CarreraGTSCS

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First few pics from maiden day. I maidened mine and a friend maidened his Phoenix 60cc Spit and another friend his Parkzone foamy.

CarreraGTSCS

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It wasn't a total loss. It hit slightly nose down in some rather soft and thick weeds thank goodness. You can see in the pics that the majority of the damage was a broken back, heavily damaged cowl and the aluminum motor mount it broken. You can see that repairs are under way. The fist couple of pics are the broken bits aligned and taped in place. The rest are of it glued back together using thin CA and accellerator.. It is pretty darn straight. I'll lay up a layer of random weave cloth over the repairs internally. I need to make some new fuselage formers. That'll be a challenge.

I spoke to Mike at Gator and he gave me a price for the motor box. A bit steep for a few pieces of wood so I'm hoping someone here will have a set before I orderone.

Prekin

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Great job on repair!

Dsa44

Very nice with the repairs! I don't think I will be as lucky. I will take another look this winter, but it would be major rebuilding of the internal support structures, and I don't think its do-able....

RBean

Dsa 44, looks like yours is done. More repairs than I would try. What happened to cause your crash? 50 flights on mine. Is still alive but you never know for sure. There are lots of ways to lose an RC plane. Hopefully your hardware survived.

Dsa44

Yep RBean, I looked at it again, not gonna try to repair...
Not sure what happened... The gear would not cycle, that was some sort of warning, so I thought I would fly a circuit or two and just bring her back with the gear still down. I was at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle and added rudder to start a turn for my landing approach, and she just spiraled in, just like that. Would not respond to anything. Then started smoking on the ground as one of the lipos was burning. dunno if she had a short or something first which caused lost rx control, maybe a tip stall, but had plenty of altitude and just would not respond...just dunno. Very sad. I think some of the electronics are still salvageable, going to have to do lots of bench testing before I would put them elsewhere.
I don't think I will replace with same model. Although beautiful, I had to add 3 LBS! of lead up front to hit a reasonable CG. It is unfortunately manufactured quite tail heavy.
I have seen the Seagull model before, but don't like the non-scale gear placement. Maybe the new Black Horse one? I think that can fly auw at 17lbs, a lot lighter than this 24lb beast!
Keep flying safe! and look forward to seeing Carrera's re-maiden!

CarreraGTSCS

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Wow dsa, that looks pretty bad. That looks a little bit beyond repair. Mine is coming along. I'll post more pics later. I used thin CA and accelerator to piece the shell back together and put it back into as closely aligned a position as possible. Yesterday I spent the day fiberglassing the interior in the area of damage. I used slow set epoxy resin and two layers of 1/2 oz cloth on the bottom and sides. Later today I'll venture out to the store and get a small can of two part body putty. Before using the body putty on the exterior of the fuselage I need to sand the heck out of the damaged area to make it as smooth as I can. It's really flexible so I will replace the damaged internal former with one made of 1" pink foam and perhaps some longerons of either square carbon tube of 1" foam. Either way would add very little weight while giving a lot of stiffness to sand against.

I'm thinking of doing a full repaint as a Battle of Britain MkV. Will remove the canons from the wings. I've already printed one of the two into one/six into three exhaust manifolds. I know the nose will be too long but only the most sharped eyed Spitfire nerd will notice. BTW, I'm ordering a replacement cowl from JP (Jiri Prekin).

PLEA: Does anyone have the wood parts to extend the motor box for electric power? I tried Gator who said they could get it but I heard nothing after telling them I wanted to order it. I'd even take just the dimensions or scans of the parts and I'll make my own.

Thanks,
Mike

CarreraGTSCS

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Dsa44

Nice looking repairs Mike! I could not bring myself to throw away my wreckage yet, so let me look thru my pieces/parts and see if I can find the slivers of the electric mount at least to give you some measurements. Don't hold your breath cuz the firewall was a splintered mess.....hang tight for a few days.....

CarreraGTSCS

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That would be great! Thank you. Fingers crossed there are enough bits and pieces left to measure accurately.

