Newbie gone nuts

[Buzz Gordon]

Howdy!

I've been lurking around here and finally decided to speak up. I have no experience with R/C aircraft, just R/C cars and that was 10+ years ago.

I am nuts about the Gee Bees and am looking to build & fly one by mid-summer & then move on to pylon racing. I seriously have no interest in flying helicopters and/or jets, I'm stuck in the late 20's to 30's. I would also like to fly a PT17 Stearman, but alas I getting ahead of myself... I'm thinking somewhere around a .40 or so in an ARF, eventhough I do have modest model building experience. I can build just about anything and have a full fabrication/machine shop at my disposal at the drop of a hat.

Now obviously this might not be the best way to start out and IS a bit ambitious, but am I overreaching a bit here? The reason I ask is because I believe I will outgrow a small trainer very quickly so why shouldn't I start out with something a bit larger :rolleyes:, and grow into it. I'm know I'll probably dump it at least once hence the reason for an ARF rather than a complete build-up.

I've considered the cost and it seems only marginaly more expensive, and that is with the aircraft ($50.00 - $100.00 for what I'm looking at) and engine choices, which cost what they cost.

What does the collective brain say?

Best Regards,

BG

[DaveSawers]

The collective wisdom says get a trainer to learn to fly on. They're still fun to fly even for an experienced pilot.

A scale GeeBee will not be a forgiving airframe and is not suitable for learning on. If you really want to go that route, get a model flight simulator and spend lots of hours practising on that first with different aircraft types. When you've got that licked, you MAY be able to fly the GeeBee for a few minutes before crashing.

[marshallcowboy]

Get a trainer AND an instructor. I can tell you from experience and so can most everyone here,if you dont use and instructor your average flight time will be less then a minute. Not trying to scare ya off from this great hobby, just dont want you to make the same mistake many of us have done. Ego has prolly crashed more planes then dumb thumbs. Take the time to learn the right way and them move your way up to the planes you really want to fly. Remember these are not toys, they are actual flying airplanes. Most have the same flight chacatoristics as their big brothers do. Take your time, learn it the right way and in no time you'll be flying the planes you want to.
MC

[orenda635]

GeeBees where notorious as death traps to their pilots. An RC scale one would be difficult to fly. For ADVANCED pilots ONLY. I have my wings and I wouldn't touch one.

You need a good, stable trainer. Trust me. You wouldn't want an inexperianced driver behind the wheel off a Fararri, would you? Same goes for RC airplanes. These fancy scale racers are too quick, too unstable, and too twitchy.

Best route is to try an Hobbico Avistar paired with an OS 46AX and an 11x7 prop. It's fast when you want it but flys nicely at slower speeds too. The 46AX is a good high preformance two stroke and that prop produces good speed and acceleration.

[Buzz Gordon]

Thank you all for your advice. I like the idea of the Hobbico Avistar w/OS 46AX, that makes sense to me and I can use the engine on other planes, though I'm leaning towards a 4 stroke. This should place me in the same relative size.

On a side note, a Ferrari is basically the same as any other car and doesn't require any special or advanced driving skills to operate - trust me one this one.

The Gee Bees seem to suffer from an image problem. The statement "GeeBees where notorious as death traps to their pilots" is erroneous. "In actuality they were remarkable aircraft and contributed greatly to the technical advancement of aviation design and aeronautical engineering, and had monumental impact on the development of military and civil aircraft that followed.

The Gee Bees were some of the first aircraft designed and built with an engineers full understanding that to take advantage of performance gains, required that a superb pilot would have to compensate for high landing speeds, reduced stability and very demanding flying techniques. The superbly skilled and knowledgeable pilots successfully flew Gee Bees, the less skilled and sometimes hard headed pilots did not, and some lost their lives in the process. Today’s aircraft although much faster and more efficient are not that much different in the fact that they have some unforgiving, peculiar flying characteristics, except that Computers compensate for these flight characteristics today, rather than the pilot."

When "you start talking about the Gee Bee racers most people recall only the many accidents that befell these aircraft and their pilots. Over the years, various articles have pictured these craft as "killers", "the most dangerous aircraft ever built", The fact is is that Gee Bee airplanes were designed by Engineers, Models were tested in wind tunnels and their airplanes were not treacherous killers as has been depicted by many ignorant journalists. The fact is The Granvilles were true heroic American entrepreneurs and their airplane designs were very successful advanced designs of that time. The slander that has attached itself to them doesn't seem to ever wear out, even after 60 years have passed. Every generation of "journalists" seems compelled to repeat the falsehoods that they have heard. The only thing that the Granville brothers and their aircraft were guilty of,was being plagued by a string of bad luck!

