Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[jetfool]

The plane is really taking shape now. Great job 👏. When you find a subject you really like it can be fun to keep adding more and more details over time, especially the ones that you feel comfortable flying. I have 4-5 Corsairs dating back years that I keep rebuilding and add more things to them. I like all your different versions of the P-47. Keep’em flyin!
Rex

[davegee]

The plane is really taking shape now. Great job 👏. When you find a subject you really like it can be fun to keep adding more and more details over time, especially the ones that you feel comfortable flying. I have 4-5 Corsairs dating back years that I keep rebuilding and add more things to them. I like all your different versions of the P-47. Keep’em flyin!
Rex

Thanks, Rex. I'm really looking forward to flying these Thunderbolts again, especially doing tests on the latest two with the CE prop domes and modified props with the cuffs. That probably won't be until February or March when I get the 3D prints back from my guy back east.

A couple of guys in our local flying club have ordered the Freewing B-2 stealth bomber. I have one that I maidened last year, and have put over 20 flights on it since. Packed it up in the fall as the plane best flies in near perfect weather conditions with almost calm winds. Seems to be a bugger in moderate or big crosswinds for some. I don't think I'll risk it in those conditions. Maybe we'll try to get a formation flyby next spring.

After these P-47s, I would really like to see on my wishlist, a good, large, scale looking B-17G, an F-105D Thunderchief, and I see someone has come out with a neat looking swing wing B-1B bomber. I'm doubtful since it is offered by Banana hobbies, which I've had bad luck with when I bought a plane from them once. And, I would surely like to see a good size P-47D bubbletop Thunderbolt. I could certainly build and fly a couple of those. Used to have the larger 1700mm FMS P-47, P-51, and Corsair, but I either sold them or they crashed or wore out a long time ago.

As you say, Rex, "Keep 'em flying!"

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee
I only have 1 experience with Banana Hobby. About 2018 I bought their Wildcat as a kit. It went together fine and flys really well. I bought it because of the scale retracts and I have never had a problem with it. I fly it scale and not really fast, which it can be if so desired. I have heard horrible posts of this company but I received good service and the Wildcat is a great performer. My club member just bought one and no problem with service. My .02
I hope Motion comes out with some nice warbirds this year. Sounds like everyone is ready for something new.
Rex

[davegee]

Davegee
I only have 1 experience with Banana Hobby. About 2018 I bought their Wildcat as a kit. It went together fine and flys really well. I bought it because of the scale retracts and I have never had a problem with it. I fly it scale and not really fast, which it can be if so desired. I have heard horrible posts of this company but I received good service and the Wildcat is a great performer. My club member just bought one and no problem with service. My .02
I hope Motion comes out with some nice warbirds this year. Sounds like everyone is ready for something new.
Rex

Hi Rex: I only dealt with Banana Hobby once, when I bought a 1700mm FMS P-47D bubbletop from them. I had some electronic problems with it but they were of no help. This was probably 10 years ago or more. I finally gave up on it and donated it to a local aviation museum and they hung it up for display. I got the tax writeoff. I later bought another from different company and this one worked fine. Flew it for years. Never did business with Banana again, but it is encouraging to hear stories like yours that are much more favorable.

The B-1B is a BIG plane, I think is over 71 inches long, which could be an issue getting it in my truck to the field and back. But I'll just have to see how things pan out and if it is a doable addition to my stable, or not. I flew with a few guys who had previously flown the "Bone" with the air force and really liked it. I think it looks pretty cool. Hope it flies as well as it looks. The videos are encouraging.

davegee

[davegee]

Hey Rex: remember you asked me about possibly adding some "shrink struts" to the main gear? I had some free time on my hands with the outside temp now -4 degrees F. outside, so I gave them a try. I used 1/16"aluminum tube, and then a piece of piano wire that slid easily into the tube. I drilled a small hole in the plastic strut of the main gear where the bottom screw attaches for the fixed gear door. I bent the end of the piano wire about 110 degrees or so and pushed it into the hole I drilled. Then I cut a section of the aluminum tube to where it comes close to the bottom of the retract, but doesn't touch or get in the way of anything when retracted or extended. The shrink bar does move into the tube some on landing or whenever the wheel shaft compresses a bit on a rough surface or on landing.

I glued the aluminum rod at one point on the plastic scale housing of the main landing gear strut, and it seems to ride just fine there, at least in the shop testing. The acid test will be when I take it out on the runway taxi, and fly it. This was a just for fun project. I probably spent 10 minutes on it , armed with a couple good photos of the real thing in a book.

