Official FlightLine F4U-1A Corsair 1600mm (63") Wingspan

[Dougcarr73]

Congratulations on your maiden. Video was awesome. All Corsairs look great. Wish our weather was as good as yours. Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. We are definitely blessed here in the southeast. Barring the occasional storm, we have great flying weather year round. I tend to go a bit further and push the limits with strong winds, low ceilings, and even light rain, which widens the envelope of opportunities for me to fly while the faint of heart say, "nope."

I'm primarily a jet guy, but after watching the movie "Devotion" I developed an affinity for the Corsair warbird and began my search. The Black Horse Corsair has a relatively complex build process, so not today on that one. The 1.2 & 1.4m Corsairs were small and lacked some scale details. The Flightline 1600mm was a great option, but lacked a retractable tailwheel (I could compromise on that), but then the 1700mm FMS bird had attractive size and detail, but was significantly underpowered. It was an easier modification for me to fix the power issue on the FMS than to do what Elbee's doing on the tailwheel, so I went with the FMS. I added an 8S ESC and I'm thoroughly satisfied with the result. That beefy ESC also added the necessary weight that made the plane achieve CG perfectly.
Happy New Year, Doug

[jetfool]

Doug,
The FMS Corsair is the correct model F4U-4 that was used in Korea. You flew it like you had a lot of flights on it in your video. Great flying.
I flew my small cub New Year’s Day at club field, it was foggy and I lost sight of so I am cutting down a tree today. Glad it wasn’t a expensive model. Probably should not have flown but club members were having fun so. Rex

[Elbee]

I had a successful maiden of my Christmas gift (1700mm F4U Corsair). My buddy was kind/skilled enough to get some drone chase footage of the event.

By the way, Elbee, if you apply any of those engineering skills to the FMS Corsair, I'd definitely pay money for one of your upgrades.

DC, Congrats on your 1^st Check Flight. I thank you for compliment, though 'skills' isn't quite the way Tamms sees it. ..."How long before it flies?........you must be kidding."

The FMS Corsair is quite a looker. Lots of scale factors seemingly compromised for reasons known only to the FlightLine folks, but there you have the motive for what I have been doing.

I will post all the Corsair STL Files and pictures once I have completed my version to Prusa Printables repository which is an open format.

The Freewing F-18C Cockpit Set has been posted there for some time. Author Name is Stevie.

My point is presumably the files would be scalable enough to translate to the FMS bird.

Best to you in the New Year, Doug.

Steve

[Aros]

I had a successful maiden of my Christmas gift (1700mm F4U Corsair). My buddy was kind/skilled enough to get some drone chase footage of the event. Check out the vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GwGxeurpDs

By the way, Elbee, if you apply any of those engineering skills to the FMS Corsair, I'd definitely pay money for one of your upgrades.

Well done! Congrats on the great flight. I always enjoyed my FMS 1700 Corsair but definitely agree on how underpowered it was. Sounds like you upgraded perfectly. Cheers!

[Elbee]

Looking Super, LB! Do you have any plans for tailwheel doors, versus "no doors"......Cheers, davegee

Corsair Crew and davegee, Thanks for the link to the WW2 podcast on VMF-114. Great information and story for sure.

Also, a quick update on my Tailwheel Assembly or as it will be known from this day forward, "The Corsair Tail-wheel Dress-Up Kit " all painted and installed sans actual wheel and tire.

Note that the pics show only 1/2 of the tire/wheel as these were printed in halves as "drafts" and hurriedly painted to get a better perspective.

I think a bit more detail than OEM though not what could be done, but there will be another FlightLine Corsair in the future.

In any case, I will deal with the screw heads when I weather the bottom side a bit.

Hope to be printing the tire in a day or so, still waiting on the TPU and hopefully it works well enough to do tires for tail wheels.

I do think in the final version, the wheel will be a bit smaller and the tire a bit larger in profile, but definitely headed in the right direction.
I'd be more confident with actual scale drawings to work with, but where's the fun in that?

Best, LB

[jetfool]

Looking better and better. Elbee I will look in my documents tomorrow, I think I have the Vought drawings of the tw/retract plans.
Grandson called today, said he had some more parts. Met him after school and floored me with what he is working on. Still has more to print.
Sanding the non scale seams smooth today. Using the wife's nail sanding sticks. All different sizes and med./fine grit. Makes it very smooth with the fine and small enough to sand in tight spaces. Have to buy new ones tomorrow before wife misses them. My buy and fly is turning into a labor of love. Best Regards, Rex

[Elbee]

Looking better and better. Elbee I will look in my documents tomorrow, I think I have the Vought drawings of the tw/retract plans.
Grandson called today, said he had some more parts. Met him after school and floored me with what he is working on. Still has more to print.
Sanding the non scale seams smooth today. Using the wife's nail sanding sticks. All different sizes and med./fine grit. Makes it very smooth with the fine and small enough to sand in tight spaces. Have to buy new ones tomorrow before wife misses them. My buy and fly is turning into a labor of love. Best Regards, Rex

Rex, looks like the parts printed well! .