More... (http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/4515/index3.html)

[ivanc]

Dave said it pretty well - Gee Bee model airplanes as the full scale ones are very unforgiving. While pretty skilled pilots can fly the full scale ones without problems, it's not the same with model airplanes - I've seen many full scale pilots (even commercial plane pilots) crash model airplanes - in fact all full scale pilots that I know have crashed at least one model plane. The perspective flying a model airplane is VERY DIFFERENT than flying a full scale plane. Your parallel to a Ferrari is incorrect - when you say Ferrari you mean the vehicle designed to be driven in standard road conditions - as every other car and you're right. What you should compare is ANY Formula 1 car (or NASCAR, or Indicar, etc.) to ANY "standard" car. A Formula 1 Ferrari is totally different from a "road" Ferrari. If you have absolutely no experience with a Formula 1 car you'll either bog the engine when you release the clutch, spin the vehicle and/or crash.
Get a trainer and an instructor for the first flights and you'll know what the "collective wisdom" means.

[Buzz Gordon]

Just so you guys know I'm not out to screw up a pretty neat hobby and give a bad impression or seem irresponsible, especially the way things are nowadays. I do have an AMA membership and am in the process of finding a suitable club for instructional assistance... I am not that thick headed, that's why I asked :)

[flieslikeabeagle]

I can tell you from experience and so can most everyone here,if you dont use and instructor your average flight time will be less then a minute.

I didn't use an instructor. My first two flights lasted less than a minute. :) I had taught myself to fly using a sim, but misjudged how much space the plane needed to make a turn and flew into the trees bordering the park, Stupidly, I did this twice before I wised up and went to a bigger park. :rolleyes:

The plane in question was not a glow trainer, but an electric model, a T-hawk. It survived both impacts with only the slightest of damage (dented LE on the foam wing). I went to a bigger park with it the next day, and flew through two battery packs - maybe 25 to 30 minutes total. I didn't crash, either. :)

That was in May 2004. I have since flown the T-hawk innumerable times, and added a handful of other planes to my hangar. I still have the T-hawk, and it has only been in one more crash in all the months since (I tried to fly it inverted, and didn't have the skills to do so successfully, not to mention this plane pretty much will not sustain inverted flight).

These days it is certainly possible to learn to fly without an instructor, and I give the credit entirely to the flight sim I used. After all, pilots of full size airliners and fighters are taught to fly using simulators, albeit more sophisticated than our RC flight sims. And a *lot* of folks have taught themselves to fly using electric trainers of one form or another.

I don't think I would try to teach myself to fly with a glow trainer without an instructor, though. The larger weight and higher speeds of glow planes make the safety issues much more pressing. It's simply not worth taking the risk of having a heavy chunk of hot metal moving at high speed smash into something, or someone, due to a newbie pilots mistake.

-Flieslikeabeagle

[freddy warbird]

I like the Gee Bee Z . Kyosho makes a beautiful .40 size one (ARF). :cool: But the guys on this thread are right!!!!!!! Gee Bee's are not easy to land. :eek: But they are good flyers. Go ahead and build what ever Gee Bee you like, and put it together while you are gaining experience."You are going to need it". Gee Bees need to be light. "More wing loading the harder its going to be!" I would suggest not to convert a gas Gee Bee to electric. It will be too heavy. Gas to gas on this one! You may want to practice landing a warbird for a while prior to landing a Gee Bee.But these planes also require experience. Practice, practice, practice. You will get there! :) I would suggest a ARF first. It will be less depressing if you are unsuccessful!

[Buzz Gordon]

I'd love to be able to fly the "Red Lion" or a Meteor" too. All in due time...

[orenda635]

Thank you all for your advice. I like the idea of the Hobbico Avistar w/OS 46AX, that makes sense to me and I can use the engine on other planes, though I'm leaning towards a 4 stroke. This should place me in the same relative size.

