I have just purchased a midwest AT-6 Texan and would like some advise on how much elevator to mix in with the split flaps and what would be a good starting point on the flap angle? The texan has a Ys 120 and robart retracts. Also any feedback on flight tendencies, Thanks, Willie

Willie....I had one with a G-38 with over 300 flts on it.....Its a narrow gear, short coupled airplane but with some experience is a blast to fly.......It doesn't like excessive crosswind T/O's and landings say more than 25*-30* or so......I used flaps for landing @ 40*-45*......its best to fly base and final with "power" and good descent rate...If you get too slow...the bottom falls out in a hurry....has a tendency to "hop" on occasion.....when landing...."fly it" right down to the runway with power...soon as you remove power..it slows down........Get acquainted with using lots of rudder....you gonna need it with this one......most of all fly-it don't let it fly you ......Once you get used to using lots of rudder....it should be lots of fun for you........Good Luck.....Bill....

Willie - I didn't put the flaps on mine, so I can't answer that part of your question. As for how they fly - mine has a gas engine (US 41) so yours will be much lighter.
Be careful on takeoff not to pull it off (it will tip stall like most warbirds). High G's in turns or loops cause the same problem, but it's not hard to recover and easy to see it coming. I like "wheel" landings keeping some power on until over the threshold (about 2ft alt) then a gentle flair and it will touch down just like the real one.
Yours may be light enough to float at the bottom, but I have never seen anyone have a real problem with it.

Have fun - it's a very good flier
Dave

I don't know how much carryover there is from the Yellow AT-6 (101") to yours, but I have found that a 13% mix from flaps to down-elevator is about right ... I use about 45 degrees of flap for the "full flap" setting and 15 degrees for a "partial flap" setting for the downwind leg (I have the flaps on a 3 position switch).

I second the comments about power-on landings and the high sink rate and the "AT-6 Hop" on landing. It really forces you to get off the elevator as soon as the mains are down, or you can find yourself having popped back up, nose high at low airspeed, with the usual predictable results :-(

ww2birds,

For your flap deployment when you hit the switch do flaps move to position immediately or are you sing some sort of a delay device? I have and 8UAP radio and using the air-brake switch (3 positions) but cannot figure out how to slow down the flap deployment. Any ideas?

Vicar,

Good question ... I have the flap channel slowed down, which is easy to do on a 9Z radio, but the elevator mix, as I recall, does not "go slow", it happens right away as if the flap channel were at full speed.

Since I start with the 15 degrees of flap on downwind, then go to full flap on final, so at least I don't have the full jump at once. If you figure out a solution for this, I would certainly be interested!

Never asked the 9Z gurus about this, maybe one of them will read this.

Dave

Vicar,

Forgot to mention, I also have an 8U, and have not seen any way to do this on an 8U, so when I used to do flaps on the 8U I did it with a knob.

You can get aftermarket slow-servo boxes (I forget who makes them. maybe EMS maybe Electrodynamics) for the flap channel, then youd have what I have with the 9Z, since the mix of down elevator would happen right away, and the flap deployment would be slow...

Dave

Dave,

The 8U has a delay only on the elevator when you mix it with flaps. I am going to look for the servo delay device. On the other hand, fathers day is coming and I am a good father... so maybe I'll get what I want (a 9Z) not another tie