hi. i was wondering if anyone has built one of these. im at the point where im putting in the servos and rods. i have two questions. first, the rod setup includes a carbon rod thats hollow. you glue the ends on, and slide a steel rod in the end, when you have the right length, you tighten the two set screws in the ends. my question is, are the rods that go to the rear supposed to cross like the ones im putting in, and i had to cut both to fit. they were to long, is that normal, having to modify the rods? second question, i have retracts. do i need one or two servos for that? the "instructions" dont show. to me it looks like only one, but i have an opening in each wing right at the rods for the landing gear. thanks for any advice given.

Re: Rods

The supplied steel rods are purposely too long, so you can cut them down to suit your installtion.

Re: Retracts

It depends upon the type of retracts you are installing.

Mechanical retracts with "locks" can be controlled by one strong retract servo as done with many .40-.50 sized planes.

You install a circular servo horn, and affix ball links to the circle at opposite ends.

The CMP F6F manual has a great picture of this setup. PM me your e-mail address ( it must accept 1megabyte or larger attachments ) and I'll send you a PDF version so you can see how it is done.

Pneumatic retracts of course don't require this.

ok. sorry about the confusion here. the rods i have to cut down are the carbon fibre rods. i had to do this because they run to the back of the plane to two slotted holes. until i get the steel rod through the hole, to the horn and connect the other end to the servo, there is no room to move the rod, as the carbon rod is too big to move through the slotted holes. oh, and i have mechanical retracts. i just dont understand why there is a hole in both wings if you are only supposed to use one servo. maybe so you can decide which side you want to put it in thats easiest for you? the instructions suck for this thing, and this being the first plane ive ever done, im just barely getting by. thanks for the help.

also, im using jr ds821 servos. that should be strong enough to work both, correct?

That is correct you do have to cut the Carbon fiber rods to the size indicated in the instuctions.

Believe it or not the instructions provided aren't bad. You should see what comes with other Asian Arfs! Just a blueprint type sheet.
Nothing else.

You may want to seek the help of someone who has put together various ARFs before. After 4-5 ARF's you don't even think about the instructions except for the C.G.

For a single retract servo, it must install at the center of the wing to work right.

For individual retract servos, one is installed close to each retract.

Has anybody flown one of these yet? I just finished mine tonight, gonna maiden it in the morning.

My setup is a Turnigy SK 50-55 580KV motor with Thunder Power V2 4400mah 5S battery. I used a separate servo for each retract so I could program them individually.

The only mod I made to mine was I used a light pull-pull rudder system to save on 10 grams weight. Those CF tubes with metal rods are twice the weight of a good pull-pull setup.

Hopefully it survives the maiden. It came in at exactly 7 lbs, which is heavy for this plane, but that's the same weight as my CMP P51 50 sized plane and it flew fine with this exact setup.

The maiden will be with a 2-blade 13x10 prop, and if it goes well I'll convert over to my 3-blade setup. I found a nice aluminum 3-blade spinner at www.atsrcplanes.com. Very nice people at that shop.

Anyway, I guess I'll be the first, unless anybody knows of another thread or forum where someone has already flown. I sure don't like being the guinea pig.

I've got a second one in the box, just in case.


P.S.

If anybody is interested, I created a nice custom cockpit graphic for my Spit. I posted it up in the RCGroups forum in the Spit thread. Feel free to print it out on your color printer, cut it out, and glue it into your cockpit.

Here's the thread & a pic. It's post #100

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showt...1142963&page=7

Has anybody put a gas engine in one of these .50 size CMP models yet?