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| Fixed Wing Discuss fixed wing aircraft. |
Topic Review (Newest First)
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| 10-17-2010 07:51 PM | ||
| CarlC |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Hey folks I abosolutely love my RcGuys Pitts. Most fun I've ever had flying rc to date. She has a DLE 55 up front, which balanced like they were meant for each other. She has endless vertical, and tumbles like a Pitts is meant to. Mine is the Purple and Yellow scheme, which is eye catching and original(my opinion), although not everyone wants to depart from the ordinary. As soon as they are back in stock I intend to order another. Unfortunately I'll have to settle for Red lol. Thank You Rcguys, for this cool plane.  
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| 09-11-2008 04:06 PM | ||
| BoundForHell |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Thanks Andrew, The Pitts took way to long to get it to fly correctly, and this thread is proof of my frustration with it. I’m clad I did not give up on it, as some of my fellow pilots told me to do. A lot of them said to move on to a new plane and chuck it up to experience. But I’m a Calabrese Italian and they call us “capo tosta “ ( hard head or stubborn ) and I rarely give up on anything…… Now the Pitts is flying like a Pitts should and I’m really glad I stuck with it, and truthfully meant that I would buy another one and I will, when I crash this one. One more thing that I forgot to mention about the Pitts, and it may just be me, but I have experience with 4 other Bi-Planes and this one is a handful to land; It’s a real bouncer. I have about 90 flights with it now and only greased the landing 4 times, I bounced all the rest. At first I was bouncing it 4 or 5 times on each landing and got teased for it, all of it jokingly. After I fixed the problem with the wings, I turned my attention to the landing. What I came up with was to make a 3D rate for the elevator just for landing. I now flip a switch to land and I use all of the 30 degrees travel on the elevator to flair it on landing. This works 10 times better than the recommended rate in the manual. There…… my review is now complete, and I will change it to 4 stars out of 5. PS: here is proof of how well it's flying now. In this video the end cap from the stock muffler on the DL50 had blown out. The DL Stock muffler is something to be desired, first the exhaust pipe then the end cap fell off. The exhaust is venting to atmosphere, no muffler to speak of. I have now bought a Bisson Pitts style muffler, it won’t be so loud and hopefully get rid of some of the burbling as well. Up to this point in time the Pitts stayed at a good height, as it was skittish and I did not trust it to fly low. Now all of that has changed and flying low is a blast. Geppino http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLWrG0ZPCjo . |
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| 09-10-2008 05:47 PM | ||
| AJCoholic |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Really good post. I understand your point of view, and appreciate it. I have read some reviews in the past that I also disagree with since I happened to have had the model reviewed. All I can vouch for is my own work. You sound like a really level headed guy.  AJC |
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| 09-10-2008 02:53 PM | ||
| BoundForHell |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Hello everyone, I do not want to give a totally bad impression about the RC Guys Pitts. I also do not want to turn this thread into a RC Guys bashing. The Pitts is now flying really well, it just took a long time to find all the sweet spots with the wing incidence and thrust variables. As an ARF assembler I expect that all of this should be done for me, so I can just bolt it together and fly. Maybe I'm asking for too much, but that is my expectation. I'm not a builder, although I have assembled 19 ARF planes including 5 Bi-Planes. I have no inclination, time or motivation to build from a pile of balsa wood. I'm a flyer pure and simple. A real hobbyist (AKA a builder) would have never complained about the wings being way off, he would have fixed the saddle on wing installation. I did not own an incident meter then, but I do now, and everything worked out in the end. Garry, I did contact RC Guys, both by phone and by e-mail. I agree Dan is a great guy to deal with and he did help me out. Dan also said that he would make a change to the assembly manual and include a check for the wing incidence, so this kind of trouble could be caught when assembling. The problems with my kit I believe all stems from the bottom wing saddle, as that is where I needed to sand and shim to make the wings fit correctly. Other than giving me a new fuse, there is nothing that RC Guys could have done better. I did not expect a new fuse, and I never asked for warranty. I have a friend who has bought the Super Decathlon and the AG Wagon kits from RC Guys and both of those kits had no problems. Although, he has complained about the quality of the covering. I'm sure that my kit is not the norm for RC Guys. My intension for starting this tread was/is to alert other ARF assemblers like me that there could be a problem, so they would not have a hard time on the maiden flight like I did. To trim the Pitts on the maiden I had 11 clicks of down elevator and 8 clicks of right ruder. The flight and landings were iffy at best, for the first few flights. AJCoholic, Please do not take this the wrong way, no offence intended toward you on personal level. I do not trust/believe any reviews I read in the magazines, as I have never read a bad one……. What this shows me is that I will never see a bad review, or the manufacture would pull their advertising dollars from the magazine. The story I have told here is my experience and review if you will. My final thoughts...... The Pitts is now flying superbly, and the question to ask is; WOULD I BUY ANOTHER PITTS from RC Guys..... The answer is YES..... For those of you that are sitting on the fence JUST DO IT, in the end the Pitts turned out to be a real good flyer and a crowd pleaser. I take it every time I go to the field now. Here is my new video with the RC Guys Pitts Special and DL50 doing some knife edging, through the setting sun at Humber Valley Flying Club. My DL50, although it's burbling again, is still performing beyond my expectations. There was not a cloud in the sky that evening, the spectacular red hue in the video is from the smog in Toronto. I shot it in High Definition. You can watch it in High Quality by clicking on >> Watch in High Quality link just under the video window on the right hand side just below the volume button on the YouTube site. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cb0ym4Hw9E Geppino Here is a photo to wet your appetite for the video. |
