Official FMS 1400mm P-51D V8 Thread

[mr.frankenjet]

flew over the weekend, been working on the takeoff and landing. Getting better, go really slow with the throttle on take off, 1/3 flap, and be ready for allot of rt rudder to hold her straight.
On landing full flap keep reducing throttle on the downwind leg till she fly's slow but stable. After the turn to final go briefly to zero throttle then back up till the plane just sinks. You now have minimum power and have a reference from zero, control the altitude with throttle and use the ele to slow her down. Takes a bit of time to wind the prop down, the key is to fly to the ground but keep energy and power to just what is needed. I have to get better at lifting the flaps on touchdown, this helps to drop the tail without lifting her back off the ground which can happen when you use too much ele too quickly.

https://youtu.be/NDZ1WzQY86I

[wrongroad]

G'day mr.frankenjet,
Can I respectfully suggest that you try a no flap take off. I am not a fan of a flaps assisted take off with such a light weight machine.
I am sure you will enjoy the longer run and I find that you will need less rudder input as well.:D
I actually dial in a little nose down for landing, not much but enough to give a positive rate of descent.
I also use my throttle trim to keep power on all the way to the ground. Only enough to be at a slow idle for a glow engine. This does two things for me, one it keeps the sound system alive and, more importantly, it prevents the dreaded wind milling drag that can often stop a light model like a hand brake and the model will fall out of the sky.
I only use half flap for most landings only using full flap if it is dead absolutely calm. No flap for landing in a breeze [wind] that you should have stayed on the ground in. Yes, I have been known to let ambition out weigh ability:p.
This is how I land every time and I have near on four hundred landings between three Mustangs.
Now, this is how I do it, if you find that what you do suits you better, then stay with it.
The only thing I would really caution you on is pulling the power back to zero even for just a brief moment. That can slow you down quickly and cause a stall.
I find that judging my speed on the base leg is the go.
Do not be frightened to land with a bit of speed on either...too slow kills.
I hope that I have given you just a little bit of food for thought.
Regards and respect
Daryl

[wrongroad]

G'day gang,
Another five flights into the log book of Shangri La bringing her to 159 flights.
And I 'shot down' a UFO over my field today.
The Alien pilot was rather upset with me but the sound system left no doubt that he had been blasted out of the sky.
Of course a few minutes later, he muttered 'sizzle, sizzle' I just lasered you. 'Nah', I replied, you can not have......you are already dead!
He said he was friendly.....reply.....[and I have pinched this from someone else btw] If it aint got stars and bars... it is a target!
I must say that I am impressed with the 650 donk and I am getting better performance for the same amount of flight time. Very cool indeed.
If you all want to look at our field

https://www.graftonmac.com

Regards and respect
Daryl

[Grossman56]

Good to hear Daryl, I just got back from the field after chalking up three more flights with Big Beautiful Doll, had Shangrila up last week and the flights went very well indeed. Finally, I'm getting in the zone as regards landings, so awesome. Especially since I was flying the Spitty and the P40 yesterday, I'd land fine, but as soon as I lost the wind over the tail, the Spitty would drag a tip. The P40 will but not as frequently (heavier plane and the gear is a little wider) Then you strap on a P51 and all that goes away. Rock solid landings every time, gotta love it.

Grossman56

[Dewey H Lee]

Hey guys. Noticed not much going on here lately so I decided to bring this to the table. I've got a problem that I have not been able to get solved. I purchased the 1450 snoots sniper from motion a few months back and have yet to get a problem with the retracts straightened out. I've changed receivers tx and the single point connector for the wings and it might work a couple of times or not at all. At first the doors would open and time out and then close. I have changed out the sequencer. The blue one one came in the plane and I have since tried the green one. The green one does not work at all. It was ordered for spare parts. I am certain that the sequencer is plugged in correctly and that all polarity is correct. With the blue one when you flip the gear switch the doors open and then close after 6 seconds and the gear never deploys. This will only happen once. Repeated efforts cause nothing to happen at all. I can then unplug the battery and then plug it back in and the gear doors will function again as before just one time. HOWEVER I CAN HOOK THE GEAR LEAD TO A SERVO TESTER AND THEY PREFORM PERFECTLY. I'm starting to go bald here. Pulling my hair out. It sure would be nice to finally fly this plane. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[OV10]

Dewey,
You got me baffled when you talk about a 'green' sequencer. I can find none and the only ones that may be the green one might be B and/or C listed below because Motion put this note on its product description of: "NOTE: The photo above(I see it is blue) shows the OLD sequencer. We will update the photo soon".

Which of the 3 referenced links is the sequencer(s) that you have?
A https://www.motionrc.com/products/fm...-p-51-6-second
B https://www.motionrc.com/products/fm...-p-51-3-second
C https://www.motionrc.com/products/fm...encer-3-second

A is a 6 sec sequencer used with 003 retracts https://www.motionrc.com/products/fm...tract-fmmre003
B is a 3 sec sequencer used with 1400mm FMS P-51D V7, V7.5, and 1400mm P-51B with stock retracts (not the 003)
C is a 3 sec sequencer used with ParkZone retracts

My guess on this is: You have the latest rev Sniper with the 6 sec sequencer and the slower 003 etract and your blue 6 sec sequencer is intermittently functional.
When you bought the "spare parts green", it was the incorrect sequencer(most likely a 3 sec) and which also happened to be DOA.
Your best option is to order the first sequencer(A) I listed above.
Good luck and best regards,

[Dewey H Lee]

Thank-you OV10 for jumping in on this. I have taken pictures of the sequencers that I have. The blue one came in the plane. It is the one that cycles the doors only. The light green one is the one I ordered for a spare. The picture is taken on the original package it came in. It is also the one that does nothing. Matt had sent me the wing connection board thinking that there could be solder flash somewhere in the board causing the problem. After installing the board the retracts operated fine that evening. I put everything up because it was getting late and have not been able to get back to it until recently. I powered the plane up to make sure the servos were still centered so I could finish the plane and tried the retracts and it was doing the same thing it was doing before the board replacement. The plane had set for almost a month with no one touching it. I really hope you can lead me in the right direction. Thank-you again.