CarreraGTSCS

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More progress on the repairs of the Spitfire. The fiberglass repairs to the fuselage are done. I sanded it as much as I dared then just today shot two coats of Rustoleum 2X Ultra Cover Paint & Primer in grey satin. I'll let it cure until the weekend before giving it a light sanding and then apply some filler. I was going to use body putty but since it seems to need just a skim coat I may use lightweight spackle. Lightweight spackle seems to remain slightly flexible after drying which may be beneficial on this flexible fiberglass fuselage.

CK1

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Hey I like the battle proven , field repaired look . I suspect there were far worse looking repairs flying over Europe during the war. Patch it up and get it back in the air as quickly as feasable was the order of the day .

SPSRC

Guys, I have a Spitfire New in the box I bought for parts. let me know if anyone could use anything. I probably have it for a reasonable cost.

CarreraGTSCS

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I could really use the extended motor mount box for mounting an electric motor.

Thanks,
Mike

Dsa44

Hey Mike, sorry for the delay. I pulled this fragment of the motor mount box. Its all that was left in the splinter bag. As you can see it is about 18.7mm overall. The short edge would measure about 9.6mm and then 10.2mm if you include the tabs. The motor would mount to the far right where those thick ply tabs are, about 17.5mm from the left. I hope this is what you were looking for. I would think some metal standoffs or spacers might be easier.
Good luck!

CarreraGTSCS

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[QUOTE=Dsa44;12648500]Hey Mike, sorry for the delay. I pulled this fragment of the motor mount box. Its all that was left in the splinter bag. As you can see it is about 18.7mm overall. The short edge would measure about 9.6mm and then 10.2mm if you include the tabs. The motor would mount to the far right where those thick ply tabs are, about 17.5mm from the left. I hope this is what you were looking for. I would think some metal standoffs or spacers might be easier.
Good luck

Thanks man. That's awesome!!

CarreraGTSCS

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I had a few minutes before sundown to get out to the field and fly the repaired Spitfire this evening. What a honey this plane is. Two circuits trimming her which was just me dialing in more and more down elevator until there wasn't any more. Didn't touch the aileron trim or the rudder trim. Flew for 5 minutes and checked the main packs (down to 3.85v/cell which would give another minute or two of conservative flight) and figured I'd give myself a good buffer in case I needed a go around. Did a pass to confirm gear and flaps down. All good this time. There is absolutely no pitch change with full flaps. Mine are dialed to just about 90 degrees. Did another circuit try to decide the direction of the light breeze. Set up for a left to right landing and just let her come down. I kept some throttle on until the wheels touched and eased back the stick. My best landing yet. I wish there was video. What a lovely model. It feels very light in the air. Glad that I spent the time to fix her. Now to think about smoothing things out some more, rescribing the panel lines and paint.

The before and after pic.

Dsa44

Wow, that's a really nice repair, glad you got 'er back in the air so soon.

And that is a great looking 3d printed spinner. did you use the stock aluminum backplate? Any chance you are able to post the stl file?

Cheers, DSA

CarreraGTSCS

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Thanks! The STL is from Thingiverse and was designed by Tom Hunt, known as rcmodelstl on there. Here is a link to the STL: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3277229 Tom designed it for the Avios 1400mm wing span Spitfire foamie. I'm having trouble loading the one I printed for the exact measurement but it was 108mm to the larger OD not the inner retaining lip. It fit the stock aluminum back plate. You still need to use the through the nose retaining screw. I balanced it but haven't spun it up yet so I make no claims on whether it will hold up to the higher power of our set ups. Use all cautions until well tested.

cokebuck

I have one of these, brand new still in the box plus electric retracts, spinner and battery tray. I got from Mike at Gator couple years ago. Anyone want to buy it? Let me know.

CarreraGTSCS

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Where are you located and what are you asking for it?

Dsa44

May also be interested after Carrera, but just started working on a BlackHorse spitty...!!!

bladefire1

I have a dle 35 in mine, it balance's at cg120 with 7lb's of lead up front so gonna try dle55 instead, might get away with 5lb's.

GIJon

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I have one for sale as well. Untouched, complete with retracts, spinner, EME 35, and Prekin exhaust. I'll let it go for $1100.

Prekin

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I would take it, but unfortunately shipping to Europe would be crazy!