maverick11359

Thanks for the update Smoky,
Sounds like your one step ahead of me with landing under flaps.. I didn't get a chance last weekend at my R/C field to fly the Spit and the weekend before it was raining cats and dogs so no fly at all.

I have to pick my days to fly the tail draggers as well and last saturday was one I didn't ..

I know where your coming from with using exponential for the first time ..the advantage is you can use both rates high and low and still be smooth in manuovers and really groove in level flight ..I found the low rate on the elevators and alerons on the H9 Spit give a very true warbird flight appearance..... I leave the rudder on high rate always because i lke to do stall turns or wing overs as turn around manuovers, that always looks cool on the Mustang and the Spit.

I've become accustomed when setting up my models to start at 35 % exponential and then up it or back it of ....Interestingly most other aerobatic pilots I've know like 25%... I've converted most of my students after being taught old school( no exponential) on their trainers to exponential on their first sports models and they don't go back..

P.s thanks for the tip on the locktite for saito muffler

spitfire66

I received my dle 20 in the mail on friday and I have to say it is a little bit bigger than I was expecting. I don't believe it is a huge deal, but I will have to do something different with the mounting of the new engine. I figure I have 2 choices. Number 1 is to simply make the mounts a fraction wider on both sides to fit the engine or, number 2 option is to use my dremel and cut out the original firewall and make a new one.

I am leaning toward making a new firewall because the original engine mounting holes will just be made wider and I feel I should have a solid piece with this new engine rather than making a "slot" instead of 1 hole for each engine mount bolt. I will also have to make the hole in the middle of the firewall bigger to accomodate the carburetor on the new engine. I think the carb will have to be recessed in, or maybe but up against the firewall. Either way I WILL have to make a bigger hole. My wife decided we needed to paint a couple bedrooms so I will be working on this later this week on my days off I hope! Plenty of pics to follow....

If anyone else has installed this engine please post pics as I am not very experienced and this will be a new process.

Rotten40851

My Feedback: (2)

Dont Know if this was asked already cause I dont want to go through 56 pages so exuse me ifit was, I will receive my H9 Spitefire on Tuesday and was wondering, a friend of mine wrecked hisBluenose P-51 and gave methe retracts frrom it. With a little modification can I use these in the Spit and just turn the strut around.?

maverick11359

G'day Rotten 40851,

Rotten40851

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks Maverick11359, Good info, I will be sure to read up on the spit modifications. I have given that gear a good look and I dont think it's going to work. I will fit some struts onto the retracts that come with the spit, I fly from a paved runway so it shouldnt be too bad.I'll keep you posted, John

wingco

Hi Guys,

I've just completed and maidened the blue nose after about two years on the spit (P51's much easier to land!)
I was looking at the P51 retracts and wondering the same, but here are the issues:
The angle that the units sit in the P51 wings means that dihedral is taken into consideration, ie ther legs dont lock out at 90 degrees when down, more like 80 degrees to gett hem pointing straight down. If you were to reverse the unit , you'd end up with something looking like a giraffe going down for s drink. The stock items are bad enough, anyway!
Secondly you have to cut away a chunk of wing to get the servos in, it frankly doesnt look worth it to me. What I did was to cut the piano wire legs off with about inch sticking out of the retract unit, tghen repl;ace the bottom legs with robarts that slide straight over the wire. I think it would be worth doing the canting forward suggested here, that way the C of G can be pushed forward too which will add soooo much to the flying characteristics of thre spit. I found that I had to either dump tons of downtrim inoto it for level flying or move the c of g forward which guaranteed noseovers on landing. Check the thread here for details.
Wingco

Rotten40851

My Feedback: (2)

Yes, after a good look I saw they would be no good. I will fit the stock gearwith the spring loaded struts.The Good News is: I have a Blue Nose with a 4 stroke O.S.91 a H9 P-47 with electric retracts , Flaps,a 4 stroke O.S. 91 and a Top Flite P-40 with a D.L.E. 20 and Robart Rotating retratcs withstruts all ready to go for thier maiden flights.

wingco

You've been busy! Good luck with all of them!
Wingco

Smoky

Rotten: good luck with your maiden flights. post pics plz.
Wingco: how does the build of the bluenose compare to the build of other planes? post some pics/vid's of your flights.
The reviews I read do not rate it very high. However the build of the H9 spitfire 60 was the easiest I have ever done. I would have to say the Generals Model 73 inch mosquito was the hardest, and the CMP Mosquito comes 2nd hardest. Top flights are fairly easy. and all scratch builts are faily straight forward, but very time consuming.

