Official FlightLine 1600mm P-51D Mustang Thread

[Grossman56]

Those tanks look absolutely great!
There's a picture of a guy holding on over his head in one of my Mustang books, shows how light they were.


Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

I just received the 3D cockpit kit, it a work of art, better than I expected!

Excellent! I'm sure a bunch of us would love to see some in-progress photos of your work as you put it together. I'm thinking of ordering a stock cockpit and then the detailed interior to have two cockpits I can use for this airplane. The stock airplane cockpit isn't "bad" but it can be so much better with this cockpit kit!

Regards,

Davegee

[davegee]

Davegee,
Great test of bombs and tanks. You should be one of Motions flight test eng. for future projects. If the planes fly great at your elevation they would fly anywhere.
Good Job, Rex

Yes, that's true. Higher altitude definitely affects aircraft of all types. I can tell that because of the thinner air, the True Airspeed (TAS) is higher and can make landings "sportier," for instance.


I can remember many years ago when we used to fly 727s into the old Denver Stapleton Airport, (5,300' MSL)you could definitely feel the faster speed over the ground because the true airspeed was higher, maybe 10% so, from landing at sea level. It made for some "interesting" approaches sometimes!

Cheers

Davegee

[handyman220]

I just received the 3D cockpit kit, it a work of art, better than I expected!

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Great test of bombs and tanks. You should be one of Motions flight test eng. for future projects. If the planes fly great at your elevation they would fly anywhere.
Good Job, Rex

[davegee]

Thanks, Danger Dan Gross did all the designing for them, he should take a lot of the credit! I have to work on some minor issues to better separate the tanks from the pylons when commanded. On the OEM pylons, they have one release clamp in the front and nothing in the back. I suspect an angled moment in the rear of the pylon might have had it hung up even though the front release probably worked. I'll come up with something and then try it again. The OEM pylons have two spring-loaded plungers that are under load when the ordnance is attached. Once the release is commanded from the transmitter, the plungers help give it a downward push for it to clear the airplane. It works fine on the bombs and the OEM foam drop tanks, but the large 110 gal. tank needs a little work to function properly.

[f4u ausie]

Wow those tank look the real deal.. very nice 🙂

[davegee]

Well, today was drop tank and bomb drop demonstration day with the P-51. I printed four (4) 500 pound bombs, two with a removable bolt in the nose for better ballistic trajectory and two with a removable scale nose fuze that can easily be used as droppables when you remove and replace the nose fuzes with the bolt.

I have two of the stock OEM 75 gal. foam drop tanks, today was their second drop test.

Also, I printed two large scale 110 gallon drop tanks, designed by Danger Dan Gross and I printed them up and converted them to be able to be dropped from the wing pylons of the model

First flight I dropped the OEM tanks, flawless, again. No issues with them in the least. Very impressive and well played by Flightline.

Second flight I ran a few racetrack patterns to be sure the 500# bombs were secure, and then came in for a fairly low level bomb drop as it passed perpendicular to my position with the transmitter. Again, flawless, they departed the airplane cleanly together in tight formation, and hit the dirt after a graceful somewhat ballistic arc to the ground. The noses dug into the dirt a bit, no damage at all. Very happy about that.

Last flight flew the large scale 110 gallon long range tanks. It was obvious that the plane struggled just a bit due to this extra weight and drag, mostly drag, but they seemed pretty solid. Once I flipped the switch to release them, nothing happened. I tried a few more times with the switch, and then decided to bring it in with the tanks attached for a normal landing. That did occur, but once the airplane touched down, both tanks dropped off and rolled to a stop. Just light cosmetic scratches, no real damage.

So, two of the three tank drops worked perfectly, the third went ok, with the notable exception not releasing when commanded. However, I did it several times on the ground, and of course it worked perfectly each time! So, there are some minor adjustments to do before the next test flight with those on board. Overall, I was pretty pleased with how things went.

I'll attach some pics of earlier today. Later this month I hope to get Dan at the camera and take some shots of the tank releases and post on HS.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Shop looks great Dave. Almost to good 4 a workshop

Yeah, Almost!! But that awful carpet just HAD to go!! You should see the work bench in our garage. That might look more appropriate for what you were expecting!😁😁😁

Actually, the people who we bought the house from almost 7 years ago, the wife made dog clothes in that room for little frilly dog pets. For us, owning bulldogs, that just wasn't going to fly. She had all these little sparkling sequins hidden in the carpet that we kept finding for years!


Cheers

Dave

[f4u ausie]

Shop looks great Dave. Almost to good 4 a workshop

[davegee]

Davegee,
Nice bombs and that shop looks great. I need to clean mine, so many things I'll never use again.
Our daughter and husband are driving to Oregon to visit some horse people and we hope they don't have trouble with the smoke and fires.
Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. I'll attach a pic I just took prior to a bomb drop test on the work table into soft pillows for the bombs. Worked perfectly, and I hope to do a flight test next week if the smoke clears out.

It's hard parting with some things that you have had for a long time. Today we just let go of some snorkeling/diving gear that we used on vacations and on my expedition to Palau in 2014. We just weren't going to use this stuff anymore, and it's good to free up space. A little sad, but that is life moving on, I guess.

Hopefully your daughter and her husband won't have problems with the smoke in Oregon where they are going. For us, the worst is that horrible human-set fire that destroyed almost 1,000 homes and structures in Spokane, WA. But it all moves east and if you are in the downwind path, you get it. We have a beautiful mountain just north of us a few miles called Heart Mountain, about 8,500' tall, MSL. Looking out my window right now, you'd not even be able to convince anyone such a natural mountain that tall even existed, for the smoke!

