What did you fly today?

[davegee]

"post mortem" on right main gear failure on E Flite P-51D 1500 mm aircraft yesterday.

I mentioned in previous post of flying one of my P-47s and the E Flite P-51D LOU IV yesterday. Just to recap, I had 6 flights on the P-51 yesterday, one takeoff and landing per flight. On the final flight (6th) yesterday, I brought it in for a normal 2 point, tail low landing, and during the rollout, the right gear folded and the plane came to a stop. I don't think there were any undo sideloads or stresses on the gear, and I probably have at least 60-70 flights on this original gear for the past two years that I have had it.

Damage was minor, just the usual scrapes and cuts on the underneath of the wing that are easily repaired and repainted. The flaps were full down, and I noticed that the right flap where the gear failed stripped its servo gears so I ordered a new one of those, too.

I took the gear retract apart this morning. In almost all cases in the past for me, when I get a gear fail on landing, it has almost always been a cracked black plastic housing for the retract that was overstressed and broke. Easy enough, I just replace that retract with a new one, and off I go again to fly. However, in this case, when I pulled that gear out of the wing and ran it on a servo tester, I found to my surprise that there was not crack in the housing, and the servo drives perfectly when cycled. There is no problem with the retract itself. What WAS the culprit was the metal trunnion (I "think" that's what they call it) that has four little arms that fit into the metal shuttle piece on the threaded drive rod that moves the gear up and down. Two of these were broken off at the base. I am including a photo with a paint brush handle pointing at the two flanges that are now missing.

As I said, I was really surprised that these broke off during the landing, that wasn't all that bad, probably in the normal category of what I would call a safe landing. I don't think they sell just replacement trunnions to change out on this otherwise normal, working retract unit, so I have already ordered a replacement retract for the gear and that flap that I mentioned earlier.

I'd be interested in any thoughts on this, if you have found this trunnion fails regularly, or rarely in your experience. It could be just crappy Chinese pot metal, or maybe all these flights I've had on it finally weakened it to failure. At any rate, this plane will be ready to fly again once I get the new servos.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

[/QUOTE]

[davegee]

You did a great job on that P-51.

Thanks, Coconut!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

You did a great job on that P-51.

Thanks, Hugh. Some paint schemes are pretty easy to suss out for scale details and painting. But planes like this one, LOU IV, are a complicated mix, and underwent many continuous changes and embellishments and you just have to pick a time to "freeze" as it came from a different look just a few weeks previous, and would change a few weeks in the future.

This particular plane had a very short life, unfortunately. Col. TJJ "Jack" Christian, Jr., traded in his B or C razorback model LOU III for this brand new D model (P-51D-NA-5), without the dorsal fin fairing between the top of the fuse and the vertical fin. He flew this plane for only a couple of months, and he and LOU IV came to grief leading a dive bombing attack on a railway terminal In northern France on August 12, 1944.

I sorta like that look without the dorsal fin fairing. I guess when they cut down the spine of the razorback P-51 for the bubbletop, they lost some stability in doing that, thus coming up with the fix for adding a triangular piece of aluminum fairing that we see on most all P-51s these days. They had the same problem with the P-47 converting it to a bubbletop, and they also added the dorsal fairing on that plane, too.

One of the most famous aviation photos in WWII was "The Bottisham Four" a publicity shoot taken from a B-24 over England on July 26, 1944, as I recall. In this picture you can see Col. Christian's plane closest to the camera, with three other pilots from the 361st Yellow Jackets in tight formation. It's sad that within just weeks of these photos being taken that day, all four of these aircraft and pilots were either destroyed and killed, or severely wounded in action.

[Hugh Wiedman]

davegee Outstanding work on all of those. I truly admire your scale work!

[Coconut]

You did a great job on that P-51.

[davegee]

With a little better weather this morning, I put two planes in my truck and went out to the field. At first it was pretty cold with a steady crosswind, but I forged ahead as the temps slowly climbed a bit and the winds subsided some. It was still a bit rough and turbulent at altitude, though.

