Official FlightLine 1600mm P-51D Mustang Thread

[Davegeee]

Danger Dan and I have been working on some detail scale improvements to the cockpit area of the new P-51D Flightline airplane. I modified a pilot figure sized in the correct scale more or less, and Dan did his masterful job of painting it. The pilot came from Max Grueter. Had to chop him off at the waist for this iteration to work, but it should, for now. Not much room to make a full size cockpit but that could be a subject to consider down the road. For now, it should be fine for the maiden and initial test flights to dial everything in.

I'll attach a few pics just after I glued him into the cockpit just now. I did add some scale detail like printing up Dan's creation for a scale N-9 gunsight, wiring for the helmet and mask microphones, and simulated phone jack cords colored black and red. Found a P-47 control grip that I made the right size to fit in his hand and added a hardwood dowel to serve as the top part of the stick. Suffiicient for now, I think. This pilot represents First Lieutenant (later Major) Richard "Pete" Peterson of the 357th FG out of Yoxford, England in WWII. He was one of five triple aces in the unit, he with 15.5 kills. In this 1944 photo, Peterson is on the far left, with Leonard "Kit" Carson next to him and then Johnny England, and Clarence "Bud" Anderson on the far right. Great pic of them!

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

Get the set with the larger diameter pins Dave, might as well have everything going for you.

BTW, check you mail, just sent you something

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[Davegeee]

Davegee,
Looking fantastic. Looking forward to hear about the test flight.
More rain here although we have been getting 1 day a week of flying but only with our sport planes because shifting gusts have been up to 20 mph. Getting P-47 ready to fly once the weather gets better.
Best Regards, Rex

Hi Rex: I'm sure I responded to your last entry, but I'll be darned if I can find it now! Anyway, in case it got lost somewhere in the ether, I was wishing you good luck with the weather and hopefully you'll be able to drag your "big guys" out to fly, like Lucky. I'm removing and replacing the retract units in both mains on my Corsair just now. I knew they were hanging by threads, but decided to do just one more flight before replacing them and my order coming in for the parts. Sure enough, it was a great flight as usual, but when it landed the right gear folded on rollout, causing minor surface damage to the foam on that side of the wing. No problem getting it repaired and repainted (ask me how I know how to do foam repairs!) and will replace both units today. Hope to fly it next week after I get back from my trip.

I have known a telltale sign of possible damage to the gear or plastic housing for the retract, is when you test them on the ground and they shudder and shake. I've seen that for some time now, but I still kept flying. This last time, when I pulled that retract out of the airplane, the whole housing came apart in my hand like an ancient book or something. Now, it will have Both gear replaced and I should have many more flights with it.

Cheers

Davegee

[Davegeee]

Davegee - There’s actually a “rate of throttle application” sweet spot that when you learn it…you won’t touch the rudder on take-off. Others have mentioned this in prior posts. She’ll jump into the air faster than she has time to yaw left or right. It’s like…whoop…you are airborne and picking up the gear and flaps and you never touched the rudder. If you apply power slowly, you can have your hands full and zig zag all over the place. I use some flap and a bit of up stick on take-off, also.

As with all tail draggers…need some focus on landing roll out to stop any yaw BEFORE it starts. But, she’s one of the easiest in this regard. Still might want to add a scrape pad at the trailing edge of the tips for the times you’ll miss stopping the yaw in time.

Definitely wheel land it with about 25% power on final. She bleeds speed fast with full flaps and no power.

I made about 15 landings one day last week and was on my “A GAME”! Never done it before like that day. Every landing but one was ZERO vertical speed and butter smooth. I could see the mains kicking small gravel forward on some landings. She’s a sweety! Made me look good. Naturally, no witnesses.

Love the photos/scheme of your bird.

-GG

Great points, GG, and I appreciate them! I'll do my best and report back when I get the opportunity to fly, hopefully late next week.

Cheers

Davegee

[GliderGuy]

Davegee - There’s actually a “rate of throttle application” sweet spot that when you learn it…you won’t touch the rudder on take-off. Others have mentioned this in prior posts. She’ll jump into the air faster than she has time to yaw left or right. It’s like…whoop…you are airborne and picking up the gear and flaps and you never touched the rudder. If you apply power slowly, you can have your hands full and zig zag all over the place. I use some flap and a bit of up stick on take-off, also.

As with all tail draggers…need some focus on landing roll out to stop any yaw BEFORE it starts. But, she’s one of the easiest in this regard. Still might want to add a scrape pad at the trailing edge of the tips for the times you’ll miss stopping the yaw in time.

Definitely wheel land it with about 25% power on final. She bleeds speed fast with full flaps and no power.

I made about 15 landings one day last week and was on my “A GAME”! Never done it before like that day. Every landing but one was ZERO vertical speed and butter smooth. I could see the mains kicking small gravel forward on some landings. She’s a sweety! Made me look good. Naturally, no witnesses.

Love the photos/scheme of your bird.

-GG

[davegee]

Good info, nuts-n-volts. I was impressed with the main gear struts for the main gear which should help with takeoff and landing performance. We have a very rough asphalt runway so I can use every bit of help I can get!

cheers

davegee

[nuts-n-volts]

Typical warbird. Don't wait on power. Get her rolling straight easily, then a smooth but fairly quick progression to about 3/4 throttle. Holding slight right rudder of course. More than that and the take off won't be a smooth as you like. She flies slow very well even with a 6700 HV. I do use a little bit of flap and if you do the same, hold a bit of up elevator to keep her from nosing over. She won't go all the way over, but it is noticeable if you don't hold that bit of up.

Landings are very predictable with about a quarter power. Wheel her on. Slow down. Rudder, rudder. You know the drill. The shocks on this bird are super forgiving.

