Finally got mine! What a blast. Few tips - the flap mix I’m running is 30% elevator down on the first notch, 50% elevator down on full flaps. Also, I’ve had nothing but perfect landings however the left gear is hitting the fuselage upon retracting. Use a dremel or box cutter to ensure the gear can fully retract/detract without getting caught up. Also took off the plastic landing gear strut things on the side of the gear as they seemed to get in the way of when I retracted/detract my gear. This thing prefers to fly fast. Keep her moving until your ready to land, and use those flaps. This things would land HOT without the use of full flaps. I was also debating about hand launching... that’s out of the question in my opinion. This things weights A LOT. And grass takeoffs, I’d avoid at all costs unless your want bent gear. The gear bent slightly even with greaser landings on a paved lot. Can’t imagine how bad it bend taking off/landing on grass. I’ll have a video soon for y’all. Prepare for a shot of adrenaline flying this beast!!! Happy flying!!!
Thanks for showing that it will slow down. I have the airplane but haven't had a chance to fly it yet and was concerned about getting it slowed down - I fly from a grass field and it's not the smoothest, but it's what is available. The other reviewers don't show it slowing down much, but I suppose that's not what it does best.:-) Also my compliments to the camera guy (or gal) for the steady camera and not showing a dust speck in the sky.
Thanks so much! I plan to do an additional vid with this one actually. I’ll try to get some onboard when I do. The field where we filmed this doesn’t allow airborne cameras since it’s on a military base.
Hey Chris, I always love your videos. The Eflight Commander 1.4m mPd and the T-28 Trojan 1.2m are in my house now mostly due to some of your videos. Question about this high-speed spitfire. I love this V1200 and am seriously thinking about it as my 3rd rc airframe. I notice your video no inverted pass. I'm guessing the V1200 will fly inverted?
I'm with you as I am usually about scale planes. That's why I can and will resist this one. If they made it as a racing mustang or something I might not be able to resist. There are so many cool racing plane schemes that would be high-vis and suit this type of plane! As it is, only a few tweaks on wings and fuselage and there are a lot of real warbirds they could have made a scale model of but then offered it up with this 6s system and all the reinforcement needed for the 140 mph speeds.
Makes the Edf jets look rather sedate! I think the only thing left to try would be a contra-rotating prop to remove any torque effects. Pilots of the Seafire Mk 47 said it was such a stable gun platform with a contra rotation prop.
Fun airplane, but do check tightness of horizontal stabilizer after a few flights. Mine needed considerable shoring up. May end up glueing it, for such a plane.
Thanks! The retracts are ok, but can get problematic, especially if you end up with a side load on the strut when the gear are down. In all honesty, it’s probably best to ultimately replace them with some metal framed units for the best longevity.
Awesome. Love this plane. I think it is one of the funnest planes I’ve had in years. I’ve tried it with a 10x10 prop too...it puts more speed in it...like it needs any! 😂. I’m not sure it is too good for the electronics...ha.
@@deifyed69 I did not notice but I have flown it several times on the 10x10. It will add 10-20mph easy....however, I was told not to dive with it cause the plane will break apart at 200mph...yes they have clocked it at that......but it is fun for level conservative flat passes! Ha.
Good to know...lol. I can see why it would break apart because the tail is rather weak. On my maiden I couldn't get it to slow down that easy but eventually touched down and rolled to the end of the runway when it reached the grass it nosed over and flipped, nothing major like tail daggers sometimes do. I was so surprised to see the rudder clevis snapped and broke and the elevator separated from the joint where it screws in. I've had planes slam harder than that on pavement and not break a clevis. Also notice the rudder horn is the only control service without a back plate so be mindful. I had to hinge the rudder back, some hot glue and she is all back together but still food for thought.
Any opinions on hand launching and grass landings gear up? Mine will be here next week and my grass field has relatively long grass and I’m not trying to risk bending those retracts. Great video btw!!
Thanks! The airplane has a ton of power, so hand launching may be feasible, but it’s also a heavy airframe. So, maybe a stiff underhand toss with safe on would do it, but I’m really not certain. Im also a terrible hand launcher, so maybe I’m not the best person to ask, haha!