Would you ask your grandson if those parts were printed in one attempt?

I would like to know how well the designs translate to other users.

Also, I would like to know some stats on their printer, i.e., Make & Model of printer, Nozzle size, Slicer Program being used, Filament Type, and Filament Manufacturer.

I would greatly appreciate those stats.

Best, Steve

[jetfool]

Will do Elbee. If grandson doesn't know I will see the teacher at our next indoor fly Sunday. Teacher did say he didn't know if he could print everything, I will find out and report. Something about print in box form? I need to clean the parts I have so I start to understand where they go and thinking of ways to get it installed without slicing off the nose. Will wait to see if all the parts are here first before going very far. All in All, I am thrilled that grandson is involved in making these, He just grins when I pester him about the next part. Your approach to designing these parts, that fit well for others is a true gift you have.
I know they have the mini-prusa and several larger printers that the class uses. I will try to find out more. Best Regards, Rex

[Elbee]

The Cowl Flap Support Ring (for lack of a better description) and the cowl flaps need to work together flawlessly with a slip-fit as you can tell. Therein lies the rub, obviously, for print quality, filament choice, and nozzle size. Good luck and it's a good idea NOT to make any cuts on the fuselage at this point.

[jetfool]

Guys, my Corsair new in box has the Stars, Black markings already installed. Since I am sanding the seams and mold markings and plan to repaint, should I mask over or remove these markings and replace with Callie graphics? I'm thinking I'll remove everything to get a better finish. If so is there a better way to remove these so I don't ruin the foam? I read that someone used lighter fluid to loosen the glue around the canopy. Your thoughts and suggestions.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Hi Rex: If those early markings that came with your plane are exactly where you want them and look good and are the correct size, you "could" tape them off and respray around them them saving the chore of pulling them off and then going through the process of smoothing and repairing the foam underneath. But on my planes, usually the markings were not in the correct place, or proper size, color, etc., so I had to remove and replace them with more accurate Callie markings. With my bigger airplanes posted here earlier that were made of wood, fiberglass, or carbon fiber, I always used paint masks and painted everything on, including all the nomenclature, like they did on the real ones in WWII. But I just don't see that being possible with foam as the masks pull the paint up with them when removed. I think in all of my foamie models where I was changing to a new scheme, I ended up pulling off all of the stickers. There was usually something wrong with all of them.

I have not heard of lighter fluid to remove them, don't know if that would work or not. Maybe you could try a sample decal on another piece of foam first to be sure nothing bad happens, like melting the foam, or something! I think the Hypocratic Oath of modeling says: "First, do No Harm!" (LOL)

Can you tell me which paint scheme you eventually plan on painting it? I'm assuming it will be an earlier F4U-1 with the birdcage canopy?

Let me (us) know what you decide to do.

Best,

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,

I think I will remove them. The black strips are not on Ken Walsh’s first Corsair. The stars cover the under wing identification lights too. So more work to do.
I want to do Ken Walsh scheme. He enlisted as a private and worked his way up to flying fighters. He had to have driven determination to keep at it and I respect that in him
Dave, are you adding the retraction rods on your p-47 to simulate that detail?

Best Regards. Rec

[davegee]

Davegee,

I think I will remove them. The black strips are not on Ken Walsh’s first Corsair. The stars cover the under wing identification lights too. So more work to do.
I want to do Ken Walsh scheme. He enlisted as a private and worked his way up to flying fighters. He had to have driven determination to keep at it and I respect that in him
Dave, are you adding the retraction rods on your p-47 to simulate that detail?

Best Regards. Rec

I think that is a very noble project to do, of Ken Walsh's airplane. He made a tremendous contribution to our success in the war in Asia during WWII. I also think you are probably better off, even though it will be more work after you carefully peel the stickers off, as you will now have a "fresh canvas" and don't have to react to inaccurate or mis-sized decals that you have to work around. If it were me, I'd get all new stuff from Callie, in exactly the size, shape, color, and detail that you find on Walsh's airplane.

I did a total redo of the E Flite P-51D that is currently on the market. It is painted up as modern day paint scheme that has been used on a full sized P-51D on the airshow circuit. It is "roughly" a replica of the real plane flown by Col. TJJ Christian, Jr., the commander of the 361st FG out of Bottisham, England in WWII. Christian was actually killed in this same aircraft during the war, leading an attack on a rail yard in northern France in 1944.

