Hey fellas, I just came across a TGA TopCat in kit form. How have your experiences been with this aircraft. I'm going to use it for my "Sunday Flyer" and want to know what your thoughts are on the airframe. How are the landing gear blocks? I've got a set of Robart 630 retract units that I plan to place in it...proably overkill but there available. Any modifications you recommend? Thanks for any inputs.

P.S.
Dawn, the POS is officially retired

Where the hells the spellcheck on this thing

I still have one, Don't fly it too slow as it will snap into a flat spin, altitude and power is all that will get it out. LOL

I need to build new vertical booms for mine as I was letting another guy fly. He asked what throttle setting to use, I said full tilt. He was at 1/4 and it did what I described above. He said I have no control as he was rowing the sticks to demonstrate, I yelled add power and it will fly out of it. By the time he did add power he need a 3 foot deep hole to fly out of. The sudden stop made the stab keep going and destroyed the booms. I always said the booms needed to be 3 inches longer. Too short of a tail moment in my opinion.

Spell check never worked here, I feel your pain...........LOL Just hafta' proof read 'em.

Oh, I had a Ram 500 on mine. Most guys flew them with larger engines. And I would Put some Carbon fiber plate on the landing gear flex platestop and bottom.

I have about 90 flights on one with a P-70, but it is now waiting for a window where I can do minor repairs, and maybe redo the paint - maybe in about a month.

I'm pretty sure I started flying it with the CG close to per plans. Since then, I've moved the CG aft in order to help bleed some speed before landing. (Example - my batt packs were all in the nose on first flight, to get to the called out balance - now the ECU/Rx packs are just fwd of the MLG). I also added a small speed brake flap on the underside, just fwd of the MLG panels. Also, if you see the 1/4" ply MLG mount plates in the structure, (the ones lightened up with lots of holes) I'd either replace it, or stiffen it up. If I were to build this one again, I would add a slight amount of additional chord to the ailerons, to get a better roll rate. I have the original swept wing version...

Terry is probably right about the boom length. With mine, deep stalls usually need about 10-20 feet more altitude than I was given to pull out, on 2 occasions! [>:] Thud Driver says the airplane does very nice inverted spins. He's a Topcat expert, so I'll trust him. [8D]

Topcats are collector's items because they are rare. Finish it up and bring it to Waco - we'll have a Topcat-fest!

Ron S.

Mine finally died on flight #1636 when I did something stupid with it. Started with a P-80 for the first 400+ flights, then swapped back and forth with P-70's for the rest of it's life. Even a dialed back Titan for 20 or so flights. You don't give away much if anything on speed with the 70 but you can tell there is a difference in vertical.

I replaced the booms after around 380 flights due to banging them up. New ones were slightly longer/taller with more area. Info is somewhere here on the forum.

I don't recall having any real stall recovery problems. I'm sure that's a Cg issue. The instructions for the Cg calls for measuring down the leading edge which I always thought was not a satisfactory answer. However, after a couple rolls to look at pitch reaction, I moved it back. Long after that, I put a smoke system in it which probably biased the Cg slightly forward. BTW, the CG is around 4" - 4.5" from the gear. I have seen TC's pitch up like a Cobra maneuver, both up and away and in the flare. I had it happen in the final turn a couple times in the early days. Full throttle, forward stick and some altitude was enough. I'm pretty sure I ended up with only about half the negative incidence in the stab than called for.

Use the 630's and 1/2" struts with min 3" wheels. You'll need it.

I thought it flew well enough. Knife Edges and 4 pts fine. A great everyday airplane. Build it.

That's funny Ron, you had to put your beer down to take the picture. I LOVE IT, I hope you didn't leave the soldier standing. MMMM Beeeeeeeeerrrrrrr, I think I'll go have a couple right now!

That beer was an empty, and had fulfilled it's mission. The only purpose for it at that point was to be used as a standard size unit, to get an idea of the size of the plane. You can then approximate the Topcat to be 7 Shiner Bocks in length.

Thanks alot for the info fellas. I'll be sure to post pictures of the TC when its complete. I do plan on using 1/2 struts. What size tire on the nose worked for you guys?

Luis

It's a fun jet to fly. Terry is probably the authority on this airframe and I agree with the suggested strengthening mods to the gear plates. Do yourself (and the jet) a favor and get a set of the purpose-built struts from Darrell at [link=http://www.sierragiant.com/products.html]Sierra Precision[/link]. Glennis wheels and brakes were a natural choice for me. Mine flew with a RAM 500.

Mike, I didn't know you had a Topcat - do you still have it? It looks nice and Russkie!

I agree with Mike regarding the landing gear - the landing gear itself is fun, especially when taxiing on rough surfaces. The Glennis brakes also do work nice. The wheels are MLG - 2.75 dia, NLG - 2.25 dia. They look like Glennis wheels. The Sierra Precision Struts are also pretty tough. I'm sure there are other good LG combinations. The only drawback in the struts are they move the MLG axle back a bit farther than if you were using straight struts, so for me, it was never a model you could land and hold high on the mains. It could just be me too...

Ron, Im going to go with Intarico wheels and brakes along with Robart straight struts (1/2in). I'm thinking of 66mm (2 5/8 inch) Mains Set and a 57mm Nose Wheel. Should I go with the 76mm ( 3 inch) mains and the 66mm Nose Wheel. Im choosing this route because its the most common to find spare parts amonst friends when your in a bind. Which Robart 1/2 strut do you think works best? I'm just trying to gather the info for the best performance and not have to tinker with this at the field..especially the gear. Thanks again for your inputs guys, keep them coming.

P.S.
I've recently heard that these airframes like to do a violent snap in tight turns..believed to be caused by the horizontal stab being so close to the main body of the airframe. Any of you have this happen and or have a solution.

Luis

Check post #2 ans 3 above...........................................

Luis,

I think your tire selection will be fine. With the struts, keeping it straightfwd probably is best. If you want to use the Robart .5" struts, I'd just use the straight struts. With the NLG, yo umay want to use a Robart offset strut. I've not had any violent snaps in turns - just keep the speed up a bit. If you want to see if your airplane will do that, just take it up 3 mistakes high before trying.

You've got me wanting to get mine back in the air again soon!

I had a Top cat and I would never own one again. Snapped at low speed uncontrollably. Also was kind of a dog in the air at full throttle. In my estimation the Hot Spot is ten times better.

No, I've never had it snap in a hard turn. Only during slow flight if you horsed the elevator around. Sounds like the Cg was too far aft.

I found that 3" mains and 1/4" axles were the way to go. I started with 2.6" mains and the tire wear & braking were poor compared to the 3" tires. I was always bending the 3/16" axles until I switched to 1/4".

You really wouldn't want any kind of trailing link struts since the gear is already way back from the Cg. If you did, you'd want to move the mounting forward a corresponding distance. The gear mount needs a reinforcing block under it at the fuselage side where the ply plate is only maybe 1/2" wide. My mounts cracked and broke there.

My TC was about a 185mph max airframe with either the P-70 or P-80.

Luis,

I'm going to miss that little "Pink Bird" :-)


Dawn

Hi, Ron. Thanks for the complement. The late Ivan Munninghoff was the last one to fly the jet just before the snows hit in December, 2003. I retired it after he passed away in 2004.