FMS 980mm P-39 mods

[Prowler901]

Sounds about right. That's the most frustrating part of detailing these models.

[F106DeltaDart]

Just finished up painting the shark mouth.

[Prowler901]

Sweet! That's a really nice job. It's tough to keep it all aligned and even around the curves on the nose.

[Westsider]

Scary good! All you need now is the girl swimming and it would look like a Jaws poster. Killer!

[rifleman_btx]

Wow looks awesome, great work :)

[F106DeltaDart]

Wow looks awesome, great work :)

Thanks! I finished up the paint, and several months of refining the retract design. Over 10 flights now without a retract issue! Doesn't sound like much, but that's a huge milestone when you are trying to rebuild the design of a retract. Just need to do the nose gear doors, and get the final markings from Callie!

[rifleman_btx]

Awesome! I know the pains of retracts

[rifleman_btx]

Big and little sisters side by side

[Teeks]

Nice work, it looks great!

[F106DeltaDart]

Big and little sisters side by side

Totally missed this! Looks nice, is it built from blue foam or foam Board?

[rifleman_btx]

Blue core foam blocks and the wings are 8 layers of blue core 1/4" sheets the landing gear were set up with the flight line p38 strut upgrade kit, and the retracts and retract mounts are also all from the p38 as well. They worked really well. Also the motor is mid mounted and all runs off of a 4s 5000 40c battery. Great flying plane too.

[F106DeltaDart]

Nice! I'm sure its pretty stable with that extra tail area as well, and replicating the mid-mounted motor is no small feat! I'm hoping to get back to working on mine soon as well. Just have to add nose gear doors, and it will be finished.

[rifleman_btx]

Heck yeah! I can't wait to see the finished product ☺

[rifleman_btx]

I also was gonna ask, do you fly off grass? And if so do you have any issue with nose gear drag of rotation?

[rifleman_btx]

One of the nice things about using the layers method on the wings was making split flaps was an easy accommodation.

[F106DeltaDart]

I also was gonna ask, do you fly off grass? And if so do you have any issue with nose gear drag of rotation?

Sorry, I don't fly off grass. I fly off of a rather bumpy geotex runway. I would imagine you would need pretty short cut grass to fly this one without the nosewheel strut getting bent from takeoffs and landings.

[rifleman_btx]

So far it hasn't bent, but it does have an insanely high pucker factor when it gets off the ground, almost stalls out right away.

[F106DeltaDart]

Do you use any flaps on takeoff? One of my jets (LX F-35) tended to sharply jump off the runway similarly to what you describe and that completely disappeared taking off with half flaps.

[rifleman_btx]

I use half flaps. I'll try no flaps next time