New E-flite P-51D 1.5

[f4u ausie]

Flew mine 2 weeks ago ,, at a new park.. always flies well, but landing ,, was sure i was past the tree.. b4, descending,, naa.. hit it... no major damage,,rippedout 1 gear bent nose.. only bit of glue req.. wasnt grumpy its been a while since, any damage,,... if thats an e flight, lota work to paint like that... having a bo on my corsair but will not b up to that standard.. small amount damzge still , obvious,, right han front.. o well

[davegee]

Ouch! Sorry that happened, f4u aussie! But it's obvious from all the flight marks on the side of he cockpit you got a LOT of FUN out of it so far. Looks like it is definitely repairable. If it were me, I'd probably take it apart and sand down the damaged part of the fuse, fix all the wrinkles and dents with a sandable putty of some sort, reprime it and repaint it. If you don't want to go through all that "brain damage" you could buy a new fuselage and transfer all the innards of your old plane into the new body. I'm confident one way or the other you'll get it back into the air, again!

davegee

[f4u ausie]

It faired pretty well,, aready back in the air.. will hav fun first.. finish corsair first.. thanx

[davegee]

It faired pretty well,, aready back in the air.. will hav fun first.. finish corsair first.. thanx

You bet, f4u ausie: Glad you got it back in the air again ok. You can always work on it when you get a chance when not flying it!

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

I'm always looking at improving the looks or performance on my planes if I c an justify that something I add is scale to the real airplane that I am trying to make a replica. Most of the painting was reasonably straight forward, but I still had lingering doubts on a few of the things I painted up this airplane. One of them was the sorta "cloud pattern" on the sides of the fuselage. I just thought that they would be the same basic color of the original airplane which was a RAF Dark Green. However, through looking at more photographs and pulling up discussion threads that have been going on for years about subjects like this, I too became convinced that these "cloud patterns" were not green, but black. So, I took the plunge and painted them last night. The difference is striking, and I have to admit that aesthetically I like green better, but I am pretty sure they were black. They definitely stand out on black and white photos as much darker than the green. So, I'll just have to live with it. The real plane was probably painted this way, and photos that I found of it really won me over to that side of the conversation. Not a big deal, but I am always striving to do better, if I can . I'll attach a couple pics of the model, and a photo of the real airplane.

[Grossman56]

Yep, I can see what you mean Dave, good eye! Even the two tones on the wing stand out now that I really look at them.

Grossman56

[davegee]

Yep, I can see what you mean Dave, good eye! Even the two tones on the wing stand out now that I really look at them.

Grossman56

Thanks for your concurrence, Dan. It looked really weird at first due to it being green for over two years, but I'm getting used to it, and pretty confident that I did the right thing, for scale accuracy.

dave

[f4u ausie]

Scale is scale, no matter what the color,, i once would not have said that... now i get it.. i can only imagine, how exciting to find old ww2 pics . If only color was the norm.. there is more pics in atticks to be seen..im sure.. even here in ozz,, it may not b a f4u or p51,,... i would b awstruck to c some ww2 pics of a wirraway ,,,, or p40 flown out of new guinnie.. just no spelling wrong again.. o well point is, ya cant no where ya goin if u dont no where ya came from.. corny,, but true cya

[davegee]

Scale is scale, no matter what the color,, i once would not have said that... now i get it.. i can only imagine, how exciting to find old ww2 pics . If only color was the norm.. there is more pics in atticks to be seen..im sure.. even here in ozz,, it may not b a f4u or p51,,... i would b awstruck to c some ww2 pics of a wirraway ,,,, or p40 flown out of new guinnie.. just no spelling wrong again.. o well point is, ya cant no where ya goin if u dont no where ya came from.. corny,, but true cya

Wise words from Down Under. f4u aussie! Black and white photos make it tougher to get paint schemes correct, but still you can glean a lot from subtle shades and knowing what colors they "probably" are by how they look. One of the most famous photos from WWII is one they called The Bottisham Four, where four P-51s flew formation with and by a B-17 camera ship over England on July 26, 1944. I'll post one of those photos below, and it is very helpful in making small corrections to the paint scheme in the effort to always get it right. You probably can never attain perfection, but I strive for that and get as close as I can, within reason.

