Official FlightLine RC 1600mm P-38 Lightning Thread

[Aros]

Thanks for the advice on the collar guys, I will give it a try (from applying heat to the plier/rocking method).

Awesome Pat! Thanks for the clarification on the nomenclature!

[ryramZ]

I had to heat mine too.

[crxmanpat]

All decals have now been added except the specific ones for Putt Putt Maru. I will be placing an order with Callie shortly for those.

Got the landing gear hubs and struts painted silver, and also painted the screen I added to the intakes silver so they stand out better. And got the other spinner and prop finished.

All I need to do now is the red/yellow/blue paint on the tails, and maybe some exhaust weathering behind the superchargers.

[FLTRI]

I had to heat mine too.

How did you do that without melting the wheels? I was thinking my larger soldering iron???

[ruffneckx1]

I uploaded some info on the P-38 stencils placement on RCG. The files are to large to load here.

Woody

[tdevince]

For those with outer wing panel misalignment:
On my plane, the right wing panel is misaligned at the trailing edge, the left wing panel is pretty good.

I have my plane supported under the left wing inboard of the boom. On the right wing, I use the foam that held the wing panels in place in the shipping box and put that under the outboard panel of the right wing so that it rests in the middle of the outer flap on the right wing. This is pushing up on the flap/foam, realigning the trailing edge. I figure I will leave it like that until I'm ready to fly again and see if the foam takes a set to realign.

I'm hesitant to use heat to avoid expanding the EPO cells

[PlaneCrazy]

Nice detail work Pat! Stripes are especially difficult on spinners. I don't have that alignment issue you have. That's strange indeed.

I started some detail work of my own this evening. Used washers to gain close to scale raking in the nose and main struts...Looks much better! The nose is 105 degrees like the full scale but the nose gear door won't close as the wheel is now in the way. It strains the servo so I have two choices to make. Either keep the nice scale look of the forward 105 degree rake in the nose strut - which would mean cutting out a rectangular section in the door so it will close all the way - or go back to a less-than-scale rake and save the door.

I am leaning towards cutting the door. I know it's not scale but you don't even notice unless you flip her upside down. Photos below. Let me know your opinions if you don't mind.

Painted the struts and wheels. Unfortunately, I couldn't add my Robart diamond tread wheels because only 1 of the 3 hex screws would unscrew releasing the collar. The other are stripped or won't budge. So in order to get my upgraded wheels on, looks like some drilling and new collars are in her near future.

I also put long stripes of gorilla tape over the stock servo wire tape that keeps curling up. I then painted the tape, servos and wires the paint matching colors.

Bummed about the wheels but I'll get that taken care of soon enough.

Next up, antenna, screen mesh for the radiators and finally the livery.

Hey Aros...........I wouldn't be so concerned with the "rake" of the gear as I would cutting into the doors. Nobody's going to notice the "rake" and when flying the gear are not visible. This is not a static model and I think they went into a lot of effort to make the model look as scale as it could be and still have the 'COOL" look. Please don't cut the gear doors..................... !!!!!!!!

[ruffneckx1]

PlaneCrazy...have you considered rather than cutting the gear door adjust the arm to hold the door a little more off of the wheel ? That way there's no permanent damage.

Woody

[PlaneCrazy]

PlaneCrazy...have you considered rather than cutting the gear door adjust the arm to hold the door a little more off of the wheel ? That way there's no permanent damage.

Woody

Woody, I am not going to cut the doors.........I was pleading with Aros not to. This is not a plane that we will win with at the scale master's competition but a very nice semi-standoff scale plane that doesn't need to be butchered.

Andy

[Grossman56]

I hear your pain Aros, your like me, I just has to look right or it just isn't right, right?
Now, having said that, would going one size smaller wheel help without being too much of a distraction?
Is the foam of the door (I'm assuming that its foam) thick? Can you trim it a bit to fit?
Think it over, is there any other way to go, before you cut the foam.

Grossman56

[PlaneCrazy]

I hear your pain Aros, your like me, I just has to look right or it just isn't right, right?
Now, having said that, would going one size smaller wheel help without being too much of a distraction?
Is the foam of the door (I'm assuming that its foam) thick? Can you trim it a bit to fit?
Think it over, is there any other way to go, before you cut the foam.

Grossman56

G56,

The doors are hard plastic.

[Grossman56]

That makes more sense, thanks

Grossman56

[Aros]

NICE work there Pat! She's coming along beautifully.

Yeah I know, cutting the plastic door is drastic but I am a hardcore P-38 fan and part of the scale lines is that forward rake to the gear. Even though you can't see the gear in the air, you can certainly see it static and during taxi, takeoff and landing. I'm leaning towards a nice clean cut.

Here's what I believe is the first photos of the FlightLineRC P-38 with the LX B-25, both of which are 1:10 scale. Pretty cool, eh? :)

[PlaneCrazy]

So Aros...........who makes the B25? LX is not ringing a bell for me. I've got a B25 on my wish list at Motion. Are you sure they're both 1/10 scale. If so, I had no idea that the P38 was that large. Early in my career, one of my supervisors at North American Aviation in SoCal, flew B25's in WWII. My father-in-law flew P47's too, which is why I suggested Flightline consider a Razorback P47........would be sweet!
Andy

[Aros]

LX is Lanxiang Models, or better known as BlitzRCWorks from Banana Hobby. Yep, both are 1:10 scale...

[crxmanpat]

Both of those are very close to 1/10 scale. The P-38L is 624", and this one at 63" is right at 1/10. The B-25 is 811", and the LX one is 79, so very close.

[crxmanpat]

Oops, forgot my pilot had more kills than everyone else, and I had to make his name stencil anyway. And of course, I had to make myself Crew Chief. ;)

[Aros]

Sweeeeet...Love it.

[ruffneckx1]

Aros.......... " SAVE THE DOORS " !!!!!!!

Work is progressing on " My Little Pig ". A fair amount of masking. Hated doing the booms. Tomorrow should be able to pick up the last required colors and be done with painting.
Still doing some work on markings.
May not be completely done by SEFF but should be flyable.

Woody.

[TiredIronGRB]

NICE work there Pat! She's coming along beautifully.

Yeah I know, cutting the plastic door is drastic but I am a hardcore P-38 fan and part of the scale lines is that forward rake to the gear. Even though you can't see the gear in the air, you can certainly see it static and during taxi, takeoff and landing. I'm leaning towards a nice clean cut.

Here's what I believe is the first photos of the FlightLineRC P-38 with the LX B-25, both of which are 1:10 scale. Pretty cool, eh? :)

You can see my LX B-25 hanging from the ceiling in one of my shots ;)