scale dail

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Royal P-38. 74" span.



EDIT Read more carefully -different model[&:]

Riddle4U

Hi Scaledail, we love the P-38 here. I am sure you have some advice for our courageous new builder! Please repost some pics of yours?

scale dail

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I am down to 4 Royal P-38's. When they are all done then I will move up to a slightly larger size. Nothing beats being able to fit my P-38 in the truck in one piece. I do my preflight at home before I load it up. If I don't check certain things then sure enough it will fail in front of everybody. And since I do everything old school I need to make sure that it is right! What could fail? Nose wheel not come back down, crabing on the ground, strut fly off in the air, or forgeting to bring my flying props. Then of course at the field check everything again! And never tune the engines for everything they've got. Always before the first flight of the day do the Dan Palmer nose up test.
My Royal P-38 has survived since the 80's as a regular flyer, where are all those other Royal P-38's from that time period- crashed? You will have to pull that glow engine from my cold dead fingers before I cop out and go electric!!!! OLD SCHOOL RULES!

Last pic was a long time ago....

Baldeagle

My Feedback: (7)

Dial I am with you , I like the sound .

Riddle4U

Great, I like seeing some other pics of that one. What a nice job you did on it. I have to agree that I don't see the real compelling "draw" of going electric. It just doesn't do justice to any warbird to have it "whirring" instead of growling! Who would want a Harley with an "electric smooth" Honda GL 1000 purring instead of the V-Twin. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but engines are still cool!

Ethesis

The 84in. wing was for a glider someone gave me. The wing was mounted underneath the fuse and was 8in. wide. I just started working on the other sheet with the booms. Lots of sanding.[:'(]

dpoles

I am about to embark on a .60 Bearcat from plans, will convert to electric and was wondering if anyone is lasercutting these?
How about retracts?

Any help or Royal Bearcat inspiration would be appreciated.

Ethesis

Dail, what size engine did you put in the p-38, and how does inverting the engine affect the planes performance? I'm thinking of inverting the engines for streamlining. Did you dope or monokote the plane?

Riddle4U

dpoles, I am surprised more haven't mentioned the nice Royal Bearcat here. It looks to be a nice start on a scale airframe. You will have to research the landing gear a bit. I am not an expert on electric power in these size models....I would suggest, biased as I am, that you go with a real engine though. These heavy scale models need true power! There simply is nothing better than what it was designed to fly with...nitro methane/methanol based reciprocating engine. The energy and consistant power of a good .90 two stroke or 1.20 four stroke would be strongly recommended by this thirty five year's experienced modeller (I am 47). Note: they tend to call this plane a .60 glow power model....it is always coming out heavier in my knowledge. Go with a true .90 glow if you want it to get off the darn ground. I do not suggest electric for this model AT ALL. You can get almost anything laser cut if you want (I won't single out a vendor). If I run across one of my websites I will be on the look-out for a nice gear for you (stay in touch here)! Great luck! - Eric

Riddle4U

Ethesis, I am sure dail will give you fine advice... I just am looking at his nice pictures of his P-38 Lightning model; perfect example of why I started this thread. I do think inverting the engines is standard with this model. It is perfectly fine, fits just right within the cowl, but one needs to just be somewhat carefull when starting the engines so that you don't flood the engine and have a hydraulic lock in the worst case...or more commonly you just flood out the glow plug (which is no big deal at all). I look forward to hearing what Dail would suggest for the engines?! Man, now I want to find a good kit of this thing!

Ethesis

The plans show the engines mounted regularly, but gives an outline of the inverted engines. The plans don't mention size. I got plenty of time to figure this all out, so no rush. By the way, does anybody know what happened to Royal?

av8djc

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Pretty long thread and I just got half way through it and then jumped to the last two pages. I like the WW2 warbirds but just for a little change here is my Royal Supercub. Built with laminated curved tailfeathers, flaps, glider tow, scale landing gear, and a Moki 1.8 it is a great flyer. It is scale to a full sized bird up in Alaska. Covered in Coverite with Randolf dope (and dope trim) she's a pretty thing. Had her for sale a while back but I guess there's too many Cubs on the market to get what I thought she was worth so I'm going to fly her a while.

