Great Planes Pitts S2S ARF   Updated  03/16/2003

Airplane and Engine sold in November to fund larger project.

Ordered on February 22nd, received March 4th, and what an incredible surprise!  Packaging, finish, instructions, are really top-notch.  Of particular note - there is glue visible on ALL joints that I could see, and with the open bay and lightened wing rib construction, plus the fact that they are in halves, I could see a LONG way.  Very impressive.  All hinge slots are pre cut for CA type hinges, with good instructions on a very fool-proof installation method well-documented in the manual.  There is NO need to fear these hinges, installed properly!!

Fuselage - fit and finish are the best I've seen.  Monokoting is really better than I usually do, and the fiberglass parts of the airplane are clear coated.  Color is Monokote "True Red", white, and black, following a very traditional Pitts-style color scheme.  All of the front end is epoxy coated, and VERY smooth, with alignment marks on the face of the firewall.  My only beef there, is that it is such a short motor box.  Using my ZDZ 40, I'll need to space out about 1 1/4", but that actually is a good thing due to the rear carb configuration.  Planning on using hardwood standoffs to solve that issue.  BTW - the Canopy has the frame area Pre-Painted.  Trim and glue, and you're done.  Nice Touch!  Cockpit area is solid, with a balsa floor and instrument panel surface.  A little touch that shows the engineering that went into this design - there is a plastic tube already installed in the center of the fuse running full length to the rear.  Yes, it's an "antenna tube", and is referenced in the instructions!!  Anyone seen any ARF manufacturer do THAT before???

Wings - Construction is very balanced, with only minimal weight differences between halves.  This is an encouraging indication of quality control.  AND - there are pull strings for servo wires already installed in ALL four panels!!  Even the top CENTER section has pull strings!  They are straight, very smooth (indicating some sandpaper was used before applying the Monokote) and the top wing uses a symmetrical airfoil, unlike some "scale" Pitts of the past.  Bottom wing is well-dihedral, semi-symmetrical, constant chord, no sweep.

Fiberglass parts are VERY nice.  Light, well-painted, sturdy.  Clear coated.  The wheel pants are beautiful, and the stripes on the cowl even line up perfectly with the Monokote stripes on the fuse!!

Landing gear may be the only MISS as it is painted 1/8" aluminum, with some decorative side "spats" that are screwed to the alum.  I'm thinking a spring and cable tensioner for the gear will be in order.  Even at 15 lbs, there's a lot of impact on the gear.  The mounting method seems traditional enough; 6 screws into a heavy ply plate on the bottom.  (Intended to pull out screws rather than destroy fuse??  I wonder...)  These screws drive into a THREE **HARD** 1/2" square stringers that extend from the firewall to the wing pin bulkhead.

Instruction Manual - It is a VERY well-written, exceptional piece of documentation.  There is not a single item left out that I could see, and I scrutinized it very closely.  Clear instructions on control setup, including how to align horns to reduce any mechanical differential from improper placement.  Control travels and CG are very well explained, and they claim EXTENSIVE testing on both control travels and CG have been done, resulting in believable numbers.  The only miss is NO Incidence/Decalage and thrust line information!  There is an error on the dimension of the interplane strut measurement on the underside of the top wing, but that has been corrected in an addendum that is included in the kit, **AND** on the GP Website.  Very thorough!  We'll see how that goes, but it looks like it shouldn't be a problem the way everything bolts together.  I **REALLY** like the little check boxes for each step, and multiple boxes for repetitive steps, as this can help from overlooking some critical step in the process.

See additional pages and updates as I progress....

    MY Pitts- Photos on First Flights Day,  April 12,2002