Col,

Here are some pictures of my Twin Ace. Work and a new baby have prevented me doing much on it lately, but at last it's airframe is completed.

As of now, I am starting to cover the plane, black monokote under and metallic grey above. Looks great on the ground, but may have orientation problems in the air. We'll see how it goes.

Engine will be two Leo 28s.

Chris

Looks Great Chris, congrats on the addition to the family.

Love the retracts, they will make a world of difference to its appearance in the air.
One of the photos looks as if you have built in-thrust into the port nacelle. Be careful in the event of the starboard engine surging or quitting. I built out-thrust into both nacelles on mine.

The orientation might not be such a problem with your colour scheme. Mine has black on top and yellow underneath but the yellow turned very dark in flight. (reflecting ground maybe) I would reverse the colours if I did it all over again.

If in doubt, a yellow stripe and fin flash will sort it out.

Don't forget in fight photos now.

Hello Col

Thanks for the comments.

No, the engine mounts were not fixed to the wings yet when the pictures were taken. Both have out-thrust. For the left one, I simply reverse the engine mount beams to give it left-thrust from the usual right-thrust.

At the moment, have finished covering the wings. Body and tail feathers to follow. Need another month to first flight. Will show you the in-flight photos if I don't crash it! First twin-engine and real weak knees....

Merry Christmas!

And Merry Christmas to you too Chris.

Just remember that a twin with both engines out is a glider just as a single is with an engine out. What I am trying to say is, if one engine plays up or quits, kill the other one and do a normal dead stick landing. Most of my mishaps were when I insisted on trying to fly on one engine.

Best of luck

Col

Col

What normally happened when you insisted on flying on the remaining one engine? Does it spin, or side-slip or just roll over?

I guess with enough height, gliding is a better option like you said. How's the glide path of your Twin Ace like?

Chris

Here are pictures after covering.

It was covered with Black Monokote and Metallic Grey Monokote. Still have the fuselage and control surfaces to go.

For the engine crowlings, I am toying with painting it a lighter colour for contrast in the air. Maybe silver or Yellow. Any suggestions?

Chris

Hello Chris.

It depended on flight attitude and severity of assymetric thrust. (engine quit or engine lagged)
Engine cut just after takeoff with speed low and nose high the model would almost flick roll towards the dead engine. Engine sag in the same situation would result in severe yaw towards weak engine followed immediately by a roll to the same direction. Normal flight engine out or sag would result in a roll to the dead or weak engine. If the engine sagged then recovered quickly the model righted itself with just a bit of tail wag. On approach with engines at idle the model just slowly rolled to the dead engine. Easily controlled.

Hope this helps

Col

I reckon that silver cowls and a silver fin flash would be great.

Col

I have a pilot Twin Ace kit that I started building in 1986 and finally completed in Feb of 2002. Starting on it and then finally finishing the kit is a very long story.

I paid $100.00 for mine back then, of course not knowing that the plans were in Japanese, then translated to German, and then translated into broken English. I guess that may have played a part in taking so long to finish it.

I would love to share it with any of you if are still interested. I am still flying it today. I used O.S. 25FX engines on mine. I use "Top Flight" 9 x 5 power point props on mine and the spinners are Carl Goldberg. I actually purshased 2 red and 2 white spinners so they would look like the meatballs on the plane. I used Dave Brown Lite wheels, which come in very handy slowing the model down and keeping it on the runway...

I was originally going to use O.S. 25 FSR ABC engines on it in 1986, but by the time I finished building the model they were long gone. It's just as well as it turned out because I need every bit of horsepower to get it off the ground.

Since I had to use the 25FX engines, I did away with the plastic engine cowls and built up by own soft balsa blocks around the hardrails and did a lot of sanding to shape the nose of each nacell. Mounting the engines inverted does hide a lot and makes the model look real nice...

I have very unique 7 and 1/2 ounce gas tanks that came out of a CMP de Havilland Mosquito kit that are octagonally shaped and just barely squeeze into place.

I get a good 6 minutes of flight time and can stretch it to 7 minutes using a timer.

Since the kit was Japnese, I just went with that theme and made it look like a twin engine fighter. It is not scale to anything that Japan flew in WW II but I have been told that parts of it look like prototypes that were never completed. It flies very close to, if not over, 100 mph and looks really nice in the sky. I covered mine with white "World Tex" Iron-on fabric and then sprayed the model with standard cans of dove gray, and hunter green Rustoleum spraypaint. The model is a little over 5 pounds and you do need to keep the speed up on her when landing, but it does fly really well.

