KingCobra79

Avindair,
Having replaced four fuses already, I agree with you. I suspect your plastic frame cracked also.

groundcheck

Anyone tried greatstuff foam in the nose of the P51yet?

leo L, in another thread sugested I add it to the nose of my PZ cub, and I did. it works great. it stiffened the whole fuse and firewall, and overcame the problem with the broken battery box in the cub. Pluss, as it expanded in the plane, it took out most of the creases from the previous nose dives and groundchecks.
I've had maybe 10 hard crashes since, snapped the gearbox off, decinttigrated the cowl a half dozen times, and flattened the landing gear once, but the fuse is still in the same shape it was in from the time I added the foam.

I don't know if this can be done to the P51. I don't know if it will add too much weight or not, but if it would work, it might save a few planes. the cub was a couple oz heavier after, and it's a small area.

As a tech note, I used garden pond waterfall sealer. (I had an almost empty can I was about to throw away when I read his post, so I gave it a shot) It looks like Greatstuff foam, but it's slightly stickier, and colored black. it may work diffrent.

Libertarian

Thanks groundcheck.
My fuse was foamed, (and survived several crashes). This has been brought up many times on this forum and several of us here use it. It adds some amount of weight and tends to move the crash damage aft to the other parts of the skeleton but is probably better than not having it at all. I'd be curious though to see if the mix you are using might not be a bit lighter?
Thanks [8D]

L0stS0ul

True, Good Ol frankie is still goin strong but I do sometimes crash. I just in the last month trashed my E-Flite Ultimate FX and about 3 months ago destroyed my Blade CP I'm not crash proof by any stretch

guy5927

Can I please be member of your club , LostSoul ?

40+ flights and not a scratch ( spare prob still in original plastic bag )

no mods, just a very powerfull lipoly pack ! ( everyone should try this, you get a whole new plane ! )

I do hope franky does not punish off my cockiness with a fatal crash on the next flight !

tclaridge

Guy,
Very nice flight record! I only have one crash on Frankie when attempting and outside loop. I was up over 100 ft with WOT but I was about 2 feet short of altitude. Just cost me a $14 horizontal as it skid landed (fast!) on the canopy. I guess you should call it an inverted landing, and not a crash!

Just out of curiousness, what was your flight experience before flying Frankie?

L0stS0ul

tclaridge,

Did you make it to the LCAA Electric Flyin yesterday? I went for about an hour but didn't fly. I was enjoying watching people fly all kinds of different planes.

One thing that can help a lot for outside loops is to reinforce the elevator push rod. That rod works fine when pulling back but pushing forward it really flexes a lot. Dubro makes some push rod supports. Just slide it on the push rod and then epoxy it about 1/2 way down the back of the plane to the side wall and outside loops become a breeze and just as tight as a regular loop. It also significantly increases the stability of the plane in inverted flight.

guy5927

tcClaridge

previously flown aerobird challenger , aerobird Extreme , Parkzone Stryker ( 7 - 8 - 9 cell ) and in between those a big nitro trainer with an engine that can make it fly 3d and hover ...

So I stayed well away from any warbird what so ever until I knew I was ready for it .... ( sold my first plane ( challenger ) after 2 years of service for 75 bucks so I guess I am not that bad a pilot )

tclaridge

LostSoul,
Thanks for the tip. That's a great idea.

tclaridge

Guy,
Nice flight record! You are having fun! I am thinking of trying the F-27c because I have the need for speed. I hear the Stryker is a fun plane to fly. Do you like it?

I had many, many years in RC before doing a warbird. I am glad I waited because they do behave much differently than a trainer. Once I got some flights with the P-51, transition to other planes has been easy (like the Alpha Models F-86)!

Venom_14

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Avindair

Okay, it's been a few days since Frankie had her off-center HZ premature ground contact incident. I've looked at the plane and I'm having a strange thought.

I think I can repair it.

1. The split on the top of the nose is clean. I'm wondering if I can just epoxy that together.
2. The exterior battery frame can be superglued.
3. I can order a new cowl.

Of course, this all depends on how the engine works. No, I didn't test the powerplant after the crash, so this may be all moot. But for those who have seen the pics of my damage, do you think this is a fixable bird?

Avindair

Airchief

Hello, Its been a while since I've posted anywhere, But I have about 45 flights on mine now, original fuse, secend wing, orginal broken, but held to gather with tape cowl. I am haveing some problems with my motor and batts. I am using stock motor and Dymond 1800 11.1v lipos.

I fly most of the time at 3/4 -full throttle. My batts come out at about 110 degrees F. Is this too hot?

My motor also gets extremely hot. After 3 flights, you can only hold your finger on it long enough to put your finger on and take it back off! Is this bad/good//normal/not too bad?

Could the problem be the esc?

Any help is APPRECIATED!

