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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
after putting the OS 160 fx engine on the plane and everything else. The plane needs about 10 oz in the front to balance out. Right now it weights 16.7 lbs without the added weight. Hopefully I will be right on 17.5 lbs after everything is said and done.
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
10 ounces ain't bad! Sounds like you did a great job of keeping it light. Congrats!
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
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Well, after all of everything got installed and buttoned up, I was able to bring mine down to exactly 20lbs. It was a bit more, but I put in the on-board glow, and moved things forward some more, and then I took out 9.5 oz of the lead brick that I had put up front for the original balance.
If 5.5" is the perfect balance, then I'm DONE! Just waiting for the time to get out there now. Do you know how hard it is to actually have to watch 70-degree days pass by, one after the other, when you have a bird to test fly??? Killin me! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: GaGeeBees 10 ounces ain't bad! Sounds like you did a great job of keeping it light. Congrats! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Yeah when I put the retracts on there it is going to put the weight on.
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Speaking of retracts... I am STILL waiting for my electronic actuators from LADO-Tech. Four months and counting... [:@] All I get from the guy is excuses.
F82 - It's 18 degrees here this morning! I'll take your 70 degrees even with the wind :) Hope you get some flying weather soon. The weekend forecast here is looking great. |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: GaGeeBees Speaking of retracts... I am STILL waiting for my electronic actuators from LADO-Tech. Four months and counting... [:@] All I get from the guy is excuses. F82 - It's 18 degrees here this morning! I'll take your 70 degrees even with the wind :) Hope you get some flying weather soon. The weekend forecast here is looking great. It ain't the wind - it's the fact that WORK gets in the way of my play time when I should be out test flying airplanes . It is SO perfect right now I could just spit. [:@][:@][:@] |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Oh yeah... work. I know all about that dirty word. It's always getting in the way of my playtime as well. Of course the occasional paycheck does come in handy :)
Your bird looks great with those black leading edges on the wings. |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
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ORIGINAL: GaGeeBees Oh yeah... work. I know all about that dirty word. It's always getting in the way of my playtime as well. Of course the occasional paycheck does come in handy :) Your bird looks great with those black leading edges on the wings. I also got the "N" numbers on the wings. Took a while to dry last week when it was in the 40's in the hangar... Will take some beauty shots when I get back from my trip tomorrow. Heres a low res iphone pic till then... BTW... Is it just me that's had a problem with the strength of the retract valve mount? I hit the switch last week and the horizontal plate just cracked where the vertical mount glues into it! I just epoxied a piece of triangle ply on to solve that problem. Now to find the next weak link! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Had the same problem with mine and did the triangle stock reinforcement too. One annoying thing about my Spektrum system is that it cycles the retract channel every time I turn it on. If there's a way to get it to stop that, I'm not aware of it. It also seems to ignore the end point settings as well when it does this, so the servo is going maximum travel. Anybody else experience this?
Good shot of your wings and N-numbers. The gold pinstripe is a nice touch. Maiden flight this weekend? |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
GeeBees
Yes !!!!!! Theres a fellow at our flying field tat had that same problem: He was upset as he called Spektrum and they told him just to deal with it. Now I work at a local hobby shop and know that Spektrum/JR has pretty good customer service: I told him to call back, ask for a supervisor. He did and received an answer and a fix for the problem, now all I have to do is remember what the answer was. So:::: sit tight: I will contact him today (the 5th) find out what he did and send a message before the day is out Denis |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Please do let us know what you find out. I know of several others that do the same thing.
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: GaGeeBees Had the same problem with mine and did the triangle stock reinforcement too. One annoying thing about my Spektrum system is that it cycles the retract channel every time I turn it on. If there's a way to get it to stop that, I'm not aware of it. It also seems to ignore the end point settings as well when it does this, so the servo is going maximum travel. Anybody else experience this? Good shot of your wings and N-numbers. The gold pinstripe is a nice touch. Maiden flight this weekend? Good to know I'm not the only one that had that prob. My JR12X does the same "cycle" thing upon wake up that my Spectrum does. Will be interested to know of a fix! Maybe if we turn the airplane on first, and then the x-mitter????? Will maiden her this weekend if the stars align! I'm picking up my new KMP BF-110 (see thread in warbirds forum) tomorrow, so that will be the next "project". What's on your workbench??? Another SUNNY 70-degree day down the tubes - all because I'm contributing to the ecomony and refusing to participate in the recession!!!!!!! Dang! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
O.K. Gang: here's the scoop on the Spektrum/JR retract issue
The folks at JR say (drum roll please) you have to bind you're transmitter to receiver with the retract switch in the DOWN position as well as your landing gear also in the DOWN position. That way when the units are switched on it will recognize the gear as "Down" see if that helps !! Denis |
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ORIGINAL: knucklebutt GeeBees Yes !!!!!! Theres a fellow at our flying field tat had that same problem: He was upset as he called Spektrum and they told him just to deal with it. Now I work at a local hobby shop and know that Spektrum/JR has pretty good customer service: I told him to call back, ask for a supervisor. He did and received an answer and a fix for the problem, now all I have to do is remember what the answer was. So:::: sit tight: I will contact him today (the 5th) find out what he did and send a message before the day is out Denis |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: knucklebutt O.K. Gang: here's the scoop on the Spektrum/JR retract issue The folks at JR say (drum roll please) you have to bind you're transmitter to receiver with the retract switch in the DOWN position as well as your landing gear also in the DOWN position. That way when the units are switched on it will recognize the gear as "Down" see if that helps !! Denis Thanks so much for the info Denis! Most appreciated! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
IT FARKIN WORKS! :D Just went out and froze my butt off in the garage... er hangar... and did a rebind on the Staggerwing's Rx and viola! No more cycling of the retract servo. Thank you very much Denis!