My oldest P-47D FMS model, named "I Wanted Wings/Button Nose" was the first one up and I got three pretty good flights on it. Hadn't flown it for some time. I did put on the bazooka type rocket tubes, just for grins. These were used here and there during the summer of 1944, but their effectiveness was called into question. There was no guiding them, no gunsights for the pilot to improve his aim, and you couldn't jettison them after use so you had to fly back to base with these pretty high-drag tubes. Other, better type rockets were later used on P-47s and other fighters. After three flights I called it good for the day with no scrapes or damage, which I'm always happy about.

The P-51D E Flite LOU IV is a favorite of mine, although I have problems with the tires. I have changed out this and my other plane The Hun Hunter from Texas with the 3.5 inch Robarts. They definitely help "stick" the landings versus the stock hard rubber wheels that come with the kits, but they're not perfect. I flew LOU IV 6 times today, great flights, but on the last landing during the rollout, the left gear folded and it skidded to a stop. Minor damage, however, I suspect the plastic casing for the retract failed, and thus the folding of the gear on rollout. I'll have to investigate as it still operates up and down, but I bet that when I remove the retract for inspection, I'll find a crack in the housing that I'll have to send for a new retract. This is original equipment on this over two year old plane, so it's possible that a crack has been developing for awhile and finally just gave way. Once I get a new retract, I should be good to go again. I find especially once you get these E Flite P-51s in the air, they are about as good at realistically flying like the big birds as anything I have flown in rc.

I've spent a lot of time trying to get this paint scheme as close to what I believe was accurate to how it looked in the summer of 1944. LOU IV was painted on the left cowl, and ATHELENE was painted on the right cowl. Athelene was the wife of Col TJJ Christian's crew chief, and Christian allowed his loyal crew chief to embellish the aircraft with his wife's name on it.

I feel spring is coming, sooner or later!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

We've had typical late winter/early spring weather with some snow, cold, and windy conditions. Not the best for flying so I've stood down from flying for a couple of weeks. Today looked better, light winds, although pretty cloudy and chilly weather. But I brought my venerable Corsair and my "weather ship" EFlite Beech 18 to assess the weather/winds conditions before I took the Corsair up. I like to do this on a regular basis if there is any doubt about how things are going "upstairs" as I know the Beech 18 can handle it and I can land almost anywhere into the wind or with a crosswind safely.

The Beech 18 flight I did a slew of touch and go's just for fun, and brought it down after about a 6 minute flight. This plane just "sips" battery power the way I fly it, so I had tons of charge left when I landed.

I took the Corsair up for about a 5 minute flight, doing the usual aerobatics that Corsairs are known for. My favorite with warbirds for a finale is to do a high speed run over the runway, then pull up sharply in a pitch out maneuver, bringing the power way down and dropping the gear and flaps, continuing to a downwind leg. I then do a descending 180 degree turn to the runway for a wheel landing, tail low. Looks pretty cool, and this was often how they recovered fighters after a mission. I find I like the routine maneuvers that I am very familiar with, and usually puts me in a good position for a good and safe landing.

Checking the weather through the week, possible to drag out some other airplanes the next few days. We're due for some light snow on Wednesday, but other days might work out to sneak out there for some flights on my other planes. I'll post a shot after I landed today. This plane is really a joy to fly. I commend the folks at MRC and Flightline for coming up with such a nice flying and looking airplane!

Cheers

Davegee

[DCORSAIR]

Nice day here in Ca. so I got out the Cobra and the F-16 for some flights, hadn't flown the Cobra for a bit and was all over the place...

