Official FMS 1400mm P-51D V8 Thread

[gooniac33]

G'day gooniac,
Mate I wish I had of been there for that. Great flying, great communication and great models.
I witnessed two pilots making the call of 'low pass' and neither nominated a direction. One pilot simply said 'I'll follow you through' so the other pilot thought that he was going to be followed by the pilot making the call. Not so!
I am sure you know what happened next!
Yep, they MISSED!!!:Whew::Whew: But by the barest of margins. They were at the exact same height on opposite headings and passed within fifteen centimetres of each other.
I was next on the flight line [with an observer] and we both winced as they passed. We thought a head on had to happen at full speed.
Two very sheepish pilots landed soon after and received a huge cheer for such 'precision' flying. Or was it a huge razzing from the peanut gallery?
Needless to say, they do enjoy telling the story at parties and the passes get lower and faster with each telling;).

I have come back with a wheel mark on a wing from someone not flying the circuit. Too close for comfort and I have a screen grab of my Red Tail in very close quarters to a camera plane in a head on approach. I claimed a kill!
We were about one hundred and fifty feet off the deck, about a hundred metres from the flight line. Could have been not so nice but we both went left at the same time.:Cool:
We now have an understanding at my club that if a head on looks likely for both pilots to go left. It works. Our version of TCAS. And we have a strict rule about low passes along the runway can only be done in the direction of the circuit being flown at that time.
I get to fly at a major city club from time to time and it is great to get a flight of ten or so models all being talked around the sky by the flight leader.
People in the crowd do not realise that we are just playing follow the leader on one pilots command but it looks so cool with ten aircraft banking into the turn and screaming around in simple figure eights and loops. It all comes down to communication and good flying. It is so much fun but exhausting at the same time. It takes so much concentration to do.
We often get asked how much practice do we do and people are amazed to hear that we come from all over the place and only meet up at the event. Some of us live six hundred kilometres apart. That word comes in again. Communication.
Taking off in formation and landing in twos also makes it interesting. A good spotter is really handy to keep enough separation at all times. The half a dozen times I have been in it there has not been a collision although I have been told that they do happen.
Next time I will use my mounted el cheapo $50 knock off gopro. I have it cut in to an old canopy of BBD's and it give surprisingly good footage for such a cheap camera.
Regards and respect
Daryl

Communication is the key. We all are seriously committed to talking about what is happening in the air and make sure to keep our distances as well. We usually get a crowd of people watching and as a result we also do an airshow once a year at a municipal airport. They shut it down for an hour so that we can put on a show with out stuff... this P-51B will be doing a flight as a red tail... honoring the ones that did so much but were given so little respect....

[goosekiller1]

Good day my fellow pilots, i just added the 1450mm V8 P-51 Red Tail to my war bird collection. I bought it last night from Motion RC after much taunting from my fellow pilots.You ask why I have a love for the AXIS aircraft I love to come up behind the P-51s P-47s etc and do my best to intimidate my buddys with with my FMS 1400mm BF 109 Tan so this my first P-51 any input from you guys about the plane build good points bad points over all. I am really excited can't wait till she arrives. Thanks Mike!

[Shirty]

Grats mike. Check all your retract screws, inc the grub screws, and make sure the tail seats properly, (I glue it in to stop any movement), otherwise not too much to worry about. Feel free to post any questions. Best of luck with the build and maiden.

[e4dragongunner]

Also.... something I did preemptively, I upgraded my retracts.

http://smallpartscnc.com/index.php?r...ry&path=20_123

You Keep the electronics , you replace the trunion and side plates. :-)

[wrongroad]

G'day gooniac,
Yes, my Red Tail gets flown at the bigger shows for that very reason. And I am amazed at how many people know about the situation of those men and make positive comments.
The only problem I had with my Red Tail when it arrived was that the pilots skin was bright pink! Ooooopppppssssss, from FMS on that one.

Mike, Welcome to the Red Tail Squadron mate and take no notice of shirty when he says blue nosers are better! Other then that, shirty gives good advice.
[state of origin next week, shirty.....Go the blues!!!!!!]
Do not be afraid to add ballast to the nose if needed to get the CG right and the manual has the CG spot on with this machine at 110mm.
Other then that, use a bit of contact glue to secure the philips screw in the oleos. You will see it!
The most important part....have fun.

I think the FMS Mustang is the easiest of all the warbirds to fly. It sits nice in the sky and looks the part. Just keep your speed up in the turns and follow through with the rudder, and land a bit hot for the first few landings. Too slow kills.
No flap needed for take off and I would seriously recommend against take off flaps. And only use full flap for landing if it is dead calm and even then full flap is not really needed. I mostly land with half flap [flap one]. No flap if it is a fairly strong breeze. You know when you maybe should have stayed on the ground anyway. [lol]
Oh and ditch the drop tanks for flying.

And as shirty has said, ask any question you like and we [everyone here on this forum] will all give you the best answers that we can. You will find the tips that we give are what we do to our own machines. I will not recommend anything unless I actually do it myself or that I know it works as other pilots use the idea successfully.