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Nice bombs and that shop looks great. I need to clean mine, so many things I'll never use again.
Our daughter and husband are driving to Oregon to visit some horse people and we hope they don't have trouble with the smoke and fires.
Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

This last week I've had workers in our house to redo my workshop. Instead of the old carpet that seems to "swallow" anything I drop on it like screws and such, this is a wood plank floor (probably faux wood). It looks so much better and brightens things up a ton! Plus, it was time to do a thorough cleaning and assessment of things I really need, versus things I don't use, won't use, and are better off in the trash. A lot more organized now and I hope to keep it that way.

On the FL P-51D front, I am working on finishing up my droppable 500# bombs that I printed up from Cults. I will be putting a replaceable bolt in the nose for weight to make it drop realistically, hopefully. I have done that with smaller printed bombs that I drop out of my FL B-25 and they work great.

Assuming dense smoke from forest fires further west from us like Spokane start to shift or die down, I'll try drop testing these bombs next week. I do have an identical set for static display I printed that have all the scale details on them, like nose and tail fuzes. I have already done a drop test from the airplane on my bench, and they should work just fine, I think. But that smoke is bad news. Besides eyes burning and coughing, I had a bit of a scare flying my F9F Cougar turning a long final approach the other day. The grey color of the plane just made it disappear in the smoky skies! I just kept looking for it, not changing the position of the sticks on my transmitter, and then, Out it Popped! I don't want to tempt fate twice on that score!

Here's a couple pics from this morning making bombs and my new shop look.

[davegee]

Glad you’re Back!!!

davegee

[Grossman56]

Holy cr@p!! I finally got back on !!!
It's like withdrawals when you can only look in but not participate!!
Now I'm afraid to log out!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

I got two flights on my HHH P-51D Flightline Mustang this morning, and got to test dropping the OEM 75 gal. drop tanks. I was ready to do more tests if anything went wrong, but the first test was perfect. The two tanks landed only about 8 feet from each other after being dropped from an altitude of 80 feet or so. No damage at all to the foam tanks afterwards.

Also flew my Cougar, and a great flight on it, too.

Next week, I hope to do a drop test of my scale 500# bombs from the same pylons used today. We’ll see how that goes. After that, once I get the shackles I ordered from MRC yesterday, I’ll drop the larger tanks currently in development.

davegee

image widget

[davegee]

Davegee,
Fantastic work! Qudo's to you and Dan on designing extra scale acc. for this plane. Have you seen on the other forum where a guy has installed an operable inner cooler/exhaust door underneath the fuselage. Kinda neat
Best Regards, Rex.

Thanks, Rex. Weather permitting, I'll be flying HHH tomorrow morning at my local field and test out dropping the 75 gal. fuel tanks to see how that goes. I have already flown them "captive," lightly glued onto the foam pylons to test if they had any bad effects on flying the airplane. Absolutely no problem with them attached, so it will be neat to see how they depart the airplane. These Flightline pylons have two spring-loaded plungers that put some pressure on the drop tanks or bombs, so that when they are released, they are pushed away from the airplane with gusto. Not sure if that is all that necessary or not, based on all the drop tank tests I have done with other aircraft, but it isn't a bad idea, I guess. Maybe the designers saw something in testing that they wanted to be sure the drop tanks would quickly get out of the way when released, lest they hit the airplane, or something.

Yes, I have had P-51s before that had that feature with the aft cooling flap on the underneath of the fuse. That could certainly be done on this airplane, although if I add something down the raod, I might buy that detailed cockpit kit to dress up the airplane interior.

I'm very happy with this P-51 overall, and think it will be one of their better sellers among warbird enthusiasts.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Fantastic work! Qudo's to you and Dan on designing extra scale acc. for this plane. Have you seen on the other forum where a guy has installed an operable inner cooler/exhaust door underneath the fuselage. Kinda neat
Best Regards, Rex.

[davegee]

Hi All: Well, it only took 45 days to receive my P-51D drop tank mounts, but I'm glad they are finally here. I think the hang up wasn't with the supplier, RC Castle in Hong Kong, but rather I think it got delayed getting through US Customs in LAX. Once it finally cleared there, USPS got it to me in just a few days. I have ordered a second pair of these mounts as a backup, but for now, whenever they come someday is fine.

So, Flightline designed this airplane to be able to drop OEM 75 gallon foam fuel tanks on the wings with these mounts. As I reported before, I think the shape and size of these scale drop tanks is quite good, and I commend the designers at Flightline for their work. I am hoping later this week, possibly even tomorrow, I'll test out dropping the OEM tanks to see how they do.

But, I didn't want to stop there. I bought an STL through CULTS and scaled up 500# bombs to 1/7 scale to also drop using the same mounts. That is still a work in progress, but I'll post a couple pics today. They do indeed work to drop during very preliminary tests this morning.

Also, Danger Dan and I are working on a larger scale drop tank, but there is still some more design and building work to do before we unveil that one. We hope to test all three of these various droppables later this month. Hopefully we can get some inflight photos of these departing the airplane. It's sorta fun thinking outside the box to get these things accomplished. It's all fun!

Cheers

Davegee

[Aros]

Wow, late to the party but that 3D printed cockpit sure looks sweet. I wish it would come that way out of the box. I would gladly pay the extra cost if FW shipped them that way.