Official FlightLine 1600mm P-51D Mustang Thread

[davegee]

I've been working on a way to lighten up the load of bombs/drop tanks on my Flightline 1600mm P-51D Hurry Home Honey. The PLA bombs I printed and have successfully flown and dropped on flights were good and realistic, but the hard desert floor we have here in NW Wyoming is very hard on things that go bump in the night. Sometimes they come back without a scratch, sometimes damaged on impact but usually repairable, and sometimes they just go missing and not found again.

Elbee clued me in to a filament called TPU, a type of Polyurethane mix that is very flexible and more resistant to damage when they hit the hard ground., in theory. I have had some problems working with some of the larger parts I have printed in TPU, but did manage to make two simulated 500# bombs and have tested the finished prototypes on the bench for drop testing this afternoon. TPU hopefully will be very impact resistant, but it is not as well and cleanly printed as are other filaments like PLA. But then, these bombs are strictly for demonstrating successful dropping from a model airplane at altitude, and not for up close inspection. The others I have already printed and flown in some cases are the ones to show for static viewing.

If weather is good tomorrow morning, I'm going to try at least one drop test with them, possibly two and see how they survive, if they DO survive. Should be an interesting test. If this goes well, I'll print up the larger scale 110 gallon drop tanks that have flown printed in the heavier and more fragile and stiff PLA material.

Below are a couple pics of my work in the past couple of days. One pic shows the under-development TPU bombs (silver) with two earlier PLA bombs. The other photo shows the TPU bombs painted as I will fly them tomorrow. I had to open a slit in the bombs so that they could slide into the stock Flightline wing pylon. The material of the bomb is so thin that it is very pliable but fits well onto the pylon and does well in drop tests on the bench today. They are substantially lighter than the PLA bombs, weighing under 2 ounces each.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Nice work Dave. Good luck tomorrow. Rex

[davegee]

Nice work Dave. Good luck tomorrow. Rex

Thanks, Rex. Had a good test of the lightweight bombs this morning with two flights and two drops. It went beautifully! I put a carriage bolt weight in the nose for stablility, and it worked great. Both bombs released cleanly and dropped in a perfect ballistic arc to the ground. I could only glance where they landed as I was busy flying the airplane, but once I landed I looked for them.

It was harder than I thought it would be. One was found somewhat clearly in the brush, but another one had burrowed its way into a sagebrush and it was barely visible to find. I figured it would be close to the other one so I made a slow, expanding circle search and found it.

No damage really to either bomb from the two drops, but one of the E6000 glue joints separated a bit at the point between the tail fins and the center body section. I still flew it like that for the second flight and no further issues. It is now gluing up for the next test. I could have flown these all day if I wanted to.

Here's some pics from this morning. This was the 46th flight of my great HHH P-51D.

Cheers

Davegee

[Hugh Wiedman]

Thanks, Rex. Had a good test of the lightweight bombs this morning with two flights and two drops. It went beautifully! I put a carriage bolt weight in the nose for stablility, and it worked great. Both bombs released cleanly and dropped in a perfect ballistic arc to the ground. I could only glance where they landed as I was busy flying the airplane, but once I landed I looked for them.

It was harder than I thought it would be. One was found somewhat clearly in the brush, but another one had burrowed its way into a sagebrush and it was barely visible to find. I figured it would be close to the other one so I made a slow, expanding circle search and found it.

No damage really to either bomb from the two drops, but one of the E6000 glue joints separated a bit at the point between the tail fins and the center body section. I still flew it like that for the second flight and no further issues. It is now gluing up for the next test. I could have flown these all day if I wanted to.

Here's some pics from this morning. This was the 46th flight of my great HHH P-51D.

Cheers

Davegee

Outstanding Dave!!!!

You should be working for the War Department!

[Grate]

So the final question is... am I always going to be comparing the 1700 with the 1600, and be disappointed even after installing a more powerful motor? Should I sell the 1700 in its entirety, with spare parts, and just buy another 1600 instead?
happymod
I don't want to put in multiple month's work with upgrading the airframe and repainting if I'm going to be disappointed compared to the FL 1600. I'd just buy another 1600 and accept the slight size difference.

Thanks for your input....

is the 1600mm really that much night-and-day better out of the box, or does the FMS 1700 still hold its own once dialed in?

[Elbee]

Grate,

Welcome to Hobby Squawk, glad to have onboard.

Best, LB

[Hugh Wiedman]

is the 1600mm really that much night-and-day better out of the box, or does the FMS 1700 still hold its own once dialed in?

My Opinion, go with the FL 1600mm, out of the box much much better. To get the 1700 "so called dialed in", I spent about $200 bucks (more as the custom Xoar props were extremely expensive) on a new motor (Power 60), and custom made and painted Xoar 2 and 3 blade props along with 4" spinners for 2 and 3 blade props. Now performs great, but still a heavy mother (ah la "My 600 lb Life" TV personality)! If I didn't have extra parts, several extra metal main gear retracts (only sold by FMS early on) and other things, I'd have never spent any time on it. Stock outta da box it's impressive to see on the ground but a real dog to fly. Not so with the 1600, a beautiful bird, a class way above FMS and powered perfectly even with the scale 4 blade prop. Just my humble opinion.

Not to stink up this thread, but if you want to see photos and a flight video of the repowered 1700, go to my you tube video.

[davegee]

My Opinion, go with the FL 1600mm, out of the box much much better. To get the 1700 "so called dialed in", I spent about $200 bucks (more as the custom Xoar props were extremely expensive) on a new motor (Power 60), and custom made and painted Xoar 2 and 3 blade props along with 4" spinners for 2 and 3 blade props. Now performs great, but still a heavy mother (ah la "My 600 lb Life" TV personality)! If I didn't have extra parts, several extra metal main gear retracts (only sold by FMS early on) and other things, I'd have never spent any time on it. Stock outta da box it's impressive to see on the ground but a real dog to fly. Not so with the 1600, a beautiful bird, a class way above FMS and powered perfectly even with the scale 4 blade prop. Just my humble opinion.

Not to stink up this thread, but if you want to see photos and a flight video of the repowered 1700, go to my you tube video.

I agree with Hugh. Years ago I had the FMS 1700 Corsair, P-51D, and P-47D aircraft. Flew the crap out of them! Whereas Hugh had the nice thick air of Miami, I flew out of the Denver area at about 6,000 feet MSL. Hugh said the FMS was a dog compared to the new Flightline P-51D. And for me at 6,000 feet, it was especially so. Still, I enjoyed flying them, the last survivor, the Corsair, was sold to a friend where he has it hanging on display for the past several years.

I didn't do any of the mods to the planes that Hugh has done, and he is a master of improving flight performance of all these foam airplanes. I'd take his opinion to the bank on this one.

I am loving the Flightline 1600mm P-51D and have been busy with some modifications of my own with ordnance dropping and a new paint scheme, printed pilot, etc. I'm still at 5,000 feet now so the air is pretty thin like before for me, but I don't think I would trade my Flightline Mustang for the FMS plane now. I'm all about scale performance, and I try to fly all my planes in a scale manner, so the performance on the Flightline 1.6M Mustang is just fine for me.

But that's your decision, of course. Good luck with whatever you end up doing. Have Fun!!

Cheers

Davegee