AirChief

tclaridge

These temps sound normal to me when compared to my other planes with DC motors and LiPos. If you are draining 1500 mah out of your LiPo into your motor, things are going to get warm. My motors almost are too hot to touch after flight, and the battery is very warm, but not too hot to touch. My vote is you are in the norm.

tclaridge

Avindair,
If you can repair it, go for it, but just remember that a krinkle in this "Z" foam stuff means the structural integrety is comprimised. My friend put a krinkle in the wing, but taped over it. It folded next flight in a loop. My thoughts are if I crash it, I replace it, but some of the folks on this thread have had good luck at fixin' and reinforcing the nose. Frankly (pun), I think its worth the $30 just to have a new piece. But maybe not worth it if you plan to crash a lot.

Libertarian

Avndair,
You can repair the split fuse with foamsafe CA (superglue that's safe for foam) or with Gorilla glue which is messy and expands alot so its hard to control but strong. I use duct tape painted yellow for the split down the center, if this ever splits. You'll need a cowl ($4 or so) a prop and a spinner (comes as 2 pieces, one of which you broke). Problem is you may also have broken either (or both) the firewall, or gearbox or plastic skeleton of the fuselage as your prop is pointing too far downward. I have all these parts as spares but you'll need to start buying a few for yourself. Try [link=http://www.redrockethobbies.com/]Red Rocket Hobbies[/link]. Go to RC accessories and you'll find the parts from there. FAST service and cheap as your gonna find.
Get a spare fuse even if you don't need one yet; cause you will later. I also have 3 of everything else (body part-wise). The motors and servos are unbreakable and your wings are fine this time. Don't try regluing wings until you get REALLY good and are using Carbon fiber braces, maybe not even then.
Good luck.

Avindair

TC: Yow, one crinkle means its shot? Yikes!

I'm already planning on buying spare parts of, well, everything, but I want to see if I can recover this bird. (I look at it and keep thinking "I can repair this!")

Lib: Funny you should mention duct tape; my first instinct was "That's a clean break. I wonder if I can duct tape it!" (Lord knows, I've flown enough real world Cessna 152s with duct tape on them to know the stuff is a pilot's best friend!)

Also, despite the damage, the spinner actually didn't break so much as pop off. Shocks me, too.

I've been looking at the structure and it appears to be sound. The only thing I'm really concerned about, as you've mentioned, is the gear box and the firewall (though I haven't been able to spy any obvious damage on the FW yet). If the gear box and FWare sound -- and since it appears to me that the skeleton seems to be solid -- I think I just have to repair this bird to try and fly her again.

In the meantime I've been flying the PZ Super Decathalon to get my flying fix. Nice bird, but underpowered. Really crap landing gear, too. I did a "harrier landing" in a stiff wind (I know, I know, shame on me) on Sunday and pretty much hovered her to a touchdown two feet from me. Plopped her in as gentle as you please but still managed to cause a little crack around one of the gear supports in the fuselage. Grrr.... Also, I'm missing my ailerons terribly. But it's still better than the Aerobird Challenger...

Avindair

stokeflyer

Avindair,
I've had good results by straightening out the crinkles as good as possible then glueing strips of depron inside the fus, it has strengthened things up no end with very little weight increase.
Rich

Avindair

Depron --

Thanks for the advice! Also, love your sig.

Avindair

stokeflyer

if you saw me fly, you'd see why....lmao

AJ1202

Hi all, I'm finally putting my P-51 back together, or I should say building a new one, I am making a couple little changes and just had a couple questions, I have removed the stock aileron wire set up and am replacing it with golden rod, going to stay with the single servo for now, I cut the aileron flaps loose and am putting them back with hinges, also going to do the elevator the same way, hinges that is
I am going to use a different geared set up as I have one I feel will work better than the stock set up, I just have to mod the firewall to accomidate a stick mount, I feel I have that solved but my question is about the elevator control rod, with my first P-51 I crashed it 3 times and I feel all 3 were due to letting it stall, each time it was high enough to recover but when it went into a dive I couldn't get it to pull out of it, like the rod was flexing and not letting the elevator travel far enough to pull it out, I was thinking about finding a way to secure it half way through the fuse, like a bracket of some kind and use a larger lever on the servo. Has anyone found this to be the case on the elevator and if so how did you correct it. Next question is I'm thinking about closing up the battery bay at the bottom and cut an opening on top to install the batt, has this been done, if so did it work out. I just can't see breaking the hatch over and over on belly landings and potentialy damaging my lipo
Thanks for any sugggestions and help

gunracer

aj,

hope the below pixs help...no more broken batt covers...inserting and removing batts are a non-issue...as to the flexing of the elevator pushrod, try securing/taping it to a lightweight dowel or inserting into a cf tube...good luck...

AJ1202

Gun, thanks that is exactly what I had in mind, good deal. CF with the rod hmm that should do it
Thanks

Libertarian

Good luck!

Libertarian

One of the guys uses a brace he gives the model of if you go back a few pages. This plane always tip stalls easily and its a function of the warplane wings. If you're on HI RATE on your Tx it should pull up fine as long as you've got your elevator centered for full range travel. On low rates it won't change direction fast at all!