycle..!!

I also had a hardware shortage, but went to my LHS and picked up what I needed, and some DuBro wheels as well...

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I finally got to maiden my escapade 61 yesterday mine is powered by a OS 91 surpass I set it up with no cowl or wheel pants 14-8 apc prop mine came out tail heavy so I had to put the battery under the tank and put a 3oz heavy hub on the engine and it still balances at 4 1/8 to 4 1/4 I needed a little elv. trim and a couple of clicks ail. trim and that was it I was flying hands off in less than 2 min. the plane flies gracefully and is a pleasure to fly more power would be nice this engine is about 15 yrs. old BUT NIB so it needs to break in a bit the only problem I had was that the engine RPM dropped alot after removing the glow plug ignitor does anyone know what causes this? or do I just need a new glow plug and make further adj. to the engine.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Usually just the Fuel or the plug.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Running rich will cause the rpm drop, it's normal during break-in.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

What glow plugs are you using?? I've had the same problem lately.............a lot............and it turns out to be the glow plug. I'm using OS#8's and they are failing on a regular basis and in different airplanes. There was a thread somewhere in RCU about this problem. As soon as I take the igniter off of the glow plug the engine either slows or dies..........put a new plug and it runs good..............for awhile.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

you should be using F plugs in 4 stroke engines or you will have that problem . os8 is a 2 stroke plug

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I posted about 4 months ago that you should use some 30 min epoxy on the inside of where the landing gear bolts tothe frame.I had that prob with my 40 size escapade.With my 60 i put about half a bottle of 30 min on the inside and slowly rotated the plane to move the epoxy around so it soaked all 4 corners of the wood.I havent had a prob since.But this is the best plane ive owned so far.She floats in the air.OHYEA,check out my youtube videos i have one with the 60 escapade.Its aliitle foggy becuase i mounted the cam to close to the exhaust,but you can make it out.Just search (Darylk79) in the youtube search box and you can see all my flight vids.Let me know what you guys think.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Maiden flight on mine this weekend, I put a Saito 100 in it and still have to balance a little more, but nice plane !

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

OOPS............my bad.......I missed that it was a four stroke............I use F's in my four strokes...........the trouble I was having with the OS8's was with my two strokes..............SORRY [&o]

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

My Escapade took about 3/4 of a pound to balance properly with a Saito 100.  I've got 35 flights on her now and thus no problems to speak of.

The only thing Great Planes needs to look into on this airplane is the find mounting system. I had to bend the fin bolts forward about 1/4" to line up.

I'm very satisfied!

Jason

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I have a 2000 mil nihm. under the tank there is plenty of room there if you grind out the tank tray carefully so the velcro straps can still be used this also has the side benefit of making them easier to install and it also helps hold the battery in place I bought a dubro spinner nut that's chrome but it will also fit under the plastic spinner that came with the plane (4 screws???) I might mount the engine further out to help with the balance as I did not use the cowl I am very happy with the plane as it is and hopefully I will get to fly it some more when this heatwave passes it's funny I got it the day after the biggest snowstorm we have had in years.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I just had to post this!! I just crashed my escapade into a cornfield becuase i ran out of fuel on approach and there wasnt even a scratch on it.Could this plane be bionic??? Even my buddies were trying to console me before my walk of shame,but when i returned with it in one piece the only word out of there mouth was "Holy sh@T" no damage!! I fueled her up and flew the rest of the day with out any problem.Mind you the runway has a corn field that you have to fly over before the runway begins, and the corn is at its peak about 6-7 feet high.Great planes made one hell of a GREATPLANE!!! The only thing that broke was the corn!

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Did they fix the landing gear position so it does not bounce all the way down the runway like the 40 size did.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I have never in three years of flying the Escapade 40 had it bounce on landing. I always do a wheels landing and it glues its self to the ground. I have bounced the Escapade 61 once. I touched down too hard and the tail droped with too much forward speed and the increased AOA caused the plane to take to the air again before settling in.

Bruce

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Thinking about getting the Escapade 61 for my son. He's moving up from an Avistar with a.46 enginethat he soled on. I already have a Thunder Tiger Pro 61 engine and was thinking this would work greaton the largerEscapade butafter reading this thread it looks as if it will be on the low side of power. I have no plans to get a larger engine at the moment. My son is only 11 and does just mild aerobatics so maybe this engine is still ok?