Riddle4U

That is very nice! I forgot they made a Super Cub. I like the unique doped finish, you won't see to many done like this anymore. The gear and struts are a great detailing effort (bungee and the other braces). You probably won't mind holding on to it!

av8djc

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Thanks Riddle. Nah, I don't mind holding her but she does take up a lot of space in my shop. That's why I decided to start flying her again. It's been three or four years. I built her for glider towing and not much interest in that where I live. Might re-power with a G62 or maybe a DL55 if I get fond of flying her. I put a fiberglass hatch between the firewall and windshield so changing motors, tanks etc. should be easy. Here's a few more pics:

Ethesis

av8djc, what is the process of doping the plane and how does dope compare to monokote.

Riddle4U

Nice detail Dave. I'll let you field the silk and dope question (I grew up doing it before monokote took over). I think it is fair to say that a silk and dope covering isn't as rugged as monokote, but one can dope Sig Koverall and Solartex I am guessing. It is still a viable covering method for some models, in my opinion. Full scale aircraft still use dope finish where appropriate.

Ethesis

P-38 build is on hold right now. The workspace has long term water damage and a helpful colony of termites. Good time to go look for wood...

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

Just stumbled onto this thread. The royal kits are definitly a "builders" kit. I like the quote, "...with a Royal kit you just carve away everything that's not the airplane...". That being said they seem to be a rugged and sturdy plane and I've always found that no matter the kit mfg my warbirds seem to handle alot better with being a bit on the heavy, if not very heavy side. You just have to fly the plane all the way to the ground and be very aware of speed and power. Warbirds have never been a beginners a/c and with a lot of them if you don't know how to co-ordinate turns and how to use the rudder you get that fabled "bag-o-balsa".

I've recently gotten back into finishing up on a Royal P-51 that was begun over 25 yrs ago and spent 23 yrs in varios and sundry places of abusive storage. after correcting many of my beginners mistakes of 2 decades past, like grinding away who knows what form of concrete like material I chose for the fin/stab filet area, I finished the glassing and worked upto the point of being 90/95% done just plumbing, electrics and some final details now.
Can't wait to see it in the air. Finish/colors are that of my grandfather's mount out of Lesina, Italy 1944/45, 318th of the 325th, 15th AAF. "Checkertails" Unfortunatly he never got to see any mor than the rough fuse and wing.

saito 100 for power and modified Keleo functional scale exhaust waitng to go in. Used the Topflight 60 size canopy as the original had been damaged. Had a really nice royal replacement/repro from the Ebay guy...either uswing or wflawson but as it was a true copy of the original it didn't have much to work with on the front endof the windscreen and the TF did and was also a perfect fit. see the foto.

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

oops.. missed the pics!

nomenclature was a custom set from aeroloft.com. really nice lady and great dry transfer/rub-on decals at a decent price. she was really good about using my art and making what I wanted and needed not just pushing me into an "off the shelf' set. Insignia and fuse Id#'s are painted.

loukos

My Feedback: (2)

Frets24,

That a beautiful model! im glassing mine now which had a similar history to yours, I bought it with the fuselage constructed (like a banana), and i just stored it in my workshop for the past 15yrs. A few months ago I decided i would correct the construction errors and finish it. The fuselage has been straightened as much as possible, built the wings, modified accordingly to fit inner gear doors also.

I am a bit worried about the all up weight of the model with all the detail added although I sanded and carved most of those block balsa bits out, its still a beefy construction. I agree with you that heavy planes fly better however, not on landing and not in a deadstick situation, high wing loading is a killer there. I have also seen another royal/marutaka mustang sr. a few years ago snap roll on takeoff because of weight/washout issues which did put me off a bit. It was not built very well and was very heavy, hope thats why it came down[]

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

thanks for the compliment...it has surely been a labor of love.

