Hobby King Pitts Special bi-plane - Phoenix R/C simulator - SupermotoXL Designs

Details: Published: 12 November 2021

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About

Foamy R/C planes doesn't last forever, they will soon break down under UV light, servo started to jitter, ESC and motor will burn out somehow especially when models lifespan passes 10 years old through many flights, air-time, repeated take-off and landing. Basically all my R/C plane collection is already passes its due since most of them already passes 10 years mark; aging, colors faded to tint yellow on plastic parts overall and servo performance show sign of degradation. Some models have retired from flight for safety concern on technical issue while other still shows signs of 'extended' living for the skies. Among one of the favorite plane i hate to see getting old is my 'go to' HOBBY KING - PITTS SPECIAL bi-plane. As for extra note this plane model was originally from 'ART-TECH' brand which is then rebranded to 'HOBBY KING' at lower and much affordable price. This is the plane you'd see the most in action both normal flying and FPV flight over my social media and Youtube video channel. Small, portable, fun and really encourage pilots to push aerobatic flying skills to the edge! In the past i used to have 4x units of HK Pitts Special in my hangar. Then in 2014 it went down to 3x unit because i over estimate my flying skills and the trees jumped in, RIP! Then in 2018 another of my Pitts went missing in the aviation school where i teach kids how to fly, probably school staff moved it since it was hanged on the wall. So now in 2021 i have 2x HK Pitts Special remaining in my hangar. This made me think that anytime soon some random misfortune might hit my favorite plane off my hands one day so i need find ways to 'immortalized' this models so it could exist forever not risking losing it giving me extra mental comfort. So i had an idea to 'digitized' it 3d models so i could fly it forever inside my PHOENIX R/C simulator. Time to whip out my 3d modeling tools!

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The build

Since i already physically own collections of variable setup of Hobby King Pitts Special building the 3d models from ground up is easy since i have a solid model as reference in hand. All it takes is to get a good 'Orthographic' view of high resolution snapshots on all corner through my Huawei Y9 smartphone to get the job done and then align the photo properly in one template through Photopaint program that will be used for 3D mesh tracing. Since the snapped photo features my recent 2x blade APC setup and small prop adapter i decided to revert back the model styling to favor more on using 4 blade 10x8" scaled "HAMILTON STANDARD" replica with Art-Tech P-51D Mustang nose cone painted in white that was used on my FPV Pitts Special setup and also in the past was also used on my normal L.O.S flight type Pitts Special because this setup give massive amount of thrust power than on stock 2x blade propeller.

3D modeling work is a breeze since there not many complicated curves, aesthetic issues or mechanical visual present on the external of the fuselage that may force me to create high polygon parts. Everything seems to be simple plain 3d models with low meshes. What will makes the model mesh alive for now will be dependent on the texture work later on. After about 4 hours of 3d modeling work upon completion the total worth of 3d meshes are; Vertices: 4658 and Faces: 5546 which all already include with collision (col_*) meshes, which is good enough model poly count to run smoothly on PC that run on low end CPU and GPU.

As for texturing works since the Pitts is quite battered and old which have been around almost 10 years some surfaces have few scratches, detached stickers and dents can be fix through Photopaint patch up tricks to make the models textures looks new again in simulator. Most obvious sign of color deterioration due to aging are on the tail section , rudder, elevator, plastic cockpit canopy and front cowling currently have fade to yellowish tint have been restored back to fresh factory cream white color. Another 3 hours of texturing fix and patches finally i have a new fresh looking plane as if stock new out of box. Next the texture are UV mapped to the 3D model meshes which takes me another 1 hour to complete the task.

At last the final phase is to compile the whole model inside PHOENIX BUILDER tools where i have to assign proper function and flight control to make the Pitts Special bi-plane works equally like my real model in simulator. The most difficult part is to get actually 'inertial', thrust torque from the propeller and the floatyness of the model right on the paper. After 3 hours of testing and tuning finally i got it right, now it flies just like Pitts Special.

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Real world 'HOBBY KING PITTS SPECIAL' plane

|3D construction:

Texturing works and decaling:

Applying control surface and parameters:

Final production in R/C Phoenix:

Below are the virtual stock attributes value on HOBBY KING PITTS SPECIAL aerobatic plane. However there a slight differences between stock vs the actual plane in my hands. Original out from the factory the plane comes with soft and flexible 2x blade GWS 1047 style propeller but on my personal setup it run on 4x bladed 10x8" scaled "HAMILTON STANDARD" replica propeller that originated from DURAFLY 1100mm wingspan warbird. This propeller setup allow improve thrust performance and huge amount of vertical torque allow better aerobatic and flying experience. It was proven many time better flight performance on FPV flight on HK Pitts Special as seen on my Youtube video channel. With such changes the stock DAT700/700KV motor along with 20A esc still able to handle the new propeller configuration powered via 2200mah 3s 40c li-po battery.

