Well I just recived this and am I pleased they are finally getting it right

properly packaged , well designed , assembly easy and no major
reengineering need - in fact - it was just assembled and flown .

And it fly just like its video - good work Hobby King
not the junk I see before .

there video

HobbyKing Product Video - 1400mm GeeBee R3 (2 min 7 sec)

took it to the field - head turner then it performed - keeper

Gee Bee flight 2 (7 min 35 sec)

and

Gee Bee flight 1 (8 min 32 sec)

Flying its light and as supplyed plenty of power , very easy to fly
and very easy to land , aerobatics ,nice big loops ,axiel rolls
CG seems correct at manul setting , inverted flight no problem

the only down side so far its light and tends to vane in the wind

but it for it one thing ever model should be

FUN

pulsery2k1, glad you are enjoy her, I know Scott was particularly keen on this model and flew it for some time.

Pleased that all was well received and look forward to hearing from others.

s.

Pretty much looks like the Top RC GeeBee R3 and the Nitromodels Airfield GeeBee R3. Main difference looks like the landing gear with the expose wire and probable mounting system, pilot figure, cockpit control panel and some of the graphics. Also the increased BEC to 45A.

GBR2

I've seen the cermark Gee Bee and the nitro one just came
out - this one is the largest version so far .

Like the Hk B-17 this is easy and fun to fly , unlike the b-17
which need a lot of changes to make it fly well this one
seems to to be good straight out of the box , nice big
wheels for grass - with heavy wires mounted into the wings
will take some hard landings with no problems - nice light
wing loading so it flys slow without any hint of stalling
decent power flys nice at half throttle - uses heavy wood
for firewall and main battery / servo deck , large wing bolts
with blind nuts in the hard wood - much better than the self
tapping into plastic of other models that come loose all to fast.
and for what you get its a great price .

This GeeBee R3 is the Starmax model, Starmax boxing has a slightly different trim scheme, I got mine about 2 months ago from PW RC (Starmax) before I saw the HK version. As the OP says it's a pretty nice foamy, ply in the right places, strong plywood wing spar, carbon in the tail etc. The Starmax boxing has a 38-46-800 motor, runs on a recommended 2200Mah 4s & came w/a 45amp esc, I've flown mine about 10 times in the last couple days & I concur the above report, takeoffs/landings on our rough grass field are no problem, it flies nice, stable, normal aerobatics are good although mine seems to roll slowly & although it seems to be stable it kind of "wanders" left to right at times (I know that sounds contradictory but it's a bit strange & I don't know how to describe it LOL!), interestingly I also have a couple of the Cermark Fantasy racers which I also like but mine have this same odd wandering at times, mainly 'crabbing" & occasionally a bit of roll to 1 side or the other, trim it out it seems fine, 2 circuits & it feels like it's going the other way!, it's not drastic & not all the time but a couple of more experienced pilots at my field have flown both of mine & say the same thing, they fly really nice but a bit odd & no one seems to be able to explain it LOL!
On mine I replaced the plastic straps that hold the LG struts to the wing w/steel straps & filled the "cup" on the rudder that the tailwheel mounts into w/gorilla glue as these 2 items seemed to have been a problem on some of the earlier reported flights & both have held up fine. The wires do help support the gear but the ones on the bottom pop off sometimes if you bounce any, happened 3 times so far & I've been lucky to be able to find the wire that came off, I'm going to try & put a small piece of shrinkwrap on the wires where they connect to the springs but only on the bottom wires as the ones on top of the wing haven't been a problem. I also find it to be quite a bit slower than I expected but maybe it's just because it's a bit larger than the Fantasy racer but I think the FR on 3s is a bit faster than this one on 4s, a pilot in one of the other posts said he flew his on a 5s & it flew quite a bit faster, I've already replaced the esc w/a 70A ZTW a 6A SBEC w/a 1000mah 2s lipo Rx battery & will try mine on 5s as soon as the batteries get here, ordered'em today. I don't know how the HK version comes but on the Starmax all the control surfaces w/the exception of the rudder were foam hinged, the rudder was seperate & the instructions said to use the small pinned hinges (which were in the bag w/the rudder) on the rudder, it said nothing about hingeing any other control surfaces, after it was assembled & I was trying to center the elevator I realized the foam hingeline at the end of one side had already seperated, when I went to clear out & dispose of the box & packing a small bag of pinned hinges fell out of the box! so I assume you're supposed to hinge all the surfaces but the instructions say nothing other than to hinge the rudder & the bag of hinges isn't shown in the parts list either, so if the HK version comes w/foam hinges I'd suggest replacing them w/either CA or pinned hinges (I used pinned hinges but not the ones that came w/the plane as they had tons of play).

Finally found a thread for this model! Hope someone is still reading it!
Love my HK R3 1400! Flies really well!

Gee Bee R3 at ROGO field, Nov 15, 2012 (3 min 31 sec)

.
I've gotten a lot braver with the model since the video...but a heavy landing stretched two of the bracing extension springs to the point they're useless, I lost one spring when it became detached while landing and I can't find replacement springs! Help! I wanna fly this model!!!
Like willyp, I've shrink-wrapped the extension springs to the bracing wires as on my first landing on our bumpy grass field, five of the ten bracing wires came off!
I've also filled the centre of the tailwheel mounting wire loop with thin ply and epoxied the wire loop and ply into the mount...resulting in the whole mount breaking away from the rudder...now glued back in place and strengthened with 1/64 ply sheeting on each side of the lower part of the rudder...our field and my landings may force me to look at a tailwheel that mounts to the fuse rather than the rudder.
I had difficulty getting the foam parts of the main gear to sit flush with the mounting area on the underside of the wing...suggestions?
I'm flying the model with a 4s 3300 but a fellow rc nut flies his on 5s claiming the low kv rating on the motor was meant for at least 5s.
Mine seems peppy enough on 4s. Thoughts?
Have fun! This is a great model!

