Official FlightLine RC 1600mm P-38 Lightning Thread

[rifleman_btx]

Yes that is your battery cooling port. Keep it open, especially if running all the fpv equipment in there

[SoLongSidekick]

I am so beyond glad that I waited to put this model together, knowing that I would constantly change my mind and come up with better ideas. For one, does anyone know if the triangular cutout in the bottom of the nose needs to be left unobstructed? I just realized how stupid easy it would be to design and 3D print an FPV camera housing that will snap into that cutout. God semi-flexible filaments have changed what is possible so much. Now I just need to see if I can find a flat OD green filament or if I need to go black.

[SoLongSidekick]

I kind of wished I bought my plane from that retailer that will install carbon fiber reinforcement into this plane for a fee. It's kind of expensive, but the planes come out damn near invincible, I'd name the company and post some promotional video showing the results but I don't know Hobby Squawk's policies on doing so.

Because of the box shape of the P-38 the carbon dowels essentially make it into a tank, at very low added weight. I think they'll do the reinforcing after the fact if you send them your plane, but price. It could probably be done somewhat easily DIY, but I haven't ripped one of these planes open like they have to see where the carbon should and needs to go.

Anyways, here's some cool period Lightning advertisements. You might need to right click and "open in new tab" to read a couple of them. I also have a full gallery showing the construction of the P-38 from beginning to end. Trying to figure out the best way to upload that, it's 25 images.

[rifleman_btx]

Mine lost both outer wings, the center section was broken in 3 places, the nose was broken off, both booms were busted in at least 3 places in the right side, and 2 on the left side. Plastic and carbon fiber were also busted in places. So yeah it was a total loss

[Elbee]

Working on the P-38 (finally) to get her airworthy again. The cockpit has been holding me up. Since I damaged the original one on a hard landing. Since I had to swap out the original pilot with the Aces of Iron pilot I bought, I finally broke down and added some detail to the radio equipment. It is a little rushed, but I'm ok with the results.

I used some polystyrene rods and like 30 gauge wire for the wire bundles. I was able to put 4 pieces of wire together and twist them up. Worked perfectly. Then just added some paint. Nothing fancy, but adds some flare.

Arycon, I know I am late to this response, but I am a cockpit detail kinda guy. Love what you are doing. I have this model on my 2018 wishlist. Best, LB

[Dual Prop Dave]

Glad to hear your going to save it. looking forward to seeing the pics of the progress. Keep us posted. I love flying mine also, along with the Tigercat, they are my favorite planes!

[SoLongSidekick]

That's a great idea. I love embracing things like that. Gives the aircraft character.

[Saltydawg]

I'm actually doing both, rebuild all the sections i can and replacing what i cant. I love flying the 38, so I'm replacing the booms and center section for now. All the gear is actually ok, the only damage is the wire bent and I'll straighten that. I've ran all servos and landing gear on my tester for about 3 minutes and they all work great.

As to the overall rebuild, the only problem I have is one of the carbon fiber tubes on one boom and one wing cracked/splinterd. I pain takeningly split that boom and found a plastic tab it was glued into. The tab reinforces the vertical stabs/rudder. The wing spar, I'm thinking of getting another tube and just epoxying it inside the origial tube. On both outer wings of course....

Of course anywhere it cracked in two or has a substantial crack I'll reinforce with carbon strips or fiberglass. Then all get servos, links and motors....bla bla
I'll get some pics of the insides ans stuff for y'all.

When done I'LL HAVE TWO 38s! Once done with the crashed one I'll have to paint it that 1940 test aircraft color, paint a bandaid on the nose, and stencil TEST on it.


Y'all have a good one.

[SoLongSidekick]

I wasn't planning on trying to add a rearview mirror to my canopy since it's not going to be very scale looking from the outside anyways with the FPV setup, but then I thought about how cool it would be to have a usable mirror up there that I can just look up and use. Obviously it would have no real-world application since this plane won't be in any dogfights, but I have an HD camera in my cockpit. It might be possible to get footage where the camera looks up and sees another plane in that mirror. So I guess at some point I'll be posting footage tests with different mirror sizes to see at what distance a plane would have to get to be visible in the mirror. Obviously this mirror will have to be considerably bigger than a scale one, so we'll see.

Anyways, here's a few more of my interesting P-38 images. Make sure to check the image text at the bottom of the screen when viewed.

[SoLongSidekick]

Ooph that hurts. That was my question when purchasing this plane. I noticed that there is a litany of replacement parts available, but they are pretty expensive. Rifleman, have you calculated what it would have cost to fix your plane instead of replacing it?

