Happy New Year,

So, I finally got my P-51 for xmas, and a friend finally built his Zero. We put them tother and went out for our maiden flights, and got some pics. So enjoy:

An inflight pic of the Zero

whoops.... Wish people had noted the CG problems of the P51 before this happened:

One more.....

You may find a few more pics in my gallery: http://rcgallery.net/showgallery.php...at=500&thumb=1

I built the Zero to ezone CG specs, right on the bamboo, it flew straight and level from Kitsu's hand launch, it was actually a teee bit too far forward for my setup (6 cell 1600 AAs). The plane flies very scale like on the limited power but I am yearning for more at this point.

As for the encounter with the Ent, I lost the dark green camo in the dark forest background and it was "caught". I actually screwed on the nasty landing gear to do a landing that flight, obviously it didn't go as planned. Planes all fixed up with a bit of touch up paint, Tamiya Acrylic J.N. Green designated (Japanese Naval Aircraft Upper Fuselage Color).

sorry to hear about your crash(es)...

you know, im really gettin' kinda pissed off at the fact gws sells these kits and publishes wrong information. more specifically the misinformation regarding CG locations.

i mean, they manufacture kits and are telling us wrong information thats critical to their products flying correctly (or even able to fly/control).

im not trying to start a flame-o-thread but c'mon... i waited months for this thing ans finally built it and flew per manufacturer's specs and all i got was porpoising hunk of foam. only to crash and damage the plane.

i think this sucks bigtime.

Well with different equipment, and no real accurate point of measure the CG is always a little off. If it was porposing it wasn't too off. They've improved greatly from the GWS Zero. My original Zero's first flight resulted in a 30 foot vertical climbout followed by a stall, and a crash into an antbed. Which gave me some problems. The good side was the antbed broke it's fall resulting in nothing more than a broke prop. The bad side was I had a Zero covered with very angry ants.
The rule of thumb is better nose heavy than tail heavy. Plus are you sure your battery didn't shift when you launched? A slight shift in weight if you were right on the CG would do it.

Another Zero eating tree eh? I flew mine into a couple because of the green. I eventually painted the whole thing aluminum to look like bare metal so I wouldn't lose it. I remember once I brought mine in fast, and head high. I was sure I was out from the tree's, and did a sorta climbing knife edge turn. I pitched 90degrees left, and WHACK! The wing stopped, and the zero kept on trucking luckily because I was on a hill the slope on the other side cushioned it's fall. I guess thats what happens when you put a geared 6v speed 400 in a small green plane, and start zipping by the trees. Turns out it was 1 dead limb that stuck straight out from the tree line about 6 feet.

Anyway patch'em up, and have fun. The one thing I enjoyed the most from my Zero was the fact that I crashed it at least 10 times before I pulled the gear out for something else.

I'm not really blaming GWS for anything... I've been wanting one of their planes for a while and I finally got one...

Regarding my flight performance. I was using a GWS flight pack, with a 600mah 6 cell AA pack (from the Zero flight pack). Initial launch was poor (I can throw Boom's planes fine, but when I do my own launchers they don't go so well), and plane was very nose high and gained altitude very fast. Aileron rates were way too high, and I experienced much wobble side to side, rather than porpoising. My biggest problem was then the extreme nose-high attitude.

Short flight 1, adjusted aileron rates, added down trim. 2nd flight decent, did a bit better in level flight, still would get nose high in turns. Flight 3, got too far away, plane blended in with the trees, ended up nosing it into the snow. Damage is as shown: 2 cracks in fuse, motor nut plate ripped out, bent shaft slightly. Plane is fixed and will fly as soon as I move that CG forward a bit.

~A

Originally posted by boom

As for the encounter with the Ent, I lost the dark green camo in the dark forest background and it was "caught". I actually screwed on the nasty landing gear to do a landing that flight, obviously it didn't go as planned. Planes all fixed up with a bit of touch up paint, Tamiya Acrylic J.N. Green designated (Japanese Naval Aircraft Upper Fuselage Color).

I have since repainted my ZERO to a lighter GREEN....

MODEL MASTERS, "EURO I DARK GREEN # 4729" ACRYLIC PAINT, 1/2OZ glass jar. I can see my GWS ZERO much better especially when I bring her to tree top level !

Carlos.

IMHO alot of cog problems can be related to thrust....

Mr Lin once commented that the planes were not meant to fly on 8 cells at full throttle

and his primary test pilot DRMA is a very skilled rc pilot to someone with those skills flying at slower speed i think the nose up tendency would not be so noticable.

remember speed is what causes climb not elevator pitch what i find on my 51 as well as my zero is at 2/3 to 3/4 throttle the bird levels out and flies nicely

my cog on the zero is at 52mm and my 51 is at 8mm in front of the bamboo

when i blast full throttle i get the same nose up attitude and porpoising as everyone else


just an observation or two i thought i should share

Chuck