Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[Grossman56]

Looks amazing Dave!
She flew as well as she looks I gather?

Dan

[davegee]

Davegee,
The photo's look fantastic. Your flight tests are a great help for those of us that are wanting to try the same thing. FMS should put you on their payroll for inovations.



Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. Since about 2000, study of the P-47 Thunderbolt has been a passion of mine. I enjoyed the challenge of converting this foamie, much thanks to James in California who did all the heavy lifting to make this conversion possible. I don't hold out much hope that FMS or any other company will make a model that will be acceptable to me as a bubbletop, but I haven't totally given up yet. And if that never happens in my lifetime, I'm happy I have this one completed and flyable.

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,
The photo's look fantastic. Your flight tests are a great help for those of us that are wanting to try the same thing. FMS should put you on their payroll for inovations.



Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Absolutely stunning Dave great 👍 job congratulations on maiden

I remember our collaboration on putting the larger prop on these FMS P-47s a few years ago. That has been a wonderful mod, my flights with them you just have to be a bit careful not to scrape the prop tips on takeoffs or landings. Not too hard to do, but you have to be careful. But it sure Looks great with a more scale prop on it!

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

I got two more flights in on my Hairless Joe, and one on my Freewing F9F Cougar. Both flew great.

On the second flight of Hairless Joe, I mounted a scale foam 108 gallon drop tank on the belly, attached to the EFlite drop servo. I used the "I" button on my DX 18 transmitter and pickled the tank when it passed me at about 80 feet altitude. Just as expected, the tank immediately became unstable, tumbling end over end to the cross runway below. Just made a small dent in the aft end of the tank but it worked great. Powered canopy hanging in there great.

A few more pics from today.

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

That will be perfect! Looking forward to doing a photo shoot at the field sometime soon.

[Grossman56]

Absolutely!! Do you know if the scale of the two airplanes is the same? The P-47 is 1:8.28 scale. No matter, it would be a great photoshoot on a nice day with the two of them!

Cheers

Davegee

Yeah, Callie said it was closer to 1/8 than 1/7 so it should be good.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[Grossman56]

Actually, all I did was copy the link from your E mail and posted it here, it worked!

[davegee]

Absolutely stunning Dave great 👍 job congratulations on maiden

Thanks, Craig. Thanks to Danger Dan, I now have posted the short videos on the canopy movement that I tried to download several days ago. I'll have to see how he managed that!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

That's too bad. The P-47 has loomed large for me since I got into rc flying in 2000. I started with a few trainers, all glo powered at that time, and built and flew three Aerotech 1/6 scale P-47s that were flown in scale contests around the country. Those three airplanes are now in museums around the USA. Building this foamie was a nostalgic throwback to those happy days. Thanks for making the effort to do this conversion. Had you not presented yourself, I would probably never have done this project.

Best,

Davegee

[f4u ausie]

Absolutely stunning Dave great 👍 job congratulations on maiden

[vrosi1963]

Very nice Dave , i guarantee this is the only bubble conversion, people are way to unmotivated as i have found out with the two forums atm. this will be the last conversion i will help with

[davegee]

Success!! First flight of the new Hairless Joe bubbletop in the books as the 5 minute long maiden test flight was performed, plus about 15 minutes of ground and taxi tests. There were no surprises on this one, one of the best maidens I have had in my long time of flying rc airplanes since 2000. Everything was like an old shoe as I have been flying this FMS type P-47 when they came out about 2016.

I used three flight modes which helps compartmentalize various modes of flight and keeps them stored for future flights. Even so, there really was very little trim needed in any of them. If anything, the tail wheel throw is a bit more than I like and I'll tone that down some for takeoffs and landings. But with the Thunderbolt's wide stance on its gear it tracks nicely and scale for both takeoffs and landings.

I'll probably fly a few more flights to duplicate what I did today, and then start adding practice drops of the centerline drop tank, which has already been done several times on my other P-47s.

Very pleased and relieved that this first flight with the highly modified changes to a D bubbletop went so well. Good on James in California for his great work on modifying the fuse and designing and making the bubbletop canopy/windscreen that stayed on solidly during the flight.

Below are some pics from just about an hour ago at the field.

Just for grins, the other day I added a scratchbuilt rearview mirror that you can see at the top of the windscreen. I modeled it after an actual one that I received at a museum in Kalamazoo, MI that is now about 85 years old and in perfect shape. When they gave it to me 20 years ago, it was still wrapped in protective paper wrapping since it had been manufactured during WWII. To my amazement and delight, the mirror had not degraded in the least, and sits in a place of honor in our "O-Club Bar" in our basement, which is a good place to go for a beer and has a lot of memorabilia from WWII and my wife's and my dad who were bomber pilots in England during the war.

Talking with Danger Dan Gross the other day, we think this is the only 1.5m bubbletop foamie P-47D in existence at this writing. Maybe we'll get others to modify their FMS P-47 razorbacks to bubbletops someday.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16_7...?usp=drive_web

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ipUaihU9wKPmQ1OUAtjyOWrHb5jTN0xm/view?usp=drive_web

Trying to see if I can get Dave's videos to open.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Works for me, Dan! Thanks so much for that! You'll have to tell me how you did it someday, for future reference.

Cheers

Dave

[davegee]

Works for me, try it!

Dave, the P 47 looks amazing. Have the decals for the P51B ordered, we'll have to get the two together for some photo shoots. they both may be the only ones of their kind?!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Absolutely!! Do you know if the scale of the two airplanes is the same? The P-47 is 1:8.28 scale. No matter, it would be a great photoshoot on a nice day with the two of them!

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

Works for me, try it!

Dave, the P 47 looks amazing. Have the decals for the P51B ordered, we'll have to get the two together for some photo shoots. they both may be the only ones of their kind?!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[Grossman56]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16_7s85xh6omgV7F1kkcIeP7ixrmhoGl-/view?usp=drive_web

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ipUaihU9wKPmQ1OUAtjyOWrHb5jTN0xm/view?usp=drive_web

Trying to see if I can get Dave's videos to open.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Thanks, Rex. Glad to help out if you decide to do an M model. It’s one of my favorite warbirds.

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Excellent work Dave! Makes me want to do a P-47M. Best of luck on first test flight.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Well, the construction phase is mostly done, time to start on the ground and air testing phase. I'm hoping to do the maiden this week, possibly as early as Wednesday, weather permitting. That is a bit iffy, especially winds, but we'll see.

Attached is a pic of the plane after the last screw and nut had been installed. This is still a work in progress and I'll change things as needed, especially with a prototype mod from a razorback to a bubbletop with powered canopy. The bomb/drop tank mechanism is already installed and I'll test that on future flights.

Cheers

Davegee