Official FlightLine RC 1600mm P-38 Lightning Thread

[Sky Wolf]

You're a brave man Rifleman! Nice job on the flight.

[rifleman_btx]

Thanks brother, and yeah it was fun, I didnt do as many aerobics as I wanted to do due to the small packs I'm using, and still trying to get acclimated to flying in a camera again after 7 months flying without. But it was slowly coming back to me as I was flying along.

Solongsidekick: all of what you do really depends on how you want your view to be out of the cockpit. If you are looking for a realistic cockpit, just carefully cut the windows out. Then work from there. If you can get a camera with a tighter pitch radius than the fatshark system I used, it will allow more of the side window details to be utilized. As far as the osd equipment, what you need to do is make sure the voltage sensor is tucked away nice and neat so it will be out of the way of the canopy closure. Also be careful with where you install the main unit, especially using a vector or mini vector. As you know that unit needs to be mounted level and solid. Like I was saying before I designed mine just to be simple and low cost. I think I spent around 120 bucks total for the entire system. Also I wanted to have no cuts or modifications of the plane itself so if I brought it to a fun fly, it would be the normal unmolested airframe, where not one thing was changed from stock. My fpv setup is in it's own self contained canopy. So when you start if you run into something, I'll be happy to help figure out what can be done, I just have to see some pics and stuff of your vision, to what your ultimate goal to achieve with it. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[SoLongSidekick]

I meant specifically with cutting out the windows. Thin plastic either cuts or melts, and the vast majority of the time does the latter. Want to get the cut lines as clean as possible so you can't even tell they've been cut out. Can you post a closeup of the new setup? Is it identical to the old one?

Regarding the wiring and all that, I'm doing the same thing you are. That's why I'm mounting my Split board and vTx in the radio compartment. All other equipment will be part of the standard airframe so I can still take advantage of return to home on failsafe and stabilized flight modes while flying LOS. I might even have it auto return to home if the voltage gets below a certain level. Pretty sure a machine has a lot more discipline to turn around when needed than I do haha.

[rifleman_btx]

It is actually the same canopy I had with the old one. And all I did was use a dremel with a cutter wheel

[rifleman_btx]

It is actually the same canopy I had with the old one. And all I did was use a dremel with a cutter wheel. Just have to set it to a high speed and go very slow

[Saltydawg]

Anyone else have an issue with replacement wings as to none of the LEDs work? I transfer the servos from the old wings to the new ones, plugged in all the in and all flight controls work, but the LEDs don't. The formation light on the bottom works. I checked voltages at the circuit board pins and got 5.37vdc.
Guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has had the same issue and I might be missing something....


I did put the upgrade landing gear on and it looks awesome. It' a bit stiff, but I'm sure it will loosen up some rough ground launches and landings

[SoLongSidekick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFpLnPpDtY

[Hardway]

Anyone else have an issue with replacement wings as to none of the LEDs work? I transfer the servos from the old wings to the new ones, plugged in all the in and all flight controls work, but the LEDs don't. The formation light on the bottom works. I checked voltages at the circuit board pins and got 5.37vdc.
Guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has had the same issue and I might be missing something....


I did put the upgrade landing gear on and it looks awesome. It' a bit stiff, but I'm sure it will loosen up some rough ground launches and landings

All the lights would not work until everything was pulled in and ready to fly. So the blue box was the key with a common ground? I guess... Hope that helps some!!!

[Saltydawg]

Well, I did further T/S my LEDs. With my trusty multimeter on hand tested power out to the wing tip lights just as it would be ready to go fly. I eased off the clear lense caps and there i got 5.37vdc at the post where the LEDs are soldered onto the board. So I'm calling the LEDs bad. I also unplugged the wing connectors to isolate the LEDs and tried to do a bias check on them but got the dreaded 0L reading no the forward bias and reverse bias.

Oh well, I'm pretty good with soldering iron so I'll replace the LEDs. I figure it's not worth the shipping cost and time to Motion RC nor myself. I don't need lights to fly anyway as she does fly amazingly and float in on approach.

Hope you all are getting some air time as the weather here in Pennsylvania is horrible for flying.

[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!

[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]

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

[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.

[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.

[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

[Hardway]

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

[Dual Prop Dave]

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

Agreed!

[Saltydawg]

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

[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?

[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).