Flew my P-51 last night, it was it's third flight and discovered at landing speeds it has VERY little rudder input. I fly a lot of rudder with my LT-40 and 4*120, especially the 120 on high crosswind days, it usually comes in at a 45* angle to the runway with releasing the rudder just as it touches down, and last night there was a cross wind that kept pushing the Stang to my left as I was trying to land it, and there was NO visible effect of rudder. First attempt was too far south, so powered up and went around, second attempt was right down the middle but too high, didn't want to chance going off the end, so went around again. Third attempt got pushed much further south and I had full left rudder into it trying to cab it, and no effect. I hit the throttle and saw it was going t get too close to the tree behind me, and I must have pulled back too fast as it had snapped over on its back and performed a perfect half circle, but the ground got in its way. Two more feet in altitude and it would have cleared. It hit on the bottom of the cowl and snapped the fuse in half at the instrument panel. The landing gear got ripped out since they were down, and the flap servos, one needs new gears, the other broke the mounts off the plate and the same happened to the aileron servos, so need new gear sets for at least two of those along with one for the throttle servo.

So removed the wheel wells, they are undamaged, removed the gear, looks like they are OK, still straight too. will need to do some minor repairs to the wing where the gear mounts go, leading edges are OK, only busted a few ribs and the mounting blocks.

The Fuse busted clean in half, so might be able to just splice it back together and reglue all the formers. The only damaged former is the one for the wing dowels. Then I just have to recover it.




I might be able to salvage the cowl, it got crunched up, but some epoxy and light cloth should fix it up, then sand and repaint it. The spinner got bent, might be able to repair it, if not I have another one for the kit build. The engine is packed with soil, so will need to clean it up, but nothing got damaged, and it still turns nicely. I have to figure out what is up with the rudder though, I should have had more control with it that it had. Even at cruise speed it has little effect, I should at least see some yaw when I move it, but I dont. It also seems to have little effect on take off too, the plane goes left on take off, and I had the rudder quite a ways right. It is setup with the proper throws, no expo, and no rates. The one thing none of my planes have is expo and rates on the rudder. Last time I flew my LT-40 prior to last night, the aileron servo lead got pulled out of the RX by the throttle servo(since corrected) so I had no ailerons, but brought it in on rudder only, which was a challenge since the rudder sticks a bit and needs opposite touch to straighten out. When rudder input has very little effect on flight its a bit concerning.