I'll attach two pics. They're not great, but maybe you get the idea. One is shot from the front, the other from the back. The piano wire attaches to the bottom of the strut where it would normally to "shrink" or pull the wheel up about 9 inches so it could get into the wheelwell.

We'll see how it goes. No big deal if it doesn't pan out, but for now, it's looking ok.

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
That looks great. I knew you could do it. Lol
your plane is really going to stand out at your field. Most people don’t give a sheeeeeeeeet about doing the details but will point out to their friends all the outstanding planes at the field. Most stop to watch a high detailed plane fly too
Keep up the good work, Rex

[davegee]

Davegee,
That looks great. I knew you could do it. Lol
your plane is really going to stand out at your field. Most people don’t give a sheeeeeeeeet about doing the details but will point out to their friends all the outstanding planes at the field. Most stop to watch a high detailed plane fly too
Keep up the good work, Rex

Thanks, Rex. I think almost all of the guys in my local flying club couldn't care less about details like this, and that's fine. I have a friend in the club who really appreciates attention to detail, so we can play off of each other with ideas. At scale contests in the past, especially Scale Masters and Top Gun, of course we were with our own kind, and even though we were in competition with each other for trophies, I think we all appreciated each other's fanciful ideas and good engineering behind what they did.

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Cruising the Web this morning I see that FMS Models P-47 can still be purchased new on their site. HH shows them backorder status. Good to know these are still available.
Rex

[Evan D]

It has been said that HH lots their rights as exclusive distributor for FMS. Fair is the US distributor.

FMS 1500mm P-47 Thunderbolt Bonnie PNP w/Reflex V2 (fairrc.com)

[davegee]

I have a question. I've had a total of 4 of these P-47D razorbacks through the years. One crashed a long time ago, the other three are doing great and rarin' to go this Spring. My latest one that I bought a couple of months ago. I noticed on the main gear struts the slot in the strut where the screw rides up and down with the spring inside is on the front of the strut. All the others in the past were on the back of the strut. Not a big deal, but I have some scale decals that go on the front of the strut, but I can't do that with the slot now in the way on this latest one.

My question is: is there a way to rotate the strut so that slot and screw are on the backside of the airplane, like my others are?

I'll attach a pic from FAIR, which shows replacement parts for this plane. They show two strut/gear assemblies side by side, and if you look carefully, you can see that the screw and spring face forward in this pic. Perhaps they redesigned it for whatever reason, but I would sure like to reverse the direction of that slot to the back, if possible.

Any thoughts on this are appreciated. Not a big deal, I can live with it if I have to.

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Are the scissor blocks removable? If so maybe you can turn the strut 180’ and reset the scissor block. Not having seen these in person just my.02 Rex

[Grossman56]

I'm wondering if it's like my FMS P51. If you back the screw right out of the upper strut, everything below comes off, including the spring. I know this because of a mishap when I inadvertently took off without said screw and when I landed, the whole thing separated! Luckily I found all the pieces including the spring and reassembled it in less than 5 minutes. Worth a try...
BTW the scissors are hit and miss as to whether they'll swivel, but since they're replaceable.

Grossman56

[Ron1950]

you can still get the p47 at the source RC Warbirds (fmshobby.com) comes out of Tallahassee fla

[davegee]

Davegee,

Are the scissor blocks removable? If so maybe you can turn the strut 180’ and reset the scissor block. Not having seen these in person just my.02 Rex

Thanks, Rex. I haven't ventured that far yet with these. It doesn't make sense to me that they would have suddenly reversed the front and back on the strut after all these years of them working just fine the other way. Aesthetically, it looks much better with the slot and screw in the back where it is functional but not really seen as part of the model. I appreciate they have shock absorbers with the spring, just not showing up to look like a toy or model.

I'll check into it further. I don't really want to possibly destroy a gear playing around with it when I have no spares at the moment!

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

I'm wondering if it's like my FMS P51. If you back the screw right out of the upper strut, everything below comes off, including the spring. I know this because of a mishap when I inadvertently took off without said screw and when I landed, the whole thing separated! Luckily I found all the pieces including the spring and reassembled it in less than 5 minutes. Worth a try...
BTW the scissors are hit and miss as to whether they'll swivel, but since they're replaceable.