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F82,
I appreciate you doing your part to keep the economy afloat. The KMP BF 110 is one sweet bird. What're you going to power it with? Gotta love a twin! I'll check out your thread. As for my workbench, I'm in the midst of bolting a big ol' OS radial on the front of a vintage Ikon N'west Cessna 195. I bench ran the radial and onboard glow system and got it all tuned up. I'm hoping to have it ready to maiden by the end of the month. Waiting in the wings (pun intended :)) is a Byron Gee Bee and a Nosen Aeronca Champ. |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
Gang :: My next project is the "Staggerwing" just finishing up a 1/4 scale Ryan PT-22. Ready for the first flight by Monday.
GeeBee : what did you think of the Ikon Cessna 195 Kit ? My PT-22 started out as a Ikon kit and finished up using the "Jerry Bates" plans. The Ikon kit was really just a large box of various pieces of balsa wood. Very rough and basic. Its been a two year project starting out a Ikon kit and turning into a scratch build project: The Staggerwing will be a nice change (thanks to all on this thread that have already made all the mistakes) aint the internet great !!!! Denis |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: knucklebutt O.K. Gang: here's the scoop on the Spektrum/JR retract issue The folks at JR say (drum roll please) you have to bind you're transmitter to receiver with the retract switch in the DOWN position as well as your landing gear also in the DOWN position. That way when the units are switched on it will recognize the gear as "Down" see if that helps !! Denis That post should be quoted and repeated on EVERY thread of every forum in RCU! I will do the re-bind tomorrow. It's kinda of a pain to get to it, but if that solves the problem, I will be one happy mexican. Oh, wait, I'm not mexican, that's JETMEX. I'll just be happy! GeeBees, You have some fun birds coming up! I LOVE the 195. A shop I worked for when I first broke into aviation had a customer bird that won Oshkosh back in the early 80's. White & 2-tone blue, wheel-pants with cross-wind gear and a "shakey-jake" radial. Oh, it was awesome.... E-mail me pics ( [email protected] ) if you don't have it on a thread here, otherwise get me a link! I'm putting G-26ei's in the 110. I had them NIB for a 103" Art Johnson F82 that I ended up NOT returning to service after I took a hard look at it. So they are hangin around! I pick it up tomorrow and Jetmex and I will do a dry-fit of everything over the weekend. We will start a build thread on the Twin & Multi-engine forum. Looks like I'll be tackling the KMP Bf-110 and FW-190 at the same time, now. I hadn't planned on the 110, but Nemesis4u (KMP dealer) twisted my arm so hard, that I just HAD to do the 110. With all of these others, I'm not finding ANY time to even really start on my 85" Bearcat that I so desperately want to do this year. Maybe if the recession deepens a bit more, I'll have some time to put into her... Naaahhh. We don't want that! I'll just fit it in - somewhere. If we had your weather I wouldn't be out flying every weekend - I'd be building! Choices, choices.... At 18-degrees, I think more than my fingers would be frozen if I went out in that! We have our hurricanes, fires, floods and tornados, but no snow-shovels!!! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
ORIGINAL: knucklebutt Gang :: My next project is the "Staggerwing" just finishing up a 1/4 scale Ryan PT-22. Ready for the first flight by Monday. GeeBee : what did you think of the Ikon Cessna 195 Kit ? My PT-22 started out as a Ikon kit and finished up using the "Jerry Bates" plans. The Ikon kit was really just a large box of various pieces of balsa wood. Very rough and basic. Its been a two year project starting out a Ikon kit and turning into a scratch build project: The Staggerwing will be a nice change (thanks to all on this thread that have already made all the mistakes) aint the internet great !!!! Denis |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
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Well, here's a couple of beauty shots of her waiting on the ramp to take wing.
Also one of the "fix" for the air valve issue. I did the re-bind with the 12X and it worked perfectly. Thanks again Knuckle! |
RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
when you all balance, do you all check to see if the nose is level or the belly.
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
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I have done the cg before on a lot of planes I am just again doubting myself I usually check to see if the nose is level or the plane looks level upside down (if it is a low wing). Here are some picture of what I am talking about.
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RE: Top Flite Staggerwing
F82 - I'll get some pics of the 195 taken over the weekend. Your 110 sounds like a great project. I just installed a Twin Sync from RCS on my Twin Cub and it's great. Keeps the engines sync'd through the whole throttle curve. I also bought the optional digital onboard rpm readout which is unnecessary but way too cool :) I subscribed to the 110 thread. Interesting buncha characters lurking there.
Nice shots of your Staggerwing! Where's the big polished aluminum spinner? |
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