New E-flite P-51D 1.5

[SanExup]

Deterence by reputation! That is funny! At 19, what a beginning to adult life for your buddy.

[davegee]

davegee Nice Dave! I love this plane, it flies so well. (After replacing the wheels of course, it can't be said enough)

I look forward to seeing your Hun Hunter from Texas!

Thanks,! I think I will paint the prop spinner and nose band white later today. That will be a start to the repaint. Callie sells the Hun Hunter decals but I will have her make a couple of specialized decals that were on the real airplane that aren't in that decal selection.

Funny story: A good friend of mine, Bill, now 99 year old, was a 19 year old B-24 A/C based out of England in WWII. They finished their required 31 missions in almost record time, about 68 days, due to the fact that they flew a bunch of tactical missions to France at D-Day and afterwards where they flew two or more missions per day. Anyway, instead of coming home, his duty done, he volunteered for a new assignment, flying P-51Ds with a new Scouting Forces unit. These former aircraft bomber commanders would fly ahead of the big bomber formations to relay back weather, flak, and enemy aircraft concentrations. They would be the "eyes" of the bomber stream coming up from behind.

Bill got assigned a P-51D airplane painted up as WR*Z. He didn't think anything of it. But being attached to the 355th Fighter Group out of Steeple Morden England, The real Hun Hunter from Texas had had those same markings, but he had recently been shot down and captured by the Germans.

Bill flew many missions with the Scouts, even got a probable kill on a Me-262 jet on a mission. But having the same paint scheme and markings of one of the top aces in the ETO made Bill think some. He noticed that some German fighters would shy away from him when they got close. Bill thinks possibly those German pilots thought Henry Brown was flying that airplane, and they didn't want any part of that gunfight! We'll never know, but Bill got in contact with Brown after the war and shared his story. They had a good laugh over it.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

I had an aileron not work,, back in this thread,, so i permanantly connected all of that centre section wiring( so i cant separate it from the fuse) hav not had a problem since.. and i too always look forward to any daveegee rendition..

Hi F4U Aussie: yes, that is a good idea, and I had considered it. Back in the day, we had no fancy connectors like this, and I used color coded tape on each lead to easily put it together without error. I had been a little skeptical of this slick operation of sliding the wing into the fuse and everything is connected, no muss, no fuss. But in the end, I must have accidentally mashed the two together a bit when putting it together, and the problems began.

Well, I've got a new start with the replacement inner gear door servo that I installed yesterday. Everything has fallen into place with both planes. I will fly the new plane tomorrow, weather permitting, for another test flight. It's going to look pretty goofy for awhile as I get around to painting all the parts to the new Hun Hunter scheme. I think I'll paint the spinner and cowl band white today. That will be a start. I rarely remove the wing from the fuse on most of my planes as I have enough room in my truck to carry it intact, and that seems to keep some of these issues at bay. Bill always maintains that he was NOT a fighter pilot, but a bomber pilot Flying a fighter. He had no real training in fighter pilot skills so he feels that paint scheme might have saved his bacon a few times!

Cheers

Davegee

[f4u ausie]

I had an aileron not work,, back in this thread,, so i permanantly connected all of that centre section wiring( so i cant separate it from the fuse) hav not had a problem since.. and i too always look forward to any daveegee rendition..

[SanExup]

davegee Nice Dave! I love this plane, it flies so well. (After replacing the wheels of course, it can't be said enough)

I look forward to seeing your Hun Hunter from Texas!

[davegee]

I have had my E Flite P-51D for over two years now. painted it up, a complete redo of the WWII version of LOU IV flown by Col. TJJ Christian, Jr., the great grandson of General Stonewall Jackson of Civil War fame. I loved flying this airplane, just a great flyer. Once I replaced the stock main wheels with Robarts, the landings got much easier and they "stuck" on almost every decent approach and landing attempt I have tried.

Well, somewhere in there, maybe I misaligned the mating of the wing and fuse with all its connectors, the problems started mounting with electrical glitches. It got worse until it became totally unflyable. I told my friend Dan Grossman about it, and before I consigned it to the junkpile or parted it out, he agreed to take a look at it. He found one of the problems, I had misconnected one of the wires that made at least some parts go a little haywire. Also, there was a inner gear door servo that had gone bad, and he surmised that might also be part of the problem.

In the meantime, I had ordered a new E Flite P-51, thinking I'd paint it up in the same colors as the other one. But I tried one more thing: I put the center wing section from the new plane on my old troublesome P-51 LOU IV and the old center section on the new plane I had just bought. Well, Everything fell into place somehow! My old LOU IV was running perfectly now, and I took it out to the field the past two days and have flown it a ton. I'll attach a pic of it this morning after its 6th flight today.

The "new" airplane now doesn't need to be painted up as LOU IV, as I got it back in flying shape. So, I decided I will do a total repaint on the new plane, and paint it up as Hun Hunter from Texas, flown by Lt. Henry Brown, the top ace in the 355th Fighter Group out of Steeple Morden, England in WWII.

Now, I'll have TWO planes in beautiful paint schemes and airplanes I really love to fly! I've already removed the foam fairing that attached to the front of the vertical stab, as I did for LOU IV. They were both P-51D-5NA's, early model D's before they needed to add the stabilization with the fin fairing. The model has no such lateral control problems, so I'm used to removing this part and patching around the tail.

I'll report back progress on this redo to the new look.


Davegee

[davegee]

I've got to do a picture with all my smucked up birds that have been rebuilt back to flying status. The Bearcat, Tigercat, Avanti, FW P51, P 40, Pitts. Proof positive it can be done in some cases.

Grossman56

My F-4N that you saw yesterday that I didn't fly due to the wind has over 20 flights on it, but on one of the first ones I got a bit slow on final approach and it stalled and went in from about 4-5 feet high passing the threshold of the runway and landing in the grass. It severed the fuselage right at the cockpit. I did repair it and it looks ok, but I noticed when I flew it the cockpit was slightly "bent" to the left. So, I had to put in a little right aileron trim for it to fly straight. It still flies great, although I don't fly it all that often.

Cheers

davegee

[Grossman56]

I've got to do a picture with all my smucked up birds that have been rebuilt back to flying status. The Bearcat, Tigercat, Avanti, FW P51, P 40, Pitts. Proof positive it can be done in some cases.

Grossman56

[Grossman56]

Oh quite a while ago. This is Bearcat III

And this is Bearcat....I

I guess as Bearcat two was a rebuild after I smucked Bearcat I into the ground at Nefi.
Yes, that's right there is no more Bearcat II, this is actually all Bearcat I with the exception of the motor and ESC.
One of those cases where all the parts sat in a box until I asked myself
Can it be done?? Can I actually straighten out the nose enough to fly again?

Apparently so!!
She has some creases but that's okay, flies like a dream!
OV 10, my buddy Charlie Brown was there to witness the accident at Nefi, brought on by the fact that the receiver and gyro got wet in a rain storm. Hard to believe she 's flying again.

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

[Grossman56]

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

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[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

[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]

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

[Grossman56]

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