A four stroke is ok for trainers. They have more torque and are more fuel efficient. The torque allows them to swing bigger props, pefect for scale. On the downside, they're harder to maintain and have less horse power. The rocker valves need to be adjusted periodically so they aren't great for newbies. RVC engines are the exception as they use a rotary cylinder instead of rocker valves.

Thanks for clearing up my metaphore Ivanc. A Farriari is also very positive in steering and accleration for standard road driving; twitchy, just like the RC Geebee would be. You can't feel the steering in both so it feels like the vehicle is driving you. Advanced drivers only. A beginners vehicle should be stable.

[fhhuber506771]

One of the top RC instructors in our club has a GeeBee.... and has problems with getting it off the ground or landing it. While airborne its a fairly docile aircraft, but the wheel placement and its need for speed makes it a beast on the runway.

You start out learning to ride on 2 wheels with a bicycle.. not a Benneli Sei 900. (a very hot motorcycle for its time)

Yo can start with a plane that is a bit different from what everyone else uses.. the Sig Four Star or Goldberg Tiger (both in assorted sizes) do fine as trainers with slightly reduced aileron throw and the CG just a little forward of the sport-aerobatic flying settings. (nice "Hershey bar" wing plan just like any trainer) The Four-star can be made more aerobatic than the Tiger. (but not much) and both are very nice planes for anyone, at any level of proficiency.

**********

The only negative about a 4-stroke on a trainer.. its an expensive engine and if you crash and damage it... its more expensive to repair/replace than the 2-stroke. My O.S. .91 4-stroke has a bit over 3 years use.. and a lot of hours of running.. no valve adjustments needed yet. and the only place I had problems with it was the muffler vibrating loose. (use high temp locktite and its cured) I went appx 18 gallons of fuel through it without touching the needle valve. (even using several different propellers of varying diameter and pitch...)

The proper replacement for a .46 2-stroke when going to a 4-stroke would be a .54 (which isn't made) the .52 Magnum should do well (they are good 4-strokes and not as high priced as most others.) A .61 2-stroke would be replaced with a .72 4-stroke for equivilent power.

The 4-strokes come out ligher than the 2-strokes due to the tremendously smaller and lighter muffler. So you gain performance when you size to maintain the same power.

[Buzz Gordon]

I don't know if a Benelli Sei 900 is a really good example, I started out with a '78 850 Moto Guzzi LeMans I :) .

Thanks for the engine info. I was wondering though, I would like to start on a larger size trainer. Is there a major problem with this?

[Mendnwngs]

No.. Actually.. Larger models are more stable than a similar model of a smaller size.

:)
-Jason

[Viper Pilot]

. . . . The Gee Bees seem to suffer from an image problem. The statement "GeeBees where notorious as death traps to their pilots" is erroneous. . . .

Is that why they are labelled "Lead Sleds"?????

The Gee Bee is a fine plane, no mistake . . . . . but the r/c versions have wing loadings of 32-40 oz/sq. ft. and require a very advanced pilot to fly one.

As far as you advancing to one by this summer, I seriously doubt it!!!

Stick with a trainer and an instructor, learn to handle that, and then maybe 2-3 planes down the road you'll be ready for a Gee Bee.

Seriously!!!

Viper

[ivanc]

Larger planes also have higher landing and stall speeds.

[Buzz Gordon]

Dang, you guys managed to swamp the Gee Bee site! I didn't know there were so many of you interested in those "death traps". :p

[ivanc]

Didn't i mention that I love the looks of the Gee Bee? :) But I'm afraid it will not be in the near future when I will fly/crash one. :o

[robster94gt]

How about the little electric Gee Bee made by Fan-tastic models - It's a pretty safe bet that would be easy to fly.

Rob

[Viper Pilot]

fhhuber506771,

As a rule, I add 50% displacement when comparing 2-strokes to 4-strokes . . . .

0.46 2-stroke is replaced with a 0.69 4-stroke
0.61 2-stroke is replaced with a 0.91 4-stroke, etc.

[mohillbilly]

My frist plane was a used 40 glow trainer w/ a OSMax 20 on it. I took it to a local field and one of the club members looked it over and told me to let her rip. 3 flights in a row before a hard bounce on the landing that bent the nose wheel. While I didnt have a "trainer" teaching me I sure learned a lot of good tips and advice. I took me trainer and made a new flat wing that makes it a blast to fly still even though I have 4 other planes now. Trainer planes are well worth there time. good luck with the geebee