[ridgerunner]

Goosky S2

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got a few out last week at was able to get some nice photos. No boring videos like I usually do! The F4's and F16 (just upgraded to 8S), the F18 Canadian, 8S EuroFighter and Extreme Flights FW 190 "Red Tulip". The F4's and F16 fly incredible on 8S (should've upgraded long ago), flying 5-6 minutes on the new SMC 8S HiV 5900 pack. A couple photos of each below, but for the full "Monty", go to the video.

[ridgerunner]

First real outdoor backyard session this year. 11 packs through my new direct drive micro heli fleet (Eachine E120S, Goosky S1 and S2.)

The S2


The S1

[davegee]

I just got back from the field to test fly my new Penrod and Sam makeover with the larger, more scale V3 Corsair prop. I also flew my "weathership" E Flite Beech 18 to test the air for turbulence, crosswinds, etc beforehand. I always do that before I put up one of my more valued birds. I was very happy with the flight results using the big prop today, which I also have installed on my other FMS P-47s. Couldn't have had a better flight. The winds are supposed to pick up now for the next few days so I'll probably be standing down from flying until next week sometime.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Man that is very nice! Great job on the paint and scheme!

Thanks, peajay5. It was a fun makeover and allowed me to detail some of my personal favorite things to do on these airplanes. I am going to add a few more photos taken just a couple hours ago when I got a flight on with the new V3 Corsair prop which is much more in scale to real thing. The stock prop works fine, I guess, but it looked a bit goofy to me when you look at photos of the real airplane! Flies beautifully on this larger prop.

Cheers

davegee

[Peajay5]

had a good morning flying today. I dusted off my B-2 in its foam crate, checked it out in my shop, and flew it this morning. Hadn't flown it since last fall. A bit rusty on takeoffs, but once it is in the air it is a thing of beauty, a real cruiser! I was doing circuits at around 50 percent power, got several presentation passes (couldn't take any pics since I was flying it and I was the only one at the field!) Got a reasonable, and safe landing out of it. This was the 32nd safe flight on this airplane.

Also brought my newly repainted FMS 1500mm P-47D razorback. I looked through my records, I flew it the last time on January 30 in the stock Bonnie paint scheme. After that last flight, I took it off of flying status and started working on the new Penrod and Sam paint scheme. So, it was only 3 weeks from start to finish and a new flight in the new scheme. That went pretty quickly, although I put a lot of hours into that 3 weeks to get it finished!

This was the 8th flight on this plane, the first in the new scheme. Flew exactly the same as before, with the short stock prop on it. I am going to remove that prop and put the V3 Corsair prop on it now, which is much more to proper scale. My other jugs have this prop on it and it works very well on them.

Here are some shots from this morning's flights.

Man that is very nice! Great job on the paint and scheme!

[Turbinefancy]

Elbee Thank you, Sir! - TF

[Elbee]

Turbinefancy, great video. Nicely done, Sir. Best, LB

[Turbinefancy]

One of the most beautiful aviation clips of all time in my mind is the closing scene in Top Gun movie, with zoomed-in shots of two Tomcats lighting their burners and barrel rolling into the sunset. I have always wanted to recreate that with RC planes. So I keep practicing formation barrel rolls any chance I get. Here’s the most recent attempt. Still pretty far apart, with way lamer planes, but I will get there one day

[davegee]

Look theirs that mountain again.. great shots and even better paintwork.. some of the euro theatre schemes were so colorful.. this one no excepption great job daveegee

Thanks, f4u aussie. I thought you'd like the positioning with Heart Mountain in the background again!🤣 I just swapped out the smaller stock prop with the larger V3 Corsair prop that we have both been experimenting with. Hoping to test fly it again tomorrow morning if the weather is suitable. Thanks again for your work in using the larger V3 prop on these airplanes. Maybe somebody else has done this too, but your posts were the first I saw on Hobbysquawk that inspired me to add this feature onto my P-47 warbirds.

Cheers

Davegee

[f4u ausie]

Look theirs that mountain again.. great shots and even better paintwork.. some of the euro theatre schemes were so colorful.. this one no excepption great job daveegee