Well i'm finsihed putting the AV8R back together. i changed out the front retract with a robart unit and a robostrut. the robostrut was longer than the first wire gear i had in it so now it sits nose high. it's about 2 degrees nose up on the fuse. i was wondering if any else has flown thier AV8R with a nose high attitude? thanks ,warbird

did you crash it?

no!! lol i haven't flown it yet with the new setup . will be flying it today

You are fine with nose up, also make sure you have up thrust on the engine (i.e. engine pointing down since it is in the tail) to assist in the take off. The plane will fly when it is ready even if you push your elevator.

Apart from that, follow the throws guidelines as per PCM and go have some fun. The AV8R is a great trainer and very forgiving.

On landing, idle early and stay high, keep the nose slighly down and come in on final and flare just before touchdown. If the wings begin to wiggle, you are starting a stall, apply a bit of power, not much, just a touch and get it out of this mode.

Regads
Peter

The plane flys good, but I disagree with it being forgiving.

It will bite you in a heart beat and spin in if it gets too slow.

If you bounce the landing it will want to cartwheel as well. It never seems consistant. I could setup the same way every time and have different results.

Landing this plane is not the easiest thing in the world. At the time I bought mine it was really the only plane out there calling itself a true trainer. Now that I have flown other "trainers" I would say there are better choices out there.

I disagree Ronnie

The AV8R is the easiest jet to fly and land.
If you setup your flaps and elev down mix, come in high, idle and sink slowly to the flare, you should nail it everytime.

This plane should not be brought in with nose high attitude for landing on a long approach.

Any jet can get into the dreaded bounce oscillation, even my AV8R did on hard surface a couple of times if you don't slow down enough and your nose wheel touches first.

On grass, I could spot land it most times on 300ft runway.

Ive just seen too many people have problems with it.

Have you ever flown a boomerang or an R-54?

There is no comparison

i have to agree with shok. i flew it today and i did cartwheel it twice landing . both times it was caused from bouncing. the first time i greased it on the runway and hit a small bumb and it threw me back in the air . i did raise the nose and found i couldn't keep it from recoiling back in the air after hitting a small bumb in the runway. i'm very disappointed in this plane. too much screwing around to go fly. it's a total turn off for me and jets . i'm rethinking weather to go ahead or bail out and just fly my big warbirds

There is no guarantee of easy sailing with any machine with more than 2 moving parts..there are going to be challenges and disappointments, but also rewards and feelings of accomplishments...they don't all occur on the same day......

Warbird, I know exactly how you feel, I've rebuilt my Av8R twice due to bounced landings, but this weekend I finaly nailed it...5 times. I did add a a 1/16 aircraft cable between the rear landing legs and it made a huge diffrence, another fellow who was flying one also had upgraded Carbon rear gear. The jet is easy for some and difficult for others, my first flight was landed by a friend who has at least 1000 turbine flights and he bounced it on it's first landing. I found the key is to do two approaches and slow it down with full 50 degree flaps and as Eicas says keep the nose down until you need to flair. Once your wheels are on the ground give it a little down elevator and hit the brakes.

Are you flying off of Grass or Pavement?

Goose.

Dont give up.

Like I said, this plane does fly well, but it sucks to land it and takes all the fun out of flying.

This year I have had much more fun and enjoyment than any other year because I have not been fighting my planes on landing anymore.

Even my F-22 lands easier than my AV8R's did.

PM me and I can hook you up with a great flying and landing plane here in the next few weeks.

it's strange. the first landings i was able to land with ease. the more i fly , the worst it gets lol .i'm thinking it's because of 2 things. not being able to get the speed down enough on landings and having the fuse at 2 degrees of nose up attitude. i'm flying off grass

ok , i just checked the wing and it has 1 degree of positive incidence with the hor. stab at 0

here's a video clip of my first ever AV8R landing attempt

http://www.clubfield.com/av8rcrash.MPG

yep , been there done it.