[Davegeee]

I think you'll like it a lot. The plane truly flies perfectly. No bad habits. I need to get some scale mods done on mine, then it'll get the final re-paint.

I sure hope so! I've had three of the 1.5M E Flite P-51s and they flew great, once they got into the air! Ground handling problems were always present, both for takeoffs and landings. They improved somewhat when I changed out the hard rubber tires for softer Robarts 3.5" hollow diamond tread tires. Helped a lot, even with the "bounce" that was common with the hard tires. I've sold two and have one in a "semi-retired" status after 100 flights hanging from the rafters of my garage. I'm really keen to take this new Flightline 1.6M plane up as soon as I can, probably late next week!

Cheers

Davegee

[nuts-n-volts]

I think you'll like it a lot. The plane truly flies perfectly. No bad habits. I need to get some scale mods done on mine, then it'll get the final re-paint.

[Aros]

Looking fab as always Davegeee

[Davegeee]

Love the 357th! And, one of my favorite color schemes, Dave. Really great work on a beautiful model. Well done!

Thanks, Nuts -n-volts! I've done other P-51 schemes before but never something from the 357th. I wanted to do something not quite "off the rack" with this model even though the paint scheme is very cool and guys have done some wonderful jobs on theirs. This was Pete Peterson's second of I think five P-51s that he flew, all named for his wife's closing of every letter she sent to him while he was based in England. I decided to go with this one as it wasn't all OD and grey, and had a litle character in it with some of the OD and Neutral Grey removed on the bottoms of the wings and sides of the fuselage. I look forward to flying it maybe late next week.

I've ordered the powered pylons so I can practice dropping tanks and/or bombs for grins. Decided to go with RC Castle in China as it is taking forever for MRC to get their shipments in. Should be fun. I've already got it "plumbed" and bench- tested for dropping the ordnance, so it should install very quickly.

Cheers

Davegee

[nuts-n-volts]

Love the 357th! And, one of my favorite color schemes, Dave. Really great work on a beautiful model. Well done!

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Looking fantastic. Looking forward to hear about the test flight.
More rain here although we have been getting 1 day a week of flying but only with our sport planes because shifting gusts have been up to 20 mph. Getting P-47 ready to fly once the weather gets better.
Best Regards, Rex

[Davegeee]

I've made some good progress on my Hurry Home Honey P-51D that was flown by Major Richard "Pete" Peterson in WWII. He was one of the top aces from the 357th Fighter Group in WWII that sported notables like Chuck Yeager and Clarence "Bud" Anderson.

Callie's tailored graphics came out perfectly and I have for the most part got it done for now to do the maiden next week sometime. I"ll be leaving out of town for a few days but I look forward to seeing how it flies. I'm encouraged by all the positive feedback on HS that other pilots have reported about their new airplanes.

Here's a couple quick pics of it, still in final preparation for eventual flying. Danger Dan Gross has been working hard painting up my 3D printed pilot which should look much better than the OEM one. I'm not putting the OEM bust down, I think they did a pretty good job on it. but I'm looking forward to having a more accurate pilot in its place. Just my preference. I couldn't get more than the top half of the pilot to fit into the cockpit, but that's ok.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

You guys go to great lengths to figure out the best flyability for those of us that have less talents, for that I thank you.
Best Regards, Rex

[Evan D]

I flew mine today with freewheeling off, smooth no whine.

[Elbee]

nuts-n-volts

Great debrief.

Thank you for taking the time.

Best, LB

[nuts-n-volts]

So... This morning, I double checked my past work on the Mustang. I re-programmed the ESC, again keeping a record. I set the Active Freewheeling to OFF/Disabled. Tried a quick power up and back down on the bench. Nice and smooth. Then went thru the beeps again and set Freewheeling to ON/Enabled. This time, on the power up and back down, the motor shuddered a bit like a brake just before it came to a stop. OK! That's a bad sign. Re-set Active Freewheeling one more time back to OFF. No shudder. Went out and flew 3 flights with all kinds of power off in the vertical down leg, then powering up at the bottom. Smooth all the way. Never a screech.

Active Freewheeling should be set to OFF.

Freewing really needs to get a solid ESC Programming Display for ALL of the different ESCs made so one can see what is actually in there before-hand, and/or then program as needed. I would also recommend that Freewing update their ESC Manual and describe exactly what Active Freewheeling is for and when to use it or not. Again, in their V1 Manual, Active Freewheeling default is OFF. The V2 Manual, the AFW default is ON. Confusing... and ON is certainly wrong for this bird.

And, please don't misinterpret me. I think this Mustang is most definitely one of the best planes Freewing/FlightLine have put out. The retracts and shocks are splendid. The scale lines seem to be right on the money. The speed is just above scale and what I consider perfect. The fighter flys exceptionally well. There are always ways to modify more, and that is left to the consumer. Oh, maybe release a B model or at least this one in base gray. (Reno Racers... you know) But, all in all, another big win for FlightLine.

Current Set-up
1. Brake Type - Disabled
2. Brake Force - Low
3. Voltage Cutoff Type - Soft
4. # LiPo Cells - Auto
5. Cutoff Voltage - Disabled
6. Start Up Mode - Normal
7. Timing - Medium
8. Active Freewheel - Off
9. Search Mode - Off

Note: The plane is so quiet, I hear very light, yet constant up & down type sound in the ESC/motor as you move the throttle or even as the flight speed changes. Not the screech. The only thing I can figure is causing this sound is possibly the big prop affecting the ESC/motor. I'll have to re-listen to the FL Corsair & Spit the next time I fly either of those.

[nuts-n-volts]

I'll keep working on the correct settings as well and let you know. It bugs me not knowing.

[Evan D]

I think I’ll leave freewheeling off and fly it and then turn it on at the field and see the difference. May be able to do it Sunday.

thanks