@@Thercgeek thanks for the quick response! I’m upgrading from the v900, any thoughts on the gear up grass landing? I haven’t seen any videos with it, but I imagine it could handle it.
Hey Bud :) Wanted to know, would it be possible to install this motor and esc on the eflite 1.2m p51 without any mods? Iow, would it be able to attach directly to the p51 engine mount? Or is the motor a completely different size? Thanks for all ya doing for the community 🙏
Thanks! That’s a good question on the motor. Generally, the mounts are standard sizes, however I’m guessing that this motor is a larger diameter than the stock motor in the 1.2m P-51. If that’s the case, the mount is probably different.
Hi Chris, Great video. Thank you. Where can I get the GPS unit you used on this plane. I’d love to have that telemetry. Let me know. Thank you and stay safe Doug K Anchorage Alaska
That’s a good question and I can’t really say definitely. The gear aren’t particularly robust, but if we’re talking golf course type surface, it may do ok. Some softer tires may be helpful as well so that the bumps don’t get imparted into the retracts as much.
It’s a pretty heavy model, so might be a challenging hand launch. That being said, it accelerates like crazy, so may be feasible. I’m terrible with hand launching, so personally wouldn’t want to try it. 😆
Usually a low wing plane wants to go nose down with flaps extended.A high wing plane wants to nose up with flaps extended.This is even true with full scale airplanes.
That’s a good rule of thumb, but is not always the case. You get a downwash angle change when flaps are deployed and how that change interacts with the tail dictates the pitching moment change that is observed. Tail placement relative to the wing plays a big part.
I have made several flights with a timber, cessna 150 and lastly an e-flite t-28. Do you think it's early for me to fly this plane? are landings difficult?
Well, this is a very high power airplane. It flies great up and away, but The most difficult regimes flying this bird are the takeoffs and landings. With the excess power it has, it can torque the airframe on takeoffs if you hammer the throttle too quickly which can get you into trouble. Landings are challenging as the airplane doesn’t slow down all that much, but they are manageable. So, those are the things to think about. How much time have you spent flying tail draggers?
Ok, that’s good, probably be ok then. It is fast, so work up to those high speed passes. The key to the takeoffs is to bring the throttle up fairly quickly but not go more than half throttle.
@@Thercgeek last question ... i would like to choose between the 70mm viper and the v1200. They are totally different planes but in your opinion which of the two is easier to land? thank you so much for your willingness, you have one of the 3 best rc airplane channels!
HELP - Just got the v1200 - can not get the switch set up to control the SAFE on/off. If I bind with SAFE it stays in SAFE. If I bind without SAFE it binds okay, with no SAFE available of course. I set the AUX1 CHANNEL to F - my desired switch and when I did the sticks down and in then cycle switch F 5 times I got a twitch from the plane and thought the switch had been accepted and available but it is not working - it just stays in SAFE.
Are all of the control surfaces set the 100% end points? Anything less in any channel and it won’t work. The other thing you can do is dig into the forward programming menu. You can actually setup safe through there too if you can’t get the switch option working.
@@Thercgeek Cane Ridge field is having a jet fly in this Saturday 28th - any chance you would be in the area and able to come by? - surfaces are at 100 %, I get an error message on the radio when I try to access forward programming - looking into that.
@@Thercgeek We will welcome you Christ to our area. We met at Cane Ridge field and you ask about jobs and I told you about the wind tunnel test facility at Tullahoma.
Thanks man! I’m looking forward to flying with everyone out there. 😊 I’ll be looking for help too to build up a small team, so if you know anyone who’s good with the camera please let me know. 😊
Great video but no negatives? The plane is the same color as the sky and the clouds. That is nuts. And the gear is sub standard at best. It is fast and fun for sure but it needs some improving.
That’s fair. The blue does blend in on a blue sky, but with the contrast of the white I honestly didn’t have too much difficulty seeing it. I did intend to mention the color but I forgot to in the process of filming.
Forgot to mention that I didn’t have any issues with the retracts personally. I could see them being problematic flying from grass potentially, but we don’t really have any grass strips here in SoCal and can only talk to my own personal experience.