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

spitfire66,

Approximately how much wider do the slots need to be to accomadate the DLE20?

wingco

HI Smokey,

The spit is very easy, I could rattle out a replacement fuse or wing for the spit in a matter of hours, the P51 is trickier but still pretty straightforward. There are a couple of questionable areas, namely the bizarre elevator function that looks like it was designed to come apart after use, so incorporates two clevis attachments (one for each elevator) on the end of a Y wire that are only accessible at the tail end via the inspection hatches....could do better H9! And the motor mounts supplied were too short for my eflite 110 (and would be for the recommended power 90 too), I needed to extend them by an extra half inch. The retracts are probably the highlight, they're well thought out and a far more sophisticated and efficient design. I lost count of the amount of rettracts failures of one sort or another that the spit presented me with, and I never really got over that bow legged too far apart look on landing!.
I think you have to go into these things with a fairly open mind, accept what the book says but work out for yourself what its supposed to achieve, that way you can make improvements as you go.
I dont think its any worse than the spit, if you can build that then the P51 would be no problem. I have to say that some of the complaints I read about were a bit precious, the whole point surely is to approach the basic kit like an engineer?

Good luck if you go for it
Wingco

wingco

p.s. check youtube wheelsdown1 H9 spit on board camera.
wingco

spitfire66

Hello everyone:

The dle 20 on the spit doesn't pose much of a problem at all. I had a ys 91 fz on the front with the stock hangar 9 mount. I had to slightly widen the slots to make the mounts about a 1/8 inch wider and redrill a hole for the new throttle linkage. I kept my instructions and made sure the engine was the 5 1/2 inches from engine mount base to the drive washer as specified. There is plenty of room on the mount to keep the back of the carb from hitting the firewall with the choke butterfly full open, which was a concern or mine. I pushed my engine forward to about 5 and 9/16 of an inch. I also want a little more of a gap between the cowling and the spinner base. I am concerned about cooling and I am thinking about taking my dremel and making the crankshaft hole in the cowling a little bigger, but the hole will still be hidden behind the spinner. I am hoping for a little more airflow in this gap. I am a little busy with things right now and hope to have everything finished shortly.

spitfire66

The number 3 pic is my attempt to verify the engine is on the mount correctly. I am not the best at perfection, but I try so I have to use everything in my arsenal

In the pics nothing is fastened yet, I only slid the bolts through the mounting holes.

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

spitfire66,

Looks good! What muffler will you use?

spitfire66

I will be using the stock muffler. It doesn't appear that it will look too bad. On a previous post I found a picture off flying_giants website that already had the conversion complete. It looked pretty good. I don't want to put anymore money into the engine such as a muffler as to save money for a new radio.

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

spitfire66,

Did you have to cut the cowl much to clear the factory muffler? A picture would be appreciated!

spitfire66

I was test fitting the engine and cowling last night. It doesn't appear there will be much more hacking than I already had to do to fit the ys engine. I will cut a little wider but should look ok. I had a little time today to work on things and I ran into problems with the throttle and choke setup. I will unscrew the throttle and flip the plate around so that the choke and throttle don't lie on the same side. I am going to use a manual choke set up like they did on the dle20 thread. Just click gallery and you can scroll through the pics to see my set up. Not much for progress today. I have tomorro off and should have it close to finished with any luck.

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

spitfire66,

Which field do you use? I fly at the Sunchasers up north.

spitfire66

Lifer,

I live very close to the Northern Knights field by Hodge Park on 96th street. There are some great people there and you would be welcome to check it out. It has been so hot that I haven't been flying lately.