This photo shows Col. Jack Christian, Jr. in the lead position flying LOU IV, the commander of the 361st Fighter Group operating out of Bottisham, England, just east of Cambridge. There are three P-51Ds, (notice that Jack's plane in the lead has not had the dorsal fin fillet attached yet as was typical with very early P-51Ds) and an older P-51B in the background in the 4th position of the echelon formation.

Sadly, within weeks or months of this photo being taken, all four planes had been destroyed, and two of the four pilots killed, and two injured in crashes. It was anything but "routine" flying!

[Grossman56]

Interesting that the exhaust 'stains' are different on either side, good catch there as well Dave.

[davegee]

Interesting that the exhaust 'stains' are different on either side, good catch there as well Dave.

On some of the Mustangs up to a certain point, there was an oil breather that exhausted some oil on the right side of the aircraft's fuselage. This was a classic weathering point on Mustangs during WWII. And the oil would follow the airflow over the wing so it made a streak on the right side of the fuselage of a graceful arc well above the top of the wing on the fuselage. These stains would occur on every flight, so I have always added them on Mustangs of that era. I think much later on, probably with air show planes, they rerouted this oil breather in some way so you didn't see them like you did on WWII airplanes. That's about all I know of that. But it looks pretty cool as a detail item, I think.

Cheers

davegee

[f4u ausie]

Wise words from Down Under. f4u aussie! Black and white photos make it tougher to get paint schemes correct, but still you can glean a lot from subtle shades and knowing what colors they "probably" are by how they look. One of the most famous photos from WWII is one they called The Bottisham Four, where four P-51s flew formation with and by a B-17 camera ship over England on July 26, 1944. I'll post one of those photos below, and it is very helpful in making small corrections to the paint scheme in the effort to always get it right. You probably can never attain perfection, but I strive for that and get as close as I can, within reason.

This photo shows Col. Jack Christian, Jr. in the lead position flying LOU IV, the commander of the 361st Fighter Group operating out of Bottisham, England, just east of Cambridge. There are three P-51Ds, (notice that Jack's plane in the lead has not had the dorsal fin fillet attached yet as was typical with very early P-51Ds) and an older P-51B in the background in the 4th position of the echelon formation.

Sadly, within weeks or months of this photo being taken, all four planes had been destroyed, and two of the four pilots killed, and two injured in crashes. It was anything but "routine" flying!

Bit of trivia 4 those interested.... here is couple pics of this p51d being saved,,by a great pilot.. lost engine on takeoff.. its on blancolirio channel ,, u tube ive paused it many times, think u r correct about the black paint mod recently done daveegee . By u.. if i was smarter i would just post the vid ( have to get kids to show me) o well u guys will find it on u tube... 26 march this happened

[davegee]

Bit of trivia 4 those interested.... here is couple pics of this p51d being saved,,by a great pilot.. lost engine on takeoff.. its on blancolirio channel ,, u tube ive paused it many times, think u r correct about the black paint mod recently done daveegee . By u.. if i was smarter i would just post the vid ( have to get kids to show me) o well u guys will find it on u tube... 26 march this happened

Interesting! I had not heard of this incident. I just watched Juan Brown's analysis on his Blancolirio channel. Really a headsup, standup job by that pilot. I think the runway was only about 6,000 feet long to begin with, so he didn't have much room at the end to get stopped! Bravo!

I also like that this plane is in the colors of Col. Jack Christian, Jr.'s airplane, CO of the 361st Fighter Group in WWII. I like this one SO much more than the blue-painted plane airplane colors that E Flite's plane comes in, being based on an airplane that was painted that way on the air show circuit some years ago.
Davegee

[davegee]

On some of the Mustangs up to a certain point, there was an oil breather that exhausted some oil on the right side of the aircraft's fuselage. This was a classic weathering point on Mustangs during WWII. And the oil would follow the airflow over the wing so it made a streak on the right side of the fuselage of a graceful arc well above the top of the wing on the fuselage. These stains would occur on every flight, so I have always added them on Mustangs of that era. I think much later on, probably with air show planes, they rerouted this oil breather in some way so you didn't see them like you did on WWII airplanes. That's about all I know of that. But it looks pretty cool as a detail item, I think.