[Dewey H Lee]

Something happened and my pictures didn't load. I'll try again.

[Dewey H Lee]

still trying to load.

[F106DeltaDart]

They are showing up fine for me in all 3 posts.

[Dewey H Lee]

Wow when I checked after the post they didn't show on my phone. I'm very sorry guys.

[Grossman56]

Shangrila came with this....thing that I never did figure out, I posted it and asked the guys if they could explain. In the end, I opened up Big Beautiful Doll and copied what I had in her and relegated this to the spare parts bin, the gear on Shangrila works great

Grossman56

[xviper]

Shangrila came with this....thing that I never did figure out, I posted it and asked the guys if they could explain. In the end, I opened up Big Beautiful Doll and copied what I had in her and relegated this to the spare parts bin, the gear on Shangrila works great

Grossman56

That's the very thing that's still in my BBD and working as it should. I believe the blue thing is the sequencer. The rest is some sort of mult-connector. Mult-connectors use common grounds for several servos and when testing individual servos on the bench via a tester, some or all of the other servos (ones not being tested) will act very strangely, so one must ignore what they are doing. It's when everything is hooked up and running together via the TX and RX, that it all sorts itself out. I think the trouble with these kinds of common ground multi-plugs, all it takes is for one solder to be a bit "off" and it can become a nightmare. I had to by-pass the multi-connector on another plane as the one servo simply didn't work at all.
Best thing is to eliminate the multi-plug, isolate the sequencer and the two retracts and doors and test them alone. That will weed out a bad sequencer or a bad multi-plug.

[Dewey H Lee]

Yes I've seen that many times. I think I've looked at every video on YouTube on the connectors. I have the one that is plywood mounted. It came already glued to the floor of the plane and really don't like the crimp that it puts on the wires that are plugged on top when removing and installing the battery tray. Also the sequencer is stuffed underneath where the sharp edges of the pins in the board can pierce the heat shrink on the sequencer. That just seems wrong. Extreme bends in wires top and bottom right at the plugs.

[Dewey H Lee]

Thank-you for the input XViper. I'll take the board totally out of the picture and see what happens. It just seems funny that when I remove the gear lead from the rx with the other leads still in the board I can hook a servo tester to the gear lead that was hooked to the rx and it never misses a cycle. Both doors open and the gear deploys and then the doors close. I've even thought that maybe the pins sticking out of the bottom of the board might be piercing the heat shrink on the sequencer because it is a tight fit under the board and the ends of the pins are quite sharp. I'm sure that after awhile there would have to be penetration after a while. No matter how well the prop is balanced to prevent vibration.

[Dewey H Lee]

Dan I was just reviewing your pictures again and it looks like your board is sitting lower than mine. I was just wondering if you modified it to sit lower. I can barely get the battery tray in mine and then your still dragging wires already flatten at the back of there plugs.

[xviper]

Thank-you for the input XViper. I'll take the board totally out of the picture and see what happens. It just seems funny that when I remove the gear lead from the rx with the other leads still in the board I can hook a servo tester to the gear lead that was hooked to the rx and it never misses a cycle. Both doors open and the gear deploys and then the doors close. I've even thought that maybe the pins sticking out of the bottom of the board might be piercing the heat shrink on the sequencer because it is a tight fit under the board and the ends of the pins are quite sharp. I'm sure that after awhile there would have to be penetration after a while. No matter how well the prop is balanced to prevent vibration.

Try playing with "servo sub-trim" on the gear channel. I have a Dynam plane where the retract doesn't work well on the pre-existing settings. I had to go into the travel menu and alter the % sub-trim for open and close to make the retracts work better. If you look at the "monitor", you'll see the representation of the travel limits in numbers. I think it's something like -100 to +100. Play with those limits to see if something good happens.

[Dewey H Lee]

I have a tactic 8 channel reciever in this plane using a tactic 850 tx. Both are brand new and I will try what your speaking of. I just know that it's got to be something as simple as a pimple on your face and when it's settled I feel like I'm going to be embarrassed. I still really think I should get the sequencer out from under that board though. There is alot of sharp edges there. What do you think. There's no room for something between them to isolate it from the board. And I can't raise the board because then I can't get the battery tray in and out.😵

[Grossman56]

https://youtu.be/bpZuv4ClMDI

Hey Dewey,I just shot this video of what I did to Shangrila to make it work without that plug. The connector box is held in place with some velcro, no cutting on the foam, guess you could though...

Grossman56

[Dewey H Lee]

Thanks Dan. I really appreciate it. Just got finished messing with this thing some more. Double checking everything and still no go. It still works with a servo tester perfect but not on the rx. Had it hooked up to 2 different new spectrum reciever and 2 new tactic receivers and still no joy. Tomorrow I guess I'll try to figure out how to do away with the connector all together. Just too frustrated tonight and tired thanks again I'll review the vid again tomorrow when I'm not wore out and see again what you did.