Short video clip of the take off, but you have to forward to 10:27. Otherwise some great video of Wally's Squadron in Summersville, WV.

Wallys Squadron 2019 (20 min 11 sec)

I had a lucky set back today with the landing gear.
For the last several flights the gear was stalling and not fully retracting on one side. It would stop when it was about 4/5 up. Toggling the gear switch would make the gear retract into position. There was no problem with gear down. I thought maybe it was the wind buffeting the gear and causing it to amp out.

With the plane in my yard today, I lubed the gear and then test cycled. The left side stalled completely at 4/5 going up. The motor was trying to work but the gear leg would not cycle up or down. Lucky me. The best I can see without removing the unit completely is the screw worm gear coming out of the electric motor has stripped threads in the same spot. If you enlarge the picture you can see the spot where the gear threads are stripped. Hoping I can send the gear back to the manufacturer for an examination and repair.

I have no way of knowing if the electric gear motors are capable of handling the 6.5" wheels which are quite heavy. Sierra Giant Scale does not build the their gear with electric. Its my understanding the motors were supplied to Sierra by CARF. Hoping some of you other builders can finish up and give some feedback.

Jake, When I received mine it didn't look like there was much if any lubricant on the threads or anywhere else. I lightly greased everything up with white grease when I got them before I ran them. You might have had a burr on the thread that started things but hard to tell. I have Robart electrics on my Zero and they have worked great for 5 years. I'm going to try and get mine flying before winter sets in.

There was a discussion a few years back about electric gear stalling on GSWarbirds@yahoo.com.

The moderator,Andrew Benjamin, was pretty knowledgeable about the fixes.

You might want to contact him by joining the group at Yahoo and addressing your problem to him for any advice he can give you.

FWIW
Ira

Shouldn't the jack screw have acme threads?

I was going to ask the same question about grease. I thought the Comp Arf manual said to heavilly grease all moving parts with white grease from a spray can. I'm not saying that lack of grease was the cause for your threads to be stripped, but maybe it was a contributing factor. I don't see any grease on those threads, maybe they were lubricated but they do look kind of shiny in your picture.

I have a tube of white grease and made sure there was plenty of grease on everything before I even ran the gear. There was no visible lube on mine at all.

Hello all



Is anyone using the Carf cockpit or is there other options available? Does the plane look ok without?



Are the light lense covers part of the kit or a they part of the light kit?

Has light lenses in the kit. I bit the bullet and ordered a cockpit. A lot of money but it is just a big hole without it. I also need to find a pilot that looks like me. I never wore a flight suit just normal clothes and a Dave Clark headset.

Originally Posted by yakdriver

Has light lenses in the kit. I bit the bullet and ordered a cockpit. A lot of money but it is just a big hole without it. I also need to find a pilot that looks like me. I never wore a flight suit just normal clothes and a Dave Clark headset.

That's good to know that the lenses are installed. I wasn't sure about that. I have the light set already from UniLight (spelling?). I also have the retracts in hand, but am waiting for the airframe. As soon as the airframe lands, I will order the cockpit too. Let us know what you find for a pilot!

Took it out to the club fly in today. First time I have had it all assembled. Looks impressive.

Great news on my damaged retracts. I got the replaced electric motor back from Sierra Giant Scale today. Great service from Darrell at Sierra. Only 1 week turnaround. CARF stood behind the repair. I can only guess that something foreign attached to the pinion gear threads and caused the damage.

One other problem has surfaced, but not critical.
The retract controller has 3 channels. See picture.
Two are for the back wheels and the middle channel for the front or tail wheel. One of the channels has ceased to function. I can still use the retracts by plugging one of the power leads into the middle channel.
My fear is the controller may at some point fail completely.

Did the Controller come with the Gear/ from Carf? If so id get in touch and see what they can do, I would feel a little uneasy with a channel loos as well.

Jake, I would be interested what they say also. My Robart controller has worked perfectly on my Zero and I think it will work with this gear.

Got my cockpit kit today. Is it nice, yes it's OK. Is it worth $1000 a big no. Parts are not glued on well so I will have to go through and re enforce about half of it. I thought stuff like the throttle quadrants could be more scale. Instrument panels look kind of generic. So all in all I should have built my own. Quite dissapointed in it.