I had an issue with wide gaps in the control surfaces and could not seal them using standard films that were availble because it would not stick to the paint. I ended up using 1/8 inch red shrink tubing and gluing one side of each piece of shrink into the control surface gaps using a toothpick and "RC 56" canopy glue. When the gap closes with movment of the control surface, the shrink tubing goes flat and doesn't bind the surface. When you go back to neutral, the tubing expands again, keeping the surface sealed...

The photos can be blown up and you can see the red shrink tubing in the control surfaces

I used red because I did not want the sun to actually Shrink the tubing. My model was very difficult to fly on it's maiden because of the gaps. After over 9 years now, the shrink tubing is still working...

I have been flying my twin in our opening act of "Pearl Harber" with the Greater Cincinnati Radio Control Club's annual flying Circus since 2003. In 2009 I became the Squadron Leader and set the tone for the other 10 to 15 fighters that are with me when we recreate that part of history in our annual Air show. I just had it out on the 5th of October and a buddy of mine got some really nice video that I will be putting on Youtube very soon. In the mean time, I will try and find a small video that I know is someplace on RC universe that was shot on a Camera Phone back in July of 2007 and add it to the forum....

David

I found the video links shot in July of 2007 by my friend Sam with his little video camera on his phone. They are pretty shakey, but you get the idea, especially at the end of the landing, it looks real nice up close..

I will get the Youtube video from October 5th, 2011 in the forum very soon. It is real nice stuff shot by my buddy Joe Wambach..

David


http://rcuvideos.com/video/HPIM0170-AVI
http://rcuvideos.com/video/HPIM0174-AVI

Any one else wanting to share about their Pilot Twin Ace kit, just add it here...

I have a few more photos...The one in the middle is me Starting the Pearl Harbor event back in 2005. I also added the photos of the 1/8 scal pilots my sister painted using a very fine brush and toothpicks.

Thanks

David Polley
Cincinnati Ohio

hey fellas, this is one i picked up at a swapmeet last year. its almost ready to go. could yall please tell me the stated c.g. as per the plan ?
i have two O.S. .40 fp's installed.
thanks.

Hey Brother A6TEXAN

I will look on the plans and see where the exact location is on the CG... I am a little concerned in that you are using 40 sized engines. I think it will be over powered, and unless the builder added modifications to fit 8 oz tanks or bigger. You may end up with about 4 minutes of flight time at best. My model flies well over 100 mph with a pair of O.S. 25FX engines on it and it is a bit overweight with the fabric iron on covering and paint too. It is about 5 1/2 pounds, but the 25's really kick butt. I have a brand new video of the model that I will get on here as soon as I can get it posted... I would go with wood props too. Make sure they are balanced... Are those APC or Tornado props? What ever they are I think you will end up with a lot of vibration with those monsters on there. Just me opinion buddy...

David

hey whats up David,
man i was all ready to go and now you got me worried. lol. if your does a100 mph with .25's, i may have to rethink this deal.
i just weighed it . came in at 6lbs. 2oz. props are 9x6 APC. will check out 8x6 or 8x7 wood as well, i have tons of 8" & 9" wood props. i looked at the tanks and pretty sure they are 6 oz.. i have a fairly new pair of super tiger .34's that may be a better option as far as weight. but the mufflers on super tigre's are huge.
cant wait to see the new video. please post or send to me. im gonna go look around and see if i haave a pair of .25's hidden somewhere. (i know i have at least 1) unless you think the .34's will be fine.

Hey brother, you can go back a few threads and I have some camera videos shot from a few years ago that are very short and a little shakey, but you get the idea. Yes I think .34's may be too much too. Like I said, my model weighs 5.5 pounds and it zips.

Hey I looked at the original plans I have and the CG is exactly 85mm or 3 and 5/8 inches. You would set up your CG machine to measure between the nacells and the fuselage for that spot with the model inverted...

Also very carefully check for hinge gaps. I had just a tad too much space in between the control surfaces and the maiden flight back in 2002 was a doozy. Almost full up elevator trim and full right aileron trim and it still had not leveled out. I did get her down and after I realized what was going on, I used 1/8 inch shrink tubing to seal off the hinge gaps by gluing one side only of the shrink tubing with RC 56 canopy glue and a toothpick in the gaps. It worked great. Next flight I had I needed full down trim and full left aileron trim to keep it flying straight. The third flight was great after I put everyting back to neutral like I had it to begin with.