Grossman56

I think I have to do some "surgery"" or at least probing to see if I can turn those around as you say. I'm guessing that maybe they for whatever reason started to put them together at the factory reversed like that with the strut barrel slot in the front instead of the back, and that became the standard. Who knows. But if I can move that slot to the back on this one, I can probably do that on any ones in the future. I'm thinking, since it's probably a good idea to have at least a couple of spares anyway, to buy a set of the landing gear and experiment on those. I'll report back what I find.

[davegee]

Davegee,

Are the scissor blocks removable? If so maybe you can turn the strut 180’ and reset the scissor block. Not having seen these in person just my.02 Rex

Hi Rex: I just ordered a set of P-47 landing gear to try to suss out how to reverse the landing gear barrel direction with the slot. If I can't do it without ruining them, I'll just leave it like it is, but I'm hoping I can fix them to how they used to be.

BTW, I just pulled the trigger on a Prusa mini. A little over $500, including shipping. Supposed to get here in 2-3 days. If you eventually get one, I'm sure you, me, and LB and converse on this subject ad infinitum!

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Fantastic purchase. It would be great to have guys that have the same interests to talk over their projects. Just left the hobby shop in Indianapolis and they are building a B-17(144”) in house. Three guys,each doing specific parts of the build. One guy is 3-d printing the cockpit, crew members stations. And his detail is incredible. 4 DLE20s. They hope to fly it next year at the Nationals I may get to help them making metal parts for their landing gear
A 3-d Prussia is definitely in my future Rex

[davegee]

Fantastic purchase. It would be great to have guys that have the same interests to talk over their projects. Just left the hobby shop in Indianapolis and they are building a B-17(144”) in house. Three guys,each doing specific parts of the build. One guy is 3-d printing the cockpit, crew members stations. And his detail is incredible. 4 DLE20s. They hope to fly it next year at the Nationals I may get to help them making metal parts for their landing gear
A 3-d Prussia is definitely in my future Rex

Totally cool on the new huge B-17 model build, Rex! I wish them luck for a successful build and flying of this plane. I'm partial to the B-17 as both my dad and father in law flew them in combat during WWII. My father in law is still alive and kicking, just turned 100 last October 30. He still remembers very clearly his time in the USAAF and afterwards flying transports in the Korean War. He finished 35 combat missions in Europe, and not a single major injury to any of the crew, although they had some close calls. He was 22 and a A/C on the B-17G at the time...

Davegee

[Grossman56]

As for the struts Dave, it doesn't surprise me. The FMS QA team seems to have slept for a while now. Remember the issue with the P 40? The rudder would turn one way and the tail wheel the other . Turns out they had the rudder servo backwards and on the wrong side. In other words, the guys that inserted the servo mount in the fuse before molding, inserted upside down!
New P 40, note the rudder servo on the lower position in the pic.

And Old P 40 with the rudder servo in the correct (upper) position.


WHOOPS! I pulled the servo turned it around and ground out a slot in the correct position.
So don't be surprised it this is simply another QA failure on the part of FMS.

Grossman56

[davegee]

As for the struts Dave, it doesn't surprise me. The FMS QA team seems to have slept for a while now. Remember the issue with the P 40? The rudder would turn one way and the tail wheel the other . Turns out they had the rudder servo backwards and on the wrong side. In other words, the guys that inserted the servo mount in the fuse before molding, inserted upside down!
New P 40, note the rudder servo on the lower position in the pic.

And Old P 40 with the rudder servo in the correct (upper) position.


WHOOPS! I pulled the servo turned it around and ground out a slot in the correct position.
So don't be surprised it this is simply another QA failure on the part of FMS.

Grossman56

I think it is a screwup somewhere in the past. My other two older planes have the slot in the back, and I'm certain my first plane was the same way when I had it several years ago. It didn't really dawn on my that the strut was backwards until it seemed like I didn't have enough room for the placards that go on the front of the strut because that slot was in the way! Well, I look forward to getting the two new gear, which I'm certain will be glued together backwards, and if I can get those pieces off without breaking them and rotate the strut 180 degrees, hopefully I'll have a fix. We'll see...

It's disappointing to have this problem, but much more so for your P-40 to have the problems it had! I never had a P-40, not sure why I didn't get one, as I always thought they looked cool.

Hope to see you out at the field when we get some decent tolerable weather for flying and light winds. That might be awhile, not sure....

Cheers

Dave