Today shall be a good day on the spit. I have time to work on it.

Lifer

My Feedback: (1)

spitfire66,

I'll be at the Sunchasers field Sat. morning at 8 am. Come on by!

spitfire66

I had some time to work on the plane again today, but not as much as I had hoped for. I ended up routing all of the fuel lines and wiring through the bottom hole forward to the firewall under the fuel tank. I filled the forward compartment with foam and nothing can move around now as it is very tight. I am happy with my setup. It is somewhat clean, as good as I can get I suppose. Getting the proper hole for the throttle was difficult, partly because I am no good at it. A lot of thought has been made on how to setup my manual choke which just has me somewhat frustrated. Remember it has to be accessible with the cowling on, and to I would like the push rod to be pushed in (choke opened) for normal operation.

Other things I did was mount the ignition, changed out a couple servos to hitec 485hg's and I had a seperate battery set up for retracts but I have now decided to run all functions on 1 battery and the ignition on the seperate battery that was formerly used on the retracts. Three batteries was way to much weight, hassel, confusion, and 3 charge jacks.

My cat pretty much watched and supervised all day with little input!

The cowling fits over the engine to my suprise. I will have to do some more cutting around the cylinder head and muffler. There will be quite a bit of cutting to get around the muffler. I am hoping not to have a hack job, but if I do I can always get the newer and improved cowling. I hate this square one the older ones came with, but I will see what it looks like after I am done cutting as it may be a lost cause when I am done.

spitfire66

Well after receiving a pop-up charter to Orlando, I 90% completed my Spitfire. I had to figure out my setup for a choke which took me sometime. I had a lot of distractions. I rigged up a 2" 8/32 bolt at the very back of the mount with a servo arm (actually a circle from a futaba servo) and just set up a manual linkage. I am hoping it works out with little hassle. It is a very simple setup and I kept it simple. I strongly recommend turning your carburetor 180 degrees over as most have done on the dle 20 forum. I already had a hole drilled in my firewall from the previous engine so I elected to keep the carb per factory installation. I don't know what is really involved with flipping it over, but the reason I would recommend this if you have the room is because it can be a real pain to work around the cylinder head when installing the linkage.

I didn't want to spend any more money on a pitts muffler, but would sure look a lot better than the stock one. I tried to minimize my cowl cutting, and it was the best that I could really do to avoid hacking. You can see the old hole in the cowling where the previous muffler exited. I may buy a new cowl in the future but just want to fly as is for now.

I will leave the cowling off for the first few flights and get the engine tuned. I will try to have my wife film the flights. She is hard to convince to go to the rc field sometimes. I have been promoted to captain with my company and will be flying a lot this week, therefore I would not expect too much progress. Good luck to everyone who is thinking of installing this engine. I think it is straight forward and easy. I would get a pitts muffler if I had a brand new model. And think of the fuel savings!!!

spitfire66

I ran the engine tonight. I can't say enough about it. It was ready to run like a mad dog right out of the box. I used my electric starter with the choke open to prime before turning on the ignition. After all my messing with figuring out a way to set up the choke I decided to see if it would start with the choke open. The thing fired up and ran great. I hardly had to tune the engine as it was very close from the factory. I am using amsoil dominator 2 cycle oil mixed 30 or maybe 28:1 (used the side of the bottle to judge). I wanted to see what the engine would do with my old prop off of my YS 91 FZ. The YS would spin the 14x7 3 blade at 9300 rpm peak. The dle 20 turned the same prop at 10,500. I did not do this for long as it was screamin'. I have a 15x7 3 blade and I am left to wonder if I should have gone with a 16x8. This is a great, easy engine and I am very happy so far. The engine pulls very, very hard. I hope to fly tomorro. We'll see what the ol' ball and chain has for me....

spitfire66

Maiden today (with new engine). Flew very very fast and strong. 9100 rpm with 15 7 3blade. I might buy a 16 8 to slow it to a better rpm. I love this engine and highly recommend it!