The first few landings I made with my AV8R it would bounce too, even landings that were 'fairly' smooth. The way I fixed the 'problem' was to raise the main gear a little. I removed it from the fuse and pulled the wheels off. Then clamped it in a vise near the upper bends and pulled down and smacked it near the bend with a rubber mallot a couple times to put more bend in it. If you do this be careful, it doesn't need much! I went a little overboard because now on takeoff the thing shoots down the runway and won't even think about flying until I give it a heavy dose of up elevator, then it leaps into the air. I make sure I let it build up plenty of speed first! And on landing, as soon as the nose gear touches down the wing is at a negative angle of attack and it's "Glued" to the runway, even when I land it a little too fast which I'm still trying to stop doing.
I'll try getting a picture of the fuselage posted and you can see it now looks like the back end of a VW beetle with the wheels angled inward at the bottom. Other than this little annoyance the plane flies just great.
John.

Here are a few shots of the landing gear after I put a little more bend in it. You could also try shortening the nose gear and/or put a smaller wheel up there, but this plane would be happier with larger wheels not smaller, particularly when flown off grass.
Hope this helps.

one thing that i found too was that i have only 30 gegrees of flap in it. so i'm going to remove the flaps and change them so i get as close to 90 degrees as i can. this plane just doesn't like to slow down . even more so with the simjet 1200 "14 lbs." it idles at 50,000 so i have a pretty good amount of thrust at idle.

BINGO !!!! i think i got it. i took the AV8R out yesterday and had 2 great flights !! it took-off like a dream and i was able to get it slowed way down for nice landings. what i did was to go to max flaps " about 50-60 degrees" for landing and take-off i used 25-30 degrees. the take-ff runs were a lot shorter. i also zeroed out the fuse angle and softened the nosewheel spring so the first 3/8 of travel was soft. thanks for all your help , warbrd_1

Well, I hope I have the same results with my AV8R soon. I picked up a used plane with a T-500...haven't set it on a scale yet, but it feels like a weighs a ton...hope that little 500 hauls it up here at 4500'. Still have to balance it, I think I still need a little weight up front (battieries have already been moved up as far as they can). The plane has flown here before (I'll the third owner, I think), but still makes me nervous...only other thing I've flown is a Super Reaper, and it has it's own landing problems.

Mark

Amen !!!


What happened to the nose and canopy??? Are there parts missing? I started an AV8R about 2 years ago and it is about 95% done..... That was kinda self inflicted, though - I made a lot of changes to it. I got seduced by an F-16, so the AV8R got pushed aside...now I am repairing a Super Reaper (yup...landing accident).
Funny thing, I have seen 4 or 5 AV8Rs fly and have not seen or heard of any landing problems at all.......

mark , make sure you stick to the required throws. when the CG is right ,it doesn't take a lot to move it around. mine comes in about 18-19 lbs. wet . it's a good floater to a point. i was having a lot of problems because of the idle thrust . i moved my flaps down more to about 50-60 degrees and it fixed that problem . good luck ,warbird

I have the manual, so the throw are set to PCM's recomendations. My only problem with the flaps is I can only get about 40% to 45% max...that's all I can get without cutting out the hinges, and making more of a gap.

The nose was lost in a previous incident...I still have it, but it's a little out of shape. I'll eventually make another one, just too busy right now. The canopy is the way the previous builder set it up...something I'll change when I get the time.

mark

i would take some extra time and redo the flaps. it will be well worth it .

holy smokes batman !! watch that thing when you stall it . i took mine straight up at a show this past weekend till it stalled. as soon as the nose fell it went into a real bad flat spin. i was doing everything i could but it would not pull out untill it wanted to. i was thinking it might spin all the way down.but fortuantly it stopped and i was able to recover it. i tell ya it drop a long ways quick. someone here was talking about them being hard to recover from in a spin . i beleive them now .