High wing loading is definitly an issue with all close scale warbirds and must be respected accordingly. I've seen numerous intermediate flyers try to yank their first warbirds off the ground just after the tail comes up expecting it behave like a spacewalker or a piper cub or something. the result is inescapable...snap! power, speed and co-ordinated use of rudder are a must with any "heavy" a/c. Also, they can snap and spin in at altitude and with good speed in an un-co-ordinated turn as well, high speed stall.

dead-stick you are really at the mercy of chance and position. If you have altitude and in good position to line up odds are good...if not...well........

Landings aren't so bad with robart struts or equivalent to absorb a bit of the shock on those rough ones. again, though, it's all about speed, power and actively flying the plane. above all you've got to be ahead of the plane...when you start having to REact instead of being ahead youv'e lost 50% of your advantage and skill set.

I'm not advocating building "flying bricks" in the name of scale but if I'm 15-20% over the mfg target wieght I'm usually not too concerned. above that and I start to look harder at shedding ounces.

Maybe Scale Dail could wiegh in on heavy flyers (is that a pun?) I would imagine those P-38s have got to be a fairly high wing load?

frets24

My Feedback: (15)

Just finished some minor surgery to correct a fault that I recently discovered...apparently the P51 had a forward retracting tail gear. Moded up a gear system using a 90 deg intermediate size Robart mechanical main, and did some soldering, cutting and filing with some brass tubing to mock up a functional forward operating tail gear. full scale had a free castoring tail wheel but this will be pull-pull operated. wires (not in yet) will slacken when up and tighten when down.

some pics of the old, and of the new unit. also the test fitting. will need to rework the gear door hole and figure out if there is a practical way to operate functional doors.

Riddle4U

Thanks for the pictures Frets! I think there was something in there for a lot of us. I defer to scail Dail on flying Royals. I read many, many, revues of Royal kits in RCM over the early years. Heck...this is how we used to fly scale unless you built from plans (and hopefully from Dave Platt). I must mention Luke here..as he has proven a small (as we see it now) model can be decked out totally...and also fly reasonably well. This assumes a quite skilled flier! I am also full scale in the flying for 35 years, and didn't even need that expensive education to tell me that our small heavily wing loaded models require some tact in the flying.

I am building a blow-up of the Royal Corsair. I did some math..and just to generalize....to my project..it is an extraordinary weight which the wing carried per inch or square foot on the real ones! There is a reason they called these warbirds "Heavy Iron" (knowing little Iron was involved). These are NOT 3-D acrobats! Warbirds are something different, and were flown to maintain energy into combat at high speeds. If you expect a nice warbird to turn and burn like an acrobat you will be smitten with balsa shards!

scale dail

My Feedback: (8)

Just got back from out of the country. I have looked closely at the few Royal P-38's that I have seen over the years. In the 70's it seems that a good .40 two stroke was the choice. But after that a powerful .45-.46 two stroke was popular. Even .60 two strokes were used, but the extra wieght of the big engines did not help much. My favorite is the OS .46 SF,AX engines and inverted is the only way, if you mount them upright why did you build a scale model? Yes, do not flood them on start up. The lightest Royal P-38 I ever saw weighed about 11 pounds. It was an F-5 version and it was nice! The heaviest I have seen is unfortunetly mine! at a little more than 13 pounds. And no flaps[]. A lot of that is probably fuel in the wood. On a future build I want to try 4-strokes if they will fit, cause the full size P-38 is rather quiet compared to other warbirds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlN9VO_Ws04

Riddle4U

Thanks for motivating us with the furious harmonic sound of the P-38 twin, Dail (your video)! I think we need a watch on E-bay for all of us to get one of these great old kits. I think you're right a .60 or equivalent is too much. The O.S. .46 AX would be perfect. I also am going to learn the four-strokes with my smaller TF kit-built P-51 with an O.S. 120 FS pumper. I can't wait. Good idea to think of those on the Royal Lightning. I don't think I mentioned I went to warbirds over the rockies? Great show, and seems to be growing. Here's a couple pics.