I first got started in R/C back in the late 70's and flew until the mid 80's when I get interested in full scale. Lots of great memories from back then with Sig planes, Kraft radios, Ugly Sticks, the smell of nitro engines running and the vroom vroom sound they make. The dislikes were being eaten by mosquitoes at the end of the flying evening as we cleaned the planes and packed them up to go home.
I got back into the hobby four years ago and have been purely electric. I do not want to deal with the mess of Nitro engines, the clean up and the tinkering to get the engine running perfectly and because of my knees.
Several guys at our field have the Hangar 9 P-51 and I fell in love it with quickly, it's a simple plane that everyone says flies really well. Of course it was discontinued years ago and when you can find one online they usually got for a lot of money or the seller won't ship it and of course they are never close to Iowa so I could drive to get it.
I found this one at our local hobby shop for $225, it was bind and fly and the plane has never flown nor has the engine ever been run. My wife made the heart and wrote my name in the dust on the horizontal stabilizer, she also took the video for me which gets fuzzy at the end for a short while.
I only had to do a couple of things to the plane to get it in the air. I replaced the flight battery with a new LiFe and got rid of the three bladed training prop and replaced it (and the spinner) with a nice Master Airscrew two bladed prop. I had help from two club members to get the engine tuned and the final preparations made for the maiden flight.
As I said earlier my knees don't allow me to get on the ground so my buddy Connor started the plane for me and Vince tuned the engine. Vince also loaned me a flight box with starter and some glow fuel to get me going. It's great to be in a club with some really good guys that have become friends over the last few years.
I know long term I will not keep this as a nitro plane, I was going to convert it to electric this winter however now I'm contemplating replacing the nitro engine with a gas engine, I really liked the vroom vroom sounds it made and gas is less messy. :)
This video is the maiden flight tonight (04/25/18). This is a sweet flying plane, I can see why they are in demand, I'm looking forward to getting more flights on it.
I got back into the hobby four years ago and have been purely electric. I do not want to deal with the mess of Nitro engines, the clean up and the tinkering to get the engine running perfectly and because of my knees.
Several guys at our field have the Hangar 9 P-51 and I fell in love it with quickly, it's a simple plane that everyone says flies really well. Of course it was discontinued years ago and when you can find one online they usually got for a lot of money or the seller won't ship it and of course they are never close to Iowa so I could drive to get it.
I found this one at our local hobby shop for $225, it was bind and fly and the plane has never flown nor has the engine ever been run. My wife made the heart and wrote my name in the dust on the horizontal stabilizer, she also took the video for me which gets fuzzy at the end for a short while.
I only had to do a couple of things to the plane to get it in the air. I replaced the flight battery with a new LiFe and got rid of the three bladed training prop and replaced it (and the spinner) with a nice Master Airscrew two bladed prop. I had help from two club members to get the engine tuned and the final preparations made for the maiden flight.
As I said earlier my knees don't allow me to get on the ground so my buddy Connor started the plane for me and Vince tuned the engine. Vince also loaned me a flight box with starter and some glow fuel to get me going. It's great to be in a club with some really good guys that have become friends over the last few years.
I know long term I will not keep this as a nitro plane, I was going to convert it to electric this winter however now I'm contemplating replacing the nitro engine with a gas engine, I really liked the vroom vroom sounds it made and gas is less messy. :)
This video is the maiden flight tonight (04/25/18). This is a sweet flying plane, I can see why they are in demand, I'm looking forward to getting more flights on it.
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