Bill Quantock

when you Post on a tread your subscribed to the tread

I have alot of flights on this including one crash when stock
ECS failed while flying inverted -

luckly not much damage - easily fixed except the nose spinner
to which I'm having no sucess finding

at first I though it was reciver - but then relized it was the bec
in the Esc that failed

Gee bee Crash reciver failure (6 min 8 sec)

Okay, I had to unsubscribe and subscribe gain to get the notification option.
I had trouble with the supplied Topfire ESC before my first flight. With a healthy battery, the Rx would brown out every time both ailerons were operated on the same channel. I replaced the supplied ESC with a Plush 60 and problem solved. To their credit, HK gave me a credit for the faulty ESC after I sent them a video. I have two other Starmax models and no problems with the ESC's that came with those.

I'm still looking for extension springs to replace the Gee Bee's bracing wire tensioners. Anybody got suggestions The springs are about 1/8" dia. and 3/4" overall length including the hooks at the ends.

sweet plane , love the golden era look .

Got a PM from a modeller who's trying to set up his new HK Gee Bee R3 1400mm asking about CG. Recommended is 108mm but after setting mine up the way I flew it last season, it balances closer to 88mm. Anybody else? Model is stock except for ESC which is HK Plush 60A. Battery is a 3300mah 4S.
When I flew the model last season, I don't remember having to use down elevator to hold the model level when flying inverted so unless my markings for battery location are all wrong, my model is pretty close to correctly balanced at 88mm.

Bill Quantock

I find your 88 mm CG very strange? Why as mine is balanced
at 108 mm.
mine flys level with no up trim and inverted without having to add
down elevator . which after 50 years of modeling and as many as
a real pilot /retired airline captain tell's me that my model at 108 mm
is correctly balanced. at 88 mm I would think the model would tend to be
tail heavy .

Ok without seeing the model what would cause us to have diffrent CG's
and still have good flying models????
well with 50 years , is it possable your starting point for the 108 mm
is incorrect? simple thing , but if someone else use's the correct one
then there model would be tail heavy and hard to control.

check my blog you will see many models I designed and built

without being there I can't really know why the diffrence but when a model
flys level with no up trim and no down imput inverted is properly balanced

Hey guys, I'm the person who corresponded via PM with Bill. Bill, thanks again for your help!

After trading messages with Bill I found the following on the Hobby King Gee Bee R3 1400mm web page down in the discussion section...

Evan 5 points - 10/12/2012

Hi there.

I'm having trouble getting the plane to balance. The instructions indicate 108mm from the leading edge, but with a 4S 3300 battery in place, I can't balance it at this point- far too nose heavy. I can't move the battery back far enough to balance it. It is balancing at about 90mm from the leading edge.

Anyone else had issues, or can anyone offer advice?

Thanks!

Gary 2109 points

I have just measured one of these wings and worked out the C of G and I think 108mm is to far back,I personally would try it at 85mm,it should fly nicely at this setting.

DAGBRM 76 points
Mine has cg about 80mm. It flys very well, but not fast. This is supposed to be a racer so i now fly it on 5s3000 pack. Much better. I had to upgrade the esc as it won't work on 5s. still only pulling 40 amps at full thottle.


With my 3S 3300mah battery moved back a ways, I can get mine to balance in the 80-85 range. As long as I know a few others are flying successfully in that range, I think I will go with it. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by pulsery2k1

Bill Quantock

I find your 88 mm CG very strange? Why as mine is balanced
at 108 mm.
mine flys level with no up trim and inverted without having to add
down elevator . which after 50 years of modeling and as many as
a real pilot /retired airline captain tell's me that my model at 108 mm
is correctly balanced. at 88 mm I would think the model would tend to be
tail heavy .

Ok without seeing the model what would cause us to have diffrent CG's
and still have good flying models????
well with 50 years , is it possable your starting point for the 108 mm
is incorrect? simple thing , but if someone else use's the correct one
then there model would be tail heavy and hard to control.

check my blog you will see many models I designed and built

without being there I can't really know why the diffrence but when a model
flys level with no up trim and no down imput inverted is properly balanced

Pulsery,
You've got me wondering if I've forgotten something...have to go flying when it warms up!

Bill Quantock

well I didn't say you were wrong , My set up method is all controls
set to netural and model balanced at kit CG
then fly the model if it needs up trim to fly level its Nose heavy
down its tail H then inverted to see if it need down impute to
stay level.
that what I did and it flew fine, As I mentioned in my first post
I used 108 mm - I am using a larger battery so I had to re arrange
the battery tray but that shouldn't make a diffrence.
the diffrence is only 20 mm so no big deal.just strange?
because I like designing models - can be as simple as the rigging

Originally Posted by pulsery2k1

Bill Quantock

well I didn't say you were wrong , My set up method is all controls
set to netural and model balanced at kit CG
then fly the model if it needs up trim to fly level its Nose heavy
down its tail H then inverted to see if it need down impute to
stay level.
that what I did and it flew fine, As I mentioned in my first post
I used 108 mm - I am using a larger battery so I had to re arrange
the battery tray but that shouldn't make a diffrence.
the diffrence is only 20 mm so no big deal.just strange?
because I like designing models - can be as simple as the rigging

Pulsery2k1,
I've been wrong before...once
Anyway, I'd hate to give a fellow enthusiast information that caused grief. Once it warms up, I'll check to see that memory has served me accurately about the R3...love the model!