Hello to all,

Just got my Modeltech P-47 in the air yesterday, and it flew great. Powered by an O.S. 1.20, the plane only took about 20 feet to get off the ground. The added weight of the larger engine kept me from having to add lead for nose weight. The plane balanced perfectly with the 1.20 on the nose. It looked great flying by with the retracts up. The landing characteristics are phenominal. It will come in slowly, and never attempt to stall or drop a wing. I give this plane an A+ for flight characteristics.


Now for the kicker, on my second landing, I landed in the grass instead of on the asphalt runway.Why?, because the wind was gusting to around 20 MPH with crosswinds, so I pretty much tried to get as close to the asphalt as possible. As soon as I touched down onto the grass, the right gear just curled under. After inspecting the damage, I noticed that the gear mounting blocks were glued in with a small amount of wood/hot glue. And, the blocks were glued to balsa! Now, I'm no expert builder, but I would think that the gear "should" come out when the blocks are installed like that. Overall, the damage was minimal and will only take an hour or so to fix.

Why did Modeltech use such small wheels on this plane? Unless you use the fixed gear, you've got to use the small wheels. It seems that they would have put larger ones on the plane, so that even people who used the retracts, could fly off of grass with ease. I can see that a plane with the supplied wheels has no place on a grass runway, and the gear is probably going to come out.

Overall, I give the Modeltech P-47 an "A". It flies great, lands smoothly, and looks great in the air and on the ground. It's just those small wheels and weakly-mounted gear mount blocks.

Give me your input on this bird,

John