For all those who are interested, I started construction last night on the Bates Hellcat. I have posted some construction notes and photos at www.rcuniverse.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=363671. I will be adding to the post as I go along. I will be working on it on the weekends only as I am also building two mustangs for customers on the weekday evenings..

You are a busy man...good luck

Looks like you are busy.

Jeff looks busy also

Thanks Jeff. I am lucky. My wife totally supports my hobby. She plays volleyball 5 nights per week which also gives me the time to spend on the hobby. I have been following your Corsair project. It looks like it is coming along nicely. I hope to someday be in the right place at the right time to see it fly. Talk to you later.

Two mustangs and a Hellcat? Weekday evenings and weekends?

Geez your good and boy am I jealous...

Regards,

Paul

Yeah. And I also have a Byron Mustang and a Vailly Tempest waiting for their turn. I should be able to get to the Mustang after the 1st of the year but, I think the Tempest is going to have to wait until next winter. I still need to get the retracts for the Tempest. I will get them from Sierra, but I have to save up for them because they aren't cheap. I have a Sachs 5.2 to power it.

Kirk...Tell me alittle about your Bates Hellcat W/Span is 85"?...What powerplant...Whose gear do you plan on using....How does price compare to Byron/Ironbay F6F?...I want to build one but will have to what til "Connie" is finished ...Too many planes to build......not enough hours in a day........Thanx....Bill.....

Hey Kirk....maybe we can talk...I hope to build Roy's Typhoon someday.

Kirk:

Sounds like we have similar interests...

Roy's Tempest and/or Typhoon are on my build list as well. In fact, I have the Tempest plans, and like you will probably get to it next winter. (Unless Don's P61 "gets in the way". )

The Sierra gear are gorgeous... I was looking at them at the last WRAM show. Expensive... But I think worth the price.

The Sachs 5.2 should do nicely. I believe Roy flies his Typhoon with a Q75.

Kirk. Your pics. look great. I'll go look for the SCRC mag when i get off in a few min. Wish I had a camera! Maybe Santa will bring one.


Rex

Bill:

The scale is 1/5.42 and the wingspan is 80 inches. Bates recommends a G-45 but I have a G-62 lying around looking for a home. I also think it will need the added weight of the G-62 to help balance it. The gear are Century Jet. It has a 98 degree retract angle and Robart did not have anything that would work. The strut shaft is 5/8 so I am hoping that they will hold up. The cost with the plans, cowl, canopy, and laser cut semi kit was around $330. I also purchased about $75 worth of wood from Lone Star to finish off the semi kit. So it cost me just a little over half the cost of a Byron. I believe Precision sells a full kit for $335. I thought that was a little on the expensive side so I opted for the laser cut semi kit.

Jeff, Paul:

I have always loved the Typhoon. The first balsa model I built was a Guillow's Typhoon. I had a Brian Taylor Typhoon semi kit, plans, cowl, and canopy. When I started checking into getting retracts I found that they would cost almost as much as retracts for the Vailly Typhoon. So I figured why not build the Vailly Typhoon and sold the Brian Taylor stuff to a friend. I was looking into getting the Vailly Typhoon when a couple of Saturdays ago someone put a Vailly Tempest kit cut by Precision, canopy, cowl, plans, and accessories for sale on RCU for $450. I could not resist, so now I am the proud owner of a Vailly Tempest. After I received the kit, I started comparing the Tempest to the Typhoon and I think the Tempest will be a better flier. The wing has the largest area of any plane in this size range.

Jeff, I can email you my phone number if you want to talk.

Kirk, I thought you sold that stuff to me! hehehe
of course thanks again, I cant wait to see more pics of your Hellcat. I gotta quit being lazy here and get up some new pics of my Taylor Spitfire and P47

Todd

Wow, nice deal! I guess I need to watch those sales.

Bill:

I made a mistake. I said the scale was 1/5.42. That is wrong. It is 1/6.42.


Todd:

The last pictures I saw of the P-47 looked like it was close to the finishing stage. That's when all of the fun begins.

yes it is Kirk, I keep jumping back and forth between the 2 birds I am working on. Now that I have a scheme picked out, hopefully get done sooner than later. I am sending Lenny money for my Spit gear and a set of plans of the P47 for him to do a set for it.
Someday they will be done