Airframe type: Scale bi-plane - Aerobatic/Stunts
Branding/Manufacturer: ART-TECH/Hobby King
Model name variant: Pitts Special
Material build: EPS foam
Wingspan: 860mm
Length: 760mm
Stock airframe weight: 620 gram with 1s 2200mah battery.
Aileron: 1x 9g servo
Elevator: 1x 9g servo
Rudder: 1x 9g servo
ESC: 20A with 2A/5V internal BEC (HK 'Blue' ESC)
Motor: DAT700/700KV (3s)
Propeller: 4 blade 10x8" scaled "HAMILTON STANDARD" replica (Original was running on GWS 1047 propeller)
Radio receiver: Frsky telemetry 4ch
Battery: 1x 2200mah 2s~3s 40c
Center Gravity: 1/3 from the 1st top front leading edge of the wing (first mid plastic bolt).

Below are my radio setup which contain EPA and EXPO for all the flight control assignment ideal for moderate aerobatic flight. However i never use any 'DUAL RATE' feature.

Throttle
- EXPO: 0%
- EPA: 100%
Aileron
- EXPO: 50% ("U" shape low curve graph: From low sensitivity throw slowly to high).
- EPA: 100%
Elevator
- EXPO: 50% ("U" shape low curve graph: From low sensitivity throw slowly to high).
- EPA: 100%
Rudder
- EXPO: 0%
- EPA: 100%

Flight characteristic

The flight characteristic of the Pitts Special in Phoenix R/C Simulator exactly reflected as my real world HK Pitts Special. I can say the handling, power and agility of the Pitts inside the simulator almost 95% accurate as my own real Pitts plane. For those who own the original 'stock factory' form Hobby King Pitts Special may be surprise with overwhelming performance in simulator but in fact an upgrade to 4 blade 10x8" hard prop is a real thing which is why all my Pitts both for FPV and Line Of Sight flight are running on 4x bladed setup. However sometime if i fell short on spare propellers i would run on 2x bladed 11x6" APC hard composite propeller which also boost the stock performance but not as superior as what 4x bladed does. With such huge amount of thrust its easy to to perform many aerobatic stunts and trick in the air with full confident from simple roll barrel, loop, inverted flight to nifty skills such as knife edge to inverted flat spin.

Overall inside the Phoenix simulator the plane is extremely fun to fly under the hands of experienced pilot especially for those who love aerobatic flights. Extremely agile, nimble, quick stick response and extremely floaty too. For now i can say it has become my favorite R/C plane to fly in Phoenix simulator since it can emulating all my favorite aerobatic moves like i always do in real world with my actual Pitts...sometime i felt like i don't need to go out under the sun to fly since i have the same thing inside the simulator, lol! For beginners it can be a overwhelming to fly since its a very quick response on the stick, so if you like to fly the Pitts then bump up the EXPO setup on your radio to low bowl curve on the graph (between 45% to 50% low "U" curve graph) and set end point (EPA) on all flight control capped between 80% to 100%. The good news is since you're on the simulator if you crash it will re-spawn back to new state, so you can repeatedly crash it and learn how to fly until you sharpen your skills.

Summary

Unfortunately this fun 'park-flyer' size plane no longer exist in the market both on physical store neither online all over the globe. HOBBY KING aka 'ART-TECH' - PITTS SPECIAL production have been discontinue since 2017 along with its sibling the HK P-51D Mustang and HK YAK 54 which all of them made from the same factory and EPS material. All of their model series are great flier which is why some of them i've turned into great FPV platform that lives on till this day. These planes are the 'Unicorn' in among hardcore R/C flight enthusiast who knew its 'gold' potential. One day i might lose this plane either due unexpected technical failure due to stress load or material aging over time for example plastic discoloring due to UV exposure and started cracking. To sum up everything not all R/C model can last forever especially foamy planes, so having it in digitized form is the only way to preserved its legacy and continue on into virtual world.

As i get older i do not wish to attached myself to much worldly material things and sometime i might have to move on and enjoy other things in life, but right now since i have my inner youth strength i will continue to enjoy the Hobby King Pitts Special bi-plane as it is both in real and virtual world. The best part for now that since the Pitts is in digital form now everyone that never have chances to own the HK Pitts Special now can enjoy flying it inside Phoenix R/C simulator and stayed forever in digital form! Yay!

Video

Tools used to create these custom model:

3D Modeler program: 3D Zmodeler v1.07 and v2.0 (*.OBJ support)
Compiler tools: Phoenix Builder v1.0.p
Texture editing program: Corel Photopaint

Related article & community

Here are list of article and links related to the above model.

Full gallery preview | Video preview | Download this Phoenix R/C model | OBJ model files only

*Installation instruction: How to install custom models in Phoenix R/C

*Note: This models are available for free distribution and for non-commercial purposes.
*'HOBBY KING' products is trademarks and copyright of the following company © https://hobbyking.com/ . All Rights Reserved.
*'ARTTECH and 'ART-TECH' products is trademarks and copyright of the following company © http://http://www.art-tech.cn/ . All Rights Reserved.

Hobby King Pitts Special bi-plane - Phoenix R/C simulator

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