Thing is I'm not wanting to invest a lot due to my sons skills and possible crashing at some point but I think he can handle this planefine, he buddy boxes with me on my larger gassers often.But I'm kind of leaning toward the 40 size Escapade now and putting the Thunder Tiger 61 engine in it. Would this be a good choice or would it be overpowered andnose heavy? It should make for a much more sporty plane. I like unlimited verticle myself but then again he will be flying it mostly, not me.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

The .61 will be fine and it will make a good sport flyer combo..!! These other guys are looking for super performance with thier 20cc or bigger motors. I fly my Escapade with two (2) 2000 MAh batteries, full Hitec Telemetry package, at 4000 ft. altitude (12 % Power Loss) and a new Tower .75 with a 13x6 fiberglass prop pulls it along at 97 MPH, as noted by my onboard GPS unit sending the signal to my Hitec Aurora 9 transmitter. It flys very good, no speed demon but just a solid flight behavior...

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Yeah I think your right. I will likely now stick with the 60 size Escapade and the TT .61 engine. Thanks.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I finished putting my Escapade .61 together last night.

I chose the NGH GT17cc gas engine and it's a really nice fit.

The build was relatively easy. My ailerons have a slight twist on both sides. Because i had the plane shipped internationally i didn't bother chasing Great Planes for replacements. I was able to get them almost straight with some heat. The holes on the control horns are too big for the clevis pins so there was a fair bit of slop. I ended up scrounging around my parts bins and found enough dubro horns which reduced the slop.

I used a 250ml (8oz) Nalgene bottle for the fuel tank and made a balsa receiver mount. I'm using a single 2600mAh LiFe pack with an Ultra IBEC for the ignition power. I use Mulitplex M-Link with telemetry with a voltage sensor on the receiver and current sensor on the switch. The telemetry keeps track of the mAh used and warns me if the pack gets to 75% discharged which should be a reasonable safety margin.

The LED for the IBEC is mounted through the cockpit floor and is easily visable. I've also stuck a receiver whisker in there too.

CofG needed only 20gm (2/3oz) in the tail to balance at the recommended 4" mark.

The last remaining thing to do is wire the Telemetry RPM and Temp sensors.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Nice!

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

I'd like to side mount a ST 90 inside the cowl..  Anybody got suggestions on a muffler?  from earlier in the thread seemed like the Bison Pitts is too large, at least for an inverted engine mount.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

A Jett Engineering Turbo-Jett might be a nice fit.

The pics below show how they fit on my Super Skybolt and Venus II

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

thanks for the photos, will need to measure.  Did you manufacture the cowl to fit the muffler for the one on the left?  looks good.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

No, that's the standard cowl that came with the ARF.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

Maidened my Escapade 61 2 days ago, great flyer. Have an OS .91FS with a 14-8 prop. Plenty of powerand  most of the flying was done at half throttle. Three clicks of up and two clicks of right aleron was all of the trim needed. I belive this one is a keeper.

RE: New Great Planes Escapade 61.
 

This is so cool. I just got the Escapade .61 about a month ago. Getting back into RC after 15 year absence. Looked all over HobbyKing (cheap but get what you pay for) and Tower. Found the Escapade and knew it was the one. I wanted something biggish (no little park flyer) and this seemed to be a good plane to start with.

Last I flew was Ugly Sticks, dabbled with Pattern (Bridi kits - Dirty Birdy, XLT), all glow. This one I decided to go electric (another reason I chose this plane) because GP had a good sounding recommendation.

Great fit and finish, very well put together "kit", but I DID have a ton of wrinkles to iron out, most notably on the solid AILERONS. STILL don't have all the wrinkles out. I also noticed the loose linkages and will change to the DuBro setup.

Went together with only a few minor bug-a-boos (one being the aforementioned fin stud lineup), installed an .80 RimFire motor, 2x3S 5000mah LiPos in it...balanced just a hair nose heavy.

Maidened a week ago and this thing is awesome! Like was mentioned - on rails. NO trim whatsoever. Only had ground handling problems that were my own - not used to tail draggers - nothing major, just landings need some work and maybe different tires.

Beautiful job Great Planes!