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Old 01-04-2012, 04:55 AM
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skirack
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Altamonte Springs, FL
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Default RE: nitroplanes Electric P-51

I purchased the AirField RC P-51 1450MM (57") Radio Control Warbird on black Friday from Nitroplanes and overall I am very pleased.

Here is a clip from a series of maiden flights over the weekend that illustrate a series of field modifications: http://youtu.be/6cDmBjZzD7g

The first segment of the video is the maiden flight with the 100% stock setup powered by a Turnigy 4S 36C battery. The plane was underpowered and is seen at full throttle for the entire short flight. Flaps were set for mid for takeoff and full for landing and were effective.

You will also see a reoccurring problem with the landing gear not fully deploying in this video. My theory is aerodynamic forces in flight on the gear doors are stopping the gear on its way down. The gear deploys strong and consistently in preflight testing in the pits with no signs of weakness. In later flights on this day I removed the gear doors and they performed perfectly with two subsequent flights.

With some good help with my fellow pilots at RCACF we tested several props on a meter and found that a two bladed 16X12 prop was a good match recording 39 amps and 585 watts at full throttle on the stock 50 amp ESC.

I was surprised to see how poorly the stock prop performed after seeing some other videos of the same plane performing better on the stock setup. Either way I ended up having a great day flying the plane with 6 flights with no other performance issues. I flew on the 4S 36C Turnigy battery with the timer set for 6 minutes and coming back with slightly more than 15 amps left on the battery.

I am pleased with the plane, it flys great and there are no surprises in the air. You may want upgrade the motor, ESC for better performance.