At first, I thought I could just paint out the gaudy and inaccurate blue top cover to a olive drab. But what I opened was a Pandora's box! Turns out, every single decal or sticker applied at the factory might have been ok for the modern replica that they chose to model, but for an accurate WWII version of this plane, Everything had to go. I'm glad I didn't try to work around the stickers that were already on the plane. It was better to do all the work with my "fresh canvas" and everything was then scaled to fit this airframe.

Regarding the "shrinker bars", I might put something in there, I have done it before using a small piece of aluminum tubing on the back side of the strut. Interestingly enough, for bigger birds like I used to fly, they actually did make a landing gear with a Working shrinker bar that actually pulled the gear strut a scale amount of length to fit in the wheel wells. I think the real plane had a 9 inch long length that had to be shortened to fit in the gear well. All a matter of compromises, and I salute the Republic engineers for coming up with this ingenious design.

I will see how the shrinker bar looks, especially that it does not interfere with the extension or retraction of the gear.

Best,

Dave

[jetfool]

Ken Walsh’s plane is a simple paint scheme but with subtle weathering I think it will look good.
My first intention was to buy and fly this plane but after seeing it I realized it needed the scale treatment. Gives me something to look forward to during the long winter. We usually start weekly flying in late April early may.

[Elbee]

Governors of the "Gull-Wing",

Found some good pictures of the open tail wheel which looks more traditional. Much like the Robart MG Dress Up rims this prints similarly in parts.

Also, I have printed the tire several times with TPU (flexible filament) to find an infill pattern and percentage to allow for a "soft bounce" but not spongy or rock hard.

The TPU prints details well with some tinkering, but is quite glossy, so some weathering is needed. Note: tire has one coat of a grey/brown wash, wheel does not.

Note: my wheel and tire are not accurate to most Corsairs but more period-looking than the FL OEM.

Best, LB

[jetfool]

Elbee,

The whole tail wheel retract, wheel and tire looking great. Amazed by your 3-d designs. Do you ever sleep. Great job.

Grandson brought more goodies home today. Rex




+

[davegee]

Ken Walsh’s plane is a simple paint scheme but with subtle weathering I think it will look good.
My first intention was to buy and fly this plane but after seeing it I realized it needed the scale treatment. Gives me something to look forward to during the long winter. We usually start weekly flying in late April early may.

Sounds good. We have a few days forecast where the temps will be in the mid-40s, which to us is heavenly, especially if there is no wind. and under a brilliant sun It was just gorgeous today and I could have flown, but had to have my car taken in for an oil change and other things, too. We can fly on days like this in winter, our spring runs later than yours in Indiana, so warmer temps and spring flowers are delayed some.

You have plenty of time to work on your plane in the meantime!

Cheers

davegee

[Elbee]

jetfool Yeppers, got to get in my 8-8.5 hours-o-sleep each night. It just takes 10 hours to do that due to all the bathroom visits .

Last iteration of the open whee/tire combo; wheel is a bit larger in diameter, tire profile shorter and overall height a smidge shorter.

Wheel paint is okay but I will weather the entire TW assembly when I weather the bottom of the fuselage. Did a repeat of the brown/grey wash on the tire.

Had a couple of nozzle glogs with the TPU this afternoon, thinking it was due to the glue on the heat bed.

I have never used glue stick on the heat bed before this, but that was suggested by Prusa Folks when using 'flexible' filaments.

All your grandson's work seems to be paying dividends. Good lookin' parts there, gang.

Best as always, LB

[jetfool]

Learning new things and the challenges they bring is what keeps us young. T/W is shaping up nicely.
Grandson is doing great. I almost have enough parts for 2 Corsair
Your wheel hubs are spot on.

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

jetfool Yeppers, got to get in my 8-8.5 hours-o-sleep each night. It just takes 10 hours to do that due to all the bathroom visits .

Last iteration of the open whee/tire combo; wheel is a bit larger in diameter, tire profile shorter and overall height a smidge shorter.

Wheel paint is okay but I will weather the entire TW assembly when I weather the bottom of the fuselage. Did a repeat of the brown/grey wash on the tire.

Had a couple of nozzle glogs with the TPU this afternoon, thinking it was due to the glue on the heat bed.

I have never used glue stick on the heat bed before this, but that was suggested by Prusa Folks when using 'flexible' filaments.

All your grandson's work seems to be paying dividends. Good lookin' parts there, gang.

Best as always, LB

You couldn't get a better looking tire from Goodyear! Well done, Steve!!

Davegee

[Elbee]

jetfool and davegee , I thank you, Gentlemen. I have been thinking about a redesign of wheel/tire combo for some time, actually since the first time I dropped the gear and recognized it as the nose gear wheel/tire from my Freewing F-18C.

Gotta love those 'economies of scale' and I am not faulting anyone, I get it. It's the way to overall costs down, but I just wanted to do something, you know. Anyway, thanks again, Steve