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| 09-01-2008 07:58 PM | ||
| AJCoholic |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF The one I tested for Fly RC flew (and continues to fly) very well. Built stock. No shims or anything done to wings, period. I know a number of these are also flying built stock, without issue. Its too bad some are having issues - perhaps a quality control problem... but I dont think its an inherant design flaw by any means. I would buy another RC Guys aircraft, regardless. If I had a slew of issues, I might think otherwise, thats true. But I highly doubt the majority of their aircraft are flwaed or there is no way they would have lasted this long. And for the record, I really, honestly, truely LIKE the yellow/purple/red Pitts scheme. It remains one of the easiest to see in any lighting conditions (overcast, bright blue sky, dark cloud) and I appreciate something different than the red/white you always see. AJC |
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| 09-01-2008 07:33 PM | ||
| DO335 |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF "I am really sorry your having all these problems." Nothing like having the consumer be the testing guinea pig. "As for the Easter Egg colour scheme....wait till you get a gander at the new batch of Pitts that are about to arrive." I won't hold my breath. Should have been that from the start. Unfortunately, a fancy colour scheme cannot hide inherent product defects. Maybe a bit more testing is in order before the new, flashy covering schemes? "Your input is important and helps to make these changes where you are finding difficulty or having problems." Sounds like a typical apologist, corporate brush-off excuse to justify products not yet ready for market. Whatever happended to doing prototypes and product testing prior to release to the public? |
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| 09-01-2008 12:15 PM | ||
| Midair |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Quote:
I'm sorry to learn that you (and some other modellers) are having problems with the RC Guys Pitts. I too was looking at this airframe as a future purchase, perhaps a winter build (assemble). Gary is spot on with his recommendation that you should contact the RC Guys with your concerns. Have you? If you do, I for one would be interested in your experience. From my perspective, any manufacturer can have an off day and produce a kit that does not meet expectations - I can accept that - but, it's how the manufacturer or distributor deals with the problem that's important. Peter |
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| 08-30-2008 01:47 AM | ||
| Gary Maker |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF I am really sorry your having all these problems. We have received a lot of feedback from people who have purchased this airplane and generally and for the most part they are pretty well trouble free. I did the assembly of the shop model and it flew absolutely great assembled right out of the box. We flew it with a Saito 300T which was tonns of power. If there was a wing warp or other alignment problems, you should contact RC Guys. Dan is a great guy to deal with and he would be more than happy to help you out. As for the Easter Egg colour scheme....wait till you get a gander at the new batch of Pitts that are about to arrive. We received one just this week and it really looks awsome. Two NEW Colour schemes. The first is the traditional Red and White with blue outline trim. The second is Yellow and Black. Pretty sharp looking planes. The basic airframe has not been changed although some things have been done to beef up certain areas. Your input is important and helps to make these changes where you are finding difficulty or having problems. Like the old saying goes: "If you like it, tell your friends. If you have a problem, tell us!" Find RC Guys on the web at www.rcguys.com |
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| 08-28-2008 01:23 PM | ||
| BoundForHell |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF I finally got the Pitts flying fairly well, not what I expected from a Pitts, but it will have to do, as I did about a dozen adjustments to the engine thrust angles and a half dozen adjustments to the wing incidence, it been a real pain in the butt to tweak, here is what I settled on. Down thrust >> 3 degrees (factory recommended setting) Right thrust >> 3.5 degrees Bottom wing incidence >> positive 0.5 degrees Top wing incidence >> negative 1.5 degrees The quality of the kit I got was very poor, I had to sand and shim the bottom wing saddle in both directions to get the wing centred and at the proper incidence, it came from the factory at negative 2 degrees. It has very cheap covering, if I do not crash it, I will recover it this winter. Its coming apart at every seam and splitting at the wing ribs and fuselage ribs. I have been patching it up all over the place. Once I got the thrust and wing incidence in the sweet spot, it now flies a lot better than the first few flights I had with it, although it cannot hold a candle to the other bi-planes I have flown. It's definitely the worst flyer out of the 4 >> Stearman, Skybolt, and Goldberg Ultimate. It knife edges slow and low, but has a lot of coupling in both aileron and elevator with some practice I have trained my thumbs to get it fairly smooth. Rolls are axial with some differential programmed in the ailerons, but loops are not inline, I think that is just a defect with my airframe. I have not been able to do flat spins, either upright or inverted. I'm at the middle of the C of G range, so I will now start to move it back to see if it will flatten out on spins. The best flat spinner I have flown is the Super Skybolt. Flying inverted is a real hand full; it needs more that a half elevator stick to keep it level. The Pitts excels at tumbling and it's a real crowd pleaser when I do them at the field. I give the Pitts and overall rating of 3 stars out of 5. This is short clip of my Pitts in knife-edge with a 50DL and a 22x8 Xoar prop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLWrG0ZPCjo Geppino |
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| 08-02-2008 09:22 AM | ||
| Paul by the Bay |
Re: 1/3 Scale Pitts Special ARF Geppino and Andrew Thanks for the comments. I really love the plane and generally am very impressed with the construction. Its my first big biplane so I have plenty to learn. I'll try to coax a bit of negative incidence into the top wing. All the best. Paul |
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