Cheers

davegee

I did some additional research on the oil breather port on the right side of the cowl and the oil streak it made when the plane was flying. I found out that in WWII, this port was cut off close to flush with the fuselage, and the oil emitted from the port would get all over the right side of the fuselage in a graceful arc which followed the curve of the airflow over the wing.

On later post-WWII aircraft and especially aircraft on the airshow circuit today, many planes have this port extended outside of the fuselage panel some distance, maybe a couple inches or so, and by doing that the oil that comes out of that tube disperses into the air and not on the fuselage. Just a minor point but I'm glad I found an answer on that between WWII and modern day Mustangs.

[Grossman56]

I watched that video a few times, the pilot was simply amazing!! Of course, some of these guys have more time on type than the guys who flew her in the military, still, it doesn't take away the high degree of skill this guy demonstrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTtv4uODWXE
Check it out

Grossman56

[davegee]

I watched that video a few times, the pilot was simply amazing!! Of course, some of these guys have more time on type than the guys who flew her in the military, still, it doesn't take away the high degree of skill this guy demonstrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTtv4uODWXE
Check it out

Grossman56

Yeah, Dan, you could see in the video that the engine failure occurred right when the gear was being retracted into the wheelwells, followed immediately by them coming down again. Landing straight ahead was the only and perfect choice to make, and he was even able to make a turn at the end of the runway without collapsing a gear under the strain. Extremely well done.

On one of my FMS P-47s once, I was taking off and had a partial motor failure, pretty much in the same place as that real P-51 did. I was too far down the runway to abort (plus I had no brakes installed on the plane!) but knew once I had it in the air a few feet I couldn't try nursing it around the pattern or it would stall and be destroyed. So, I cut what little power I had and sorta "mushed" it straight ahead into the sage brush off the end of the runway. The sage made a bunch of scratches on the bottom, but nothing too bad was wrong structurally with the airplane. I think I might have ripped out a gear but that was easily repaired. I ended up fixing those scratches at a later date when I was doing some other mods to the plane.

I found out later that one the Anderson Power Poles that I had installed to connect the battery to the ESC was intermittently malfunctioning. I replaced them and haven't had any problems since, fortunately.

[Grossman56]

Those good old sagebrush bushes. Years ago when my wife was flying her Apprentice, the prop shaft came off and took the prop with it. Fortunately she had about 40 feet of altitude and a very light plane. She almost made the runway and managed to set it down right on a sagebrush, we pulled the needles out of it and that was the only damage. I got a new prop shaft and we lock-tited the thing on. They're normally held on with a set screw collar which is really mickey mouse to me. Never came off again to my knowledge.

Grossman56

[davegee]

Those good old sagebrush bushes. Years ago when my wife was flying her Apprentice, the prop shaft came off and took the prop with it. Fortunately she had about 40 feet of altitude and a very light plane. She almost made the runway and managed to set it down right on a sagebrush, we pulled the needles out of it and that was the only damage. I got a new prop shaft and we lock-tited the thing on. They're normally held on with a set screw collar which is really mickey mouse to me. Never came off again to my knowledge.

Grossman56

Cool. I used to have the 1700mm FMS P-47D, Corsair, and P-51D. I think my P-47 finally wore out, I sold the Corsair to a friend, but my P-51D had a spectacular end. I took off as normal, retracted the gear, and was climbing out. All of a sudden, the entire motor mount WITH the motor and prop blade and spinner departed the aircraft! It sailed in an arc and crashed some distance from the plane. The body of the plane, now without all the weight and power the motor gave it, now stalled and crashed hard into the dirt off the end of the runway. Pretty much totally killed. Those plastic motor mounts just broke off, wasn't the bolts that got loose. So, not much I could do about that.

The good thing is that I didn't feel all that bad about what happened. I had flown the Crap out of the airplane, had a ball with it so many times. I don't think I had much problem mechanically with it except the gear struts weren't as strong as they should be for a plane that large and heavy. Had to replace a few of those. But it was a good experience, overall. I got my money's worth out of that one, and more.

davegee

[Grossman56]

Ron is still flying that Apprentice, I sold it to him to fund Bearcat III

Grossman56

[davegee]

Ron is still flying that Apprentice, I sold it to him to fund Bearcat III

Grossman56

Have you purchased Bearcat III already? What paint scheme?

davegee