Regards and respect.
Daryl

[gooniac33]

G'day gooniac,
Yes, my Red Tail gets flown at the bigger shows for that very reason. And I am amazed at how many people know about the situation of those men and make positive comments.
The only problem I had with my Red Tail when it arrived was that the pilots skin was bright pink! Ooooopppppssssss, from FMS on that one.

Regards and respect.
Daryl

I am not gonna use the pilot that came with it. I will have one made of Benjamin O Davis ...

[wrongroad]

Those men were just so good and so brave and so under rated.
They had to be twice as good to be just good enough if that makes sense.
Long live the Red Tails!

Now this is not to take anything away from anyone else either.
We have the life we have today because of a lot of brave men and women and we are forever in their debt.
We should never forget them nor the current day soldier.

Regards and respect
Daryl

[Grossman56]

Right on Wrongroad !!
What a battle just to have a chance to fight for their country. Both movies, Red tails and Tuskegee Airmen are so well worth watching if you haven't already.

Grossman56

[rifleman_btx]

Very good movies. Absolutely solid pilots

[boomer108]

My crew and I had a chance to take about six of the Tuskegee airmen for a refueling mission back in the 90s. What an honor that was and what great bunch of gentleman with some good stories.

Roy B.

[wrongroad]

boomer108 ang,
Well, I messed up toady.
On the second flight of the day with Shangri La, I was coming in with a sick battery [need some new ones, badly] and only the left hand gear came down.
A go around was not an option and neither did I have time to get the gear up.
I did have enough time to get the flaps up and a one leg landing was the outcome. Luckily it was not too bad but I finally managed to wreck a retract mech. The left hand leg looks really sad and may be beyond repair but I do carry spares. Of course, the right hand gear cycled as it should afterwards. Typical.
No other damage though, so it should not take too long to fix. Just frustrating.
I had gone out to the field ready to stay all day but I was meet by a very heavy fog, that actually had aircraft orbiting the local airport until ten AM. As we are only 2.8 nM away from the airport we could see the aircraft stacking up. We also have to have a scanner to monitor radio coms and land our models if asked to do so.
After the fog had lifted, I took SL up for the first flight and was shocked when I did a loop that took the model into some very low cloud. Time to just do circuits and keep visual.
The second flight gave me the problems.
Then it started to rain and it stayed like that for the rest of the day. Home for a nana nap.
It has been perfect weather all week while I was at work. Figures!!

@ boomer,
Mate, what an honour.

Regards and respect
Daryl

[rifleman_btx]

I had the same thing happen with my p38, myself and a buddy had a miss communication and both called to land, I said I was needing to land now, but he didn't hear me. So I tracked around and then I was on my base to turn final. Nope, battery wouldn't have any of it. So I dipped the nose kicked it as close as I could into the wind, threw flaps and just couldn't get my speed up to get her down safely... So she smacked in pretty heavily busted the struts and one gear door. Other than that no damage done to the structure. She will fly again.

[gooniac33]

Sorry to hear about the mishaps guys... we had some issues this weekend too. A mid air between Eleven Hobbies Bearcat and FMS P-51D... Mine flew flawless all weekend aside from a runway incident. I will upload that later and share... Lots of great flights this weekend and I am really tempted to just leave it as stock!!!

[F106DeltaDart]

Had a great time taking Shangri-La flying this morning. 3 years later, she's still flying fantastic! I had almost forgotten how enjoyable this model is to fly after it sat in the hangar for a while. All stock with the exception of a MrRC Sound system. One of my buddies shot some photos of the Mustang in the air as well! Check out the last one of a few seconds before touchdown, it is now one of my favorites.

[gooniac33]

I got lots of flights on the P-51 this past weekend... here are some of the best!!

Here is one that didn't go so well for the others... but I did fine...

Flying with the D model Red Tail

[gooniac33]

almost forgot... here is something funny....

[goosekiller1]

Thank you all for the warm welcome to Red Tail Squadron. Just a quick up date my new Red Tail will be delivered tomorrow I'm so stoked.Hey Shirty, Blue Noses are cool too my mate has Petie2 nice aircraft Thanks again Mike!

[Shirty]

Lol goose. As long as you're having fun mate. :)

[goosekiller1]

Lol goose. As long as you're having fun mate. :)

bluetongueLOL

[Grossman56]

Had a great time taking Shangri-La flying this morning. 3 years later, she's still flying fantastic! I had almost forgotten how enjoyable this model is to fly after it sat in the hangar for a while. All stock with the exception of a MrRC Sound system. One of my buddies shot some photos of the Mustang in the air as well! Check out the last one of a few seconds before touchdown, it is now one of my favorites.

Hey DD, there is just something about the B model isn't there!
Recently put a 650 kv in mine and she flies like a dream.
I painted mine to look a little war weary and had comments from people asking how old the plane was! Gotta love that

She's going to Nefi with me, along with 5 of her sisters!!

Grossman56