RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Hi Brad
Sorry I did not get back to you right away but for some reason my I pad would not let me type a response. Just upgraded to iOs5 and now have a bran new iPad. What a difference.
The duty here is 20% and we also pay 15% VAT so at the end of the day I have spent about $2300 US in total to get the kit here. Ithat includes everything that Yellow Aircraft sells . Iwas able to get a second hand DA 50 cc for $250 and brought 4 Spektrum 6025 metal gear servos on eBay at very good prices. I have just got some 1/2 oz. and 3/4 oz fiberglass cloth and will only start when it's all here. I will start sometime in late nov or Dec as I have a P51 on my building board.

Altjough we have a good hobby shop here in Trinidad it's tends to be expensive so eBay and Amazon are my best friends. I just have to waiabsent I buy in the US to get everything here.
bestnregards

Kevin<br type="_moz" />

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Looks like we are pretty much in the same boat when it comes to postage, duties , taxes and availability of gear Kev. Best of luck with your build and be sure to keep us updated here.
With me I got another awesome flight in today. Flight number six only but it was the best flight so far with no problems at all and I had some visitors who took some picture. Yay, pictures of it flying.:D
I will be receiving the full res pictures soon on disk or stick. My visitor was a gent called Brian who happened to be the Secretary of the Queensland Aeromodeller mob over east. Nice chap and we had a good talk and nice visit. Thanks for the pictures Brian.
Now the flight, still a tiny bit of vibration at full noise but acceptable so off I go. Perfect take off and climb out with gear up and a quick trim and then into the certification manoeuvres. All good now some photo passes and general fun and more aeros untill I set up for landing with a couple of curcits just to enjoy the view. Beaut approach and touchdown to a scale Spitfire arrival. Awesome.

Flight # two was going to be great but the engine would idle but not rev hard so back to the hanger with it. Hopefully some crud in the fuel filter so I'll sort that out during the week.
So I am happy enough now to be able to do the certification paper work and send it off. Big tick. Lots more to come.

Cheers,

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

very nice pictures Brad, she looks sweeeeeet !!.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Thanks Steff,,, yes getting there slowly.
Just read what you said in that 'ARF' thread and agree whole heartedly but will not comment there. Not worth my effort.

Cheers,

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

well done Brad. Where is your partner in crime Bazza these days?

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

He took a couple of those photos.;):D
He is OK,,, going back to Perth for more check ups.

Cheers man,

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Yeah ! I was trying to stay out of that one, but had a few drinks today watching the Rugby 1/4 final & slipped, made the post against my sober judgement, BUT I,ll leave it there !.
Took the hurri out the other Day, Wilkie and I took a warbird out ,He flew his hanger9 blue nose Mustang & my Hurri.
loading up some footage of both planes in the next couple of nights so check them out...Wilkies Mustang fly's really well with a DLE20cc despite alot of negative reports on RCU threads.
Looking forward to our next meet , say gidday to baz & the guys.
Steff.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

ok Brad, say gday to him from me. Hope all goes well for him.
cheers

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Hi,

Those are shear-pins designed to shear instead of bend or transfer. Not always the best option, depending on your application, though. On some of the planes, I replace the shear-pins with hardened steel wire.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

The shear pin idea IS probably a good idea for the original design of wing/retract mounting but this one let go way too softly. Maybe it had been stressed before as I did get them second hand and saw evidence of some use. The landing I performed after my engine failure was not that bad a landing and I was very surprised that the pin let go. If it had been a tensile strength pin and I had no re-enforcing of the UC mounts like with my mods then I would have also been very surprised if any damage had resulted.
Any way, the thing let go and now I know they are designed like that. It was nothing more than an inconvenience to fix and I was out of action for the day anyway with the ignition unit floating about in the engine bay. I am actually more concerned with the YA Spitfire spinner than the UC. The UC is fine but I cant get the wobble out of my spinner.[:@] It is better than before with a couple of hours set-up and machining but still not great. Next step is to convert my static spinner into a flying one. I have decided how to do it and I hope it works out as it will be much lighter and look much nicer than the spun ali one.

Cheers,

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

finished here it is!!! Ready for flight soon. Scratch made scale exhaust made for the DLE 55 engine.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

She looks beautiful. I go up to Miami on wednesday to bring home the last of the purchases. The 1/2 and 3/4 oz fiberglass cloth was purchased on Amazon. So I can start on the wing next week. Good luck with the first flight.
Kevin

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

ledd4u, that looks great mate. Looks like some nice detail and I like your 'Dark Green' better than mine. Even though my green is the same as some period photos I have seen the more modern stuff looks darker/blacker and I was a bit disappointed with mine.
Don't be afraid to let a few more details of your build out. How did you make the exhaust ETC? Good luck with the first flight. If you have flown a few good sports models you will have no problems with this one and if you are a veteran warbirder you will love it.