Also you have to bring it in fast becasue the gound effect will make it drop on the runway if you come in too slow. No flaps on this one...

I have 7.5 ounce tanks made in china in my model. They are Octagonal in shape and fit in the tank area pretty snug, but they do slip right in there. I have to use ribbon and wrap the tank and secure it with scotch tape so I can pull them out when I have to.

I still used Sullivan rubber stoppers and tubing because the China made stoppers get hard in just one flying season and then the tanks start to leak air and fuel in them....

The Octogonal tanks came with the Mosquito model and I did not use them in that because they were too small. I get 6 miniutes and 30 seconds of flying time with the O.S. 25FX engines. I use 9x5 top flight power point props. They are carefully balanced and then I still have to go through several combinations of the props to get both engines running together. It is worth all of the fuss though.....

Mine is a little nose heavy maybe 82mm or so. She flies great. The really nice video I have of the model was shot just last month by a friend of mine. He shot the twin ACE and my CMP Mosquito the same day. It flew real nice too.... I will get it on here as soon as I can.

Go with the 25's if you can. With the 6 ounce tanks you will get about 5 minutes and they you will have about enough fuel to land the model.

Yes......use a timer....trust me on this one, this model is a flying brick and if one engine dies it's going in unless you throttle back fast and point the nose down and keep the speed up to land it quickly. It snaps really easy and if you don't hear one of the engines dying out, you will know it soon enough because it will roll over on a dime...

Good Luck

Hope the CG helps

David

Hey David looking to build one and mod it to electric.might you still have the plans around that i can use to build it ,as i cant find a kit.kiwi4

Dear kiwi4,

Yes I still have the plans, but they do have several razer cuts in them. If they were scotch taped together, I am sure you would not have any problem seeing most everything you would need to get it built...

The instructions were not real good. They were printed in Japanese, then translated into German, then translated into English. Some of the steps were not in the correct order as I remember, and you had to be careful not to glue something into place knowing you could not get to it later per the instructions... One of the reasons it took me so long to complete....

The photographs really help. Being that you live in Middeltown you do not live very far from me here in Fairfield Township.
You are welcome to borrow them if you wish. I still have several of the frames used to punch out the original pieces of wood to build the model with. You could trace those out if that would help.... Let me know what you want to do... I can get with you and even show you my model if you wish...

Let me know

David

That would be great.Im about 75% through my first electric twin scratch build.Staples can even scan the prints and put them on a flash drive so they can be sent on line.get back to me and let me know what you think.kiwi4

Wow...

It looks real nice... Why don't you send me an e-mail at [email protected] and I will give you phone numbers. We can figure something out from there...

David

Kiwi4,

Had a great visit with you a few weeks back when you picked up the plans and all from my home. I guess we are both old school and it is nice to talke to someone who buids from scratch. I was amazed how much your scratch built looked like the plans of the Twin Ace...Any new progress...?

Let me know how you are doing on it.... Keep me posted

David

Hey David

Good to hear from you,yes that was a great visit had a good time.Ive made good progress on the twin,but was slow down by some of the finer details,also been working on the set of plans you lent me so far they are looking great and Ive found a laser cutter for the kit cutting.Here are some pic's and the covering will start soon.kiwi4

dear kiwi4

Wow....!!!

Looks great..........Tail Dragger Twin...Interesting........ I believe you said you were going electric on this, correct...?
Let me know...........

The wide wheel base will certainly make it easier to take off...

It does look real nice.....

Keep us all posted

Great Job

David

David
Yes it going to be a twin electric, Ive got two turnigy NTM35-30-1100KV motors running on 40-50 amp ECS's and make 3 LBs of thrust each,hoping the plane to be under 5 lbs so it should go pretty good .Ive stared a thread for this plane.Its in the scratch building section and subject scratch twin. As for the wide stance I was looking for somthing stable on the ground,the stance is 16 inch's wide so not to wide but stable.kiwi4

My video of the Pilot Twin Ace http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcAfDN3SQb4

Here are some pic's of my scratch built twin called Lil Miss, dont know if you ever saw the finished product http://youtu.be/w9YnnUGIUs8 The next year I built another one,larger and more powerful and had retracts installed.It was in the focal point section of the AMA mag Sept issue.This is an modified Goldberg skylark 70 shrunk to 65 in,and a very nice video platform http://youtu.be/8CpGk05j0lk