For Salty's plane it looks like $40 for the nacelle, $15 for the upgraded nose landing strut, and potentially $15 for the nose retract and $4 for the plastic landing gear mounts. With a (potential) total of $74 that's not too bad relatively speaking.

For a complete foam body replacement it would run $50 for the main wing, $50 for the outside wings, $40 for the nacelle, $100 for the left and right booms, and $35 for the horizontal stabilizer. Total of $275, rounded up to $300 for random plastic parts. At that point it makes sense to just buy a new replacement and then have spare parts from the wrecked airframe (if you plan on getting the bird back in the air at all obviously).

[Dual Prop Dave]

Sorry, they didn't upload when submitting for some reason.... probably operator error....lol

OUCH!!!! :(That sucks! Do you plan on rebuilding or replacing the :p38?

[Saltydawg]

Sorry, they didn't upload when submitting for some reason.... probably operator error....lol

[Dual Prop Dave]

:(:Straight-Face::Not-Talking:

Agreed!

[Hardway]

:(:Straight-Face::Not-Talking:

[SoLongSidekick]

Well my P-38 had an uncontrolled elevator incident a few days ago. Yes, it was ugly too. On about the 2-3 flight just after taking off and starting a left hand turn and climb-out, she went unresponsive in pitch starting to make a long slow loop. Trying to recover at the bottom of the loop she was still wanting to poop again. In order to avoid hitting anyone and miss other planes in the pattern. I let her loop again only this time at the apex of the loop I chopped throttle. Thinking I could let the props windmill and us drag to slow it down. Obviously something we wrong in the pitch channel.

Warning the following images may be disturbing to some viewers.....

Post crash inspection found the possible cause. The elevator servo connection had come loose. Not sure how but it only makes sense. The elevator servo was put on a servo tester for 2 minutes in auto mode with no failure of the servo.

There's a special place in hell for people who tease pictures then don't come through. :P

[Saltydawg]

Well my P-38 had an uncontrolled elevator incident a few days ago. Yes, it was ugly too. On about the 2-3 flight just after taking off and starting a left hand turn and climb-out, she went unresponsive in pitch starting to make a long slow loop. Trying to recover at the bottom of the loop she was still wanting to poop again. In order to avoid hitting anyone and miss other planes in the pattern. I let her loop again only this time at the apex of the loop I chopped throttle. Thinking I could let the props windmill and us drag to slow it down. Obviously something we wrong in the pitch channel.

Warning the following images may be disturbing to some viewers.....

Post crash inspection found the possible cause. The elevator servo connection had come loose. Not sure how but it only makes sense. The elevator servo was put on a servo tester for 2 minutes in auto mode with no failure of the servo.

[crxmanpat]

Pulled my P-38 down this weekend and did some repairs from a bad landing (broken prop blade, busted nose retract, bent struts, loose main gear mounting plates). Everything is now good to go and I'll be taking her up again this weekend.

By the way, I use a single Zippy Compact 4S 6200 pack in mine. The pack is pushed all the way to the rear of the battery tray.

[rifleman_btx]

Well I just have a small bag and the rest of the room goes to planes!

[SoLongSidekick]

Speaking of traveling, I'd love to see how you guys transport your P-38s long distance and with space at a premium. My family has a roundhouse in San Felipe, Mexico and I would hate to not be able to bring it down (and of course this model is way too cool to just leave down there). Packing space is always lacking, so I've been thinking about designing a rooftop box. If I can find an affordable material that's light enough I'd like to build a rigid housing that's slanted on one side to be more aerodynamic. The box would be filled with pick-n-place foam and be hinged at the point circled in red (so it would have a big hinged top). This way I would easily be able to fit my P-38 and its accessories (which it will have a lot of because of the added bottle rocket launchers and their single-use disposable components), my micro quad gear, racing quad gear, and my camera quad gear. That would allow me to add-on the P-38 and gear while reducing my amount of R/C bags from 1x small briefcase, 1x 1620 cu/in backpack with a racing quad hanging off of it, and 1x somewhat large rectangular backpack; down to 0 bags. I could transport everything safely inside one case.

The easiest way to do this is with plywood, but that's extremely heavy and would likely need to be replaced pretty quickly. I could get plastic sheeting and weld it together at the seams, which would be lighter and longer lasting but still on the heavy side. The best way to do it that I've come up with is having a fabric cover made that would fit around a foam skeleton with holes cut in it for the gear, then have it close with a zipper. But the problem with that is expense. I haven't had it quoted yet but it can't be cheap. Only other thing I can think of is getting lucky and finding an existing Mule-type product that's big enough and adding foam. Anyone else have any ideas?

[rifleman_btx]

I will be, as I have made it to Oregon last night. Planning to fly at the coast with the seawind and my fpv wings. Can't wait!