Kevin, do your self a favour and get a couple of feet of 2oz cloth as well, enough to go around the center section of the wing and a couple of inches out past the wing joins. I did this and the weight added was nothing to worry about even after going over that with .06oz cloth to finish it off. With the spar mods and the extra bit of cloth the wing will be bullet proof.;) Also you can re-enforce bits and pieces in the fuselage with that weight cloth AND remove the foam out of the wheel wells and line the balsa sheet top surface (on the inside) with it as well.
Have a nice trip. My wife and I stayed on South Miami Beach for two wonderful weeks and had a great time. (Didn't really like the city though it was one big construction zone)

Cheers.

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Brad3301 the color scheme was picked from my sons small scale spitfire metal model. The paint samples are from Model Masters then matched by the PPG dealer in town. The dark green looked to dark for me but was an exact match to the Model Master line of paints. The exhaust was made out of 3/16 square steel and tubes as close as possible to the diameter of the Yellow Aircraft exhaust ones. I selected steel because is the only thing I can weld. Also, the steel reduces the noise considerably and adds the weight to the nose. I needed 18 oz of nose weight to ballance her out. Doing a scale exhaust did not take that long. I do have a custom muffller that was made for my spitfire thats a wrap around. Nice tight fit for the DLE 55 that I can sell if anyone wants it for the spitfire

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

I'm having some further challenges with these Yellow gear. The same gear that failed a couple of weeks ago did the same last weekend. I'm not really sure what's causing this to happen but at this point I don't know how to fix it. This time the lower drag link broke when the lower strut/axle assy. popped off the sliding oleo shaft. If you look closely at the pics, you'll see the inner shaft jammed up into the upper oleo shaft. Anyone got any ideas how to get that out? I sure would like to hear from Yellow Aircraft on suggestions on how to solve this frustrating problem. I'm getting tired of repairing the gear doors and buying new props after gentle landings.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

You might consider getting the struts from Robart. I believe at one time they were making a complete set for the Yellow Spitty. They are made out of steel.

Cheers,

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

I emailed your photographs and comments to Charles at yellow Aircraft and will post their reply when it comes.
Kevin

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

That is so bizarre[X(] It looks like the oleo leg is not long enough (the shiny bit) and was able to kick back and flick out.
I will try to dismantle mine and have a look.

Hope some good comes of this.

Brad

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

Dear Kevin

The best and easiest way is to replace the damaged parts rather than fixing them. Once metal has been bend, they are totally weaken and will fail again even under the slightest stress.

Thanks Charles

<div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; "><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div class="im"><div></div></div><div><div class="h5"><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Dear Kevin

Without the details and/or the history of the use of the landing gear, I really do not have much comment on the mishaps.
First of all, if any part of the gear have been damaged on a previous flight and if the damaged parts have not been replaced, it will fail again. Secondly, if the lower or inner oleo is stuck inside the upper or outer oleo, it means that one of these oleo is either damaged (bend or out of round). and both needed to be replaced. Finally, the Spitfire gear have been in service since 1991 and the history is excellent.

Thanks
Charles</div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote></div>

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

I appreciate your forwarding the info to "Charles". He's assuming these gear were damaged somehow...they weren't. This is the video where the first failure occurred. You can see that the landing was unremarkable. The spring just seemed to push the axle assembly right out of the ram. What do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJICtH7GVZU

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

I have got a nice pair for you that are in excellent condition and will provide you many years of service. Contact me

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

It certainly was not a rough landing and something gave as the wheel touched down. I havea feeling that Charles is still going to stick to his belief that the tube had becomed distorted "not perfectly round" which cause the gear to be strained. I will pass your utube video to him and we will see what e says.
Best regards
Kevin

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

goodness, the gear is simply "NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE". End of story.

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

how old were your gear they look to be about 15-20 years old cause they still have the bolt to hold the wheels on instead of the axel setup that yellow uses now

RE: The complete YELLOW AIRCRAFT SPITFIRE thread.
 

fytrjok I can totally understand what you are saying now after inspecting my gear. I can see the sliding part of your oleo still in the leg with the spring going through it and the part still with the wheel that should be pressed into that sliding part. So, this is meant to be a press fit only? Looks like it. No glue or Loctite? Now was your gear oleo lubricated so it could slide? Have you been running over dirt and dust that could have got up there and jammed it? I think not. Even with the oleo stuck up in the compressed state there is no reason why the bottom of the leg should let go. Your landings are fine and no damage to the gear should ever result from those. I am mystified and hopeful for you mate, being a Y/A Spitty Bro.
Good luck with sorting it and thankyou for the heads up. I for one will make sure my gear is lubricated and free.

Cheers,

Brad