Did you experience any torque roll at full throttle? I had this happen even with the plane on SAFE where it torqued violently to the left. I was barely able to recover but it sunk my heart to my nether regions. I set it up by the book but I have a feeling your setup might be better.
The only place I’ve noticed the torque is on the takeoffs. If you advance the throttle too quickly, it’ll torque the left wing down. So, best practice is to only go to about half throttle or so for takeoff. Otherwise in the air, I’ve not noticed it much at all.
Yep, thats exactly when it was. I accelerated slowly until it was up in the air then punched it. After that it was just slow passes trying to land. My flap setup was bad. She noses up, even if you cut the throttle on final and point the nose slightly down she gains a insane amount of speed, scary but feels like it will be fun. I'm going to try your setup next week cause the manuals were not good at all in my opinion.
@@Thercgeek As always, great video! It will " torque the left wing down" because the tangential normal vector component in the direction of the force exerted by the rotation of the motor "pushes" against the counterclockwise rotation. This causes the entire ridged fuselage to rotate with it. Aside from all that, I've got to have this plane after seeing you tame it so nicely. It will be a good compliment to my e-flight Commander 1.4m.
I just finished setting up my V1200. I’ve read manual many times and watched many videos. There’s no mention of elevator/flaps mixing in manual. Where did you come up with that? Is that just your personal idea? I’m just careful. I’m getting ready for maiden.
My control throw and mixing recommendations are based on my flying the airplane. The elevator with flap deflection is necessary to trim the airplane in that configuration. Without it, the airplane will balloon on you with the flaps down. Whether you set it up as a mix or as a flight mode, you’ll find it’s necessary to land with the flaps down.
Ok I took your advice on adding some elevator mix to landing flaps. I did watch Brian Phillips video as well. He recommended 50% on elevator mix after he flew it. Your at 30%. What are your thoughts? I haven’t flown plane yet. Does 50% sound to much? Thanks Rick
It really depends. I found 30% to be plenty. It’s really about feel and how much up elevator you want to be carrying on the approach. So long as you have at least 30% you should be fine. I wouldn’t over think it too much.
The physical measurements are what you want to match vs the percentages. There can be variation with the percentages to get to the desired measurement.
I would not recommend this airplane for a beginner. It’s fast and requires some proficiency to safely takeoff and land the model. This would be a good airplane to work up to once you have built up proficiency flying rc.
@@Thercgeek Thanks for responding. What would you recommend for a 41 year old beginner? I’ve been into cars and boats mainly. This will b my first plane.
Well, the best investment you can make up front is getting a good simulator. The RealFlight sim is a good one bit.ly/RealFlight9-5 it will give you a great platform to practice at home. I like to say if you’ve crashed once in the sim, then it has paid for itself! otherwise, I do recommend seeking out a local club as they typically have trainers and instructors to help folks get started and getting some one in one training is invaluable. Otherwise for a trainer specifically, the aeroscout is a really excellent choice imo (bit.ly/AeroScoutRTF)
I found if you bring the throttle up fairly quickly and only take it to about 60% throttle, the airplane gets off the ground pretty quickly with minimal tendency to ground loop. The tail wheel isn’t super effective, so if you can get the tail wheel up fairly quickly and get the rudder surface active, that helps considerably.
With my GPS speedo inside on a 100c 5000mah 6s the most it'll read is 129mph.. even diving steeply. Really not impressed tbh. The v900 and f15 edf are quicker than it. On 4s... 🤦♂️🤷♂️
Well, Im not certain about yours, but I had a gps telemetry unit in mine and it clocked 145+mph with a 30c 5000. What’s your field elevation? That’ll come into play. Also, gps measures ground speed, so how windy was it?
@@Thercgeek not sure on elevation but I know my f15 for instance can flash up 130mph at the same airfield. I'm going to have something to aim for now though. Its a complete still calm day. Not a breeze in the air. Thats what makes it more confusing.
@@SiR2Dean instead of a 4s, put a 6s in it! You will see a big difference! But if your plane is still flying speeds on average of 129 mph, even on 6s, you need to send yours back! My v1200, right out the box, did close to 150 mph with a 5000mah 60c 6s and with a more aggressive prop, I touched over 180 mph level flight, just by changing the prop!
