cz-7a: Very exciting to hear you have the molds and the skills to put them to use! I did not know they existed
This is a most impressive beast of a P-38 and very stable in the air. Everybody at at any flight field pretty much stops what they're doing to watch when you fire it up and point it into the wind.
Some of that may be due to they think I might put on a great calamity show
My "only" trouble with it over the years has been a disturbing tendency to land like a flying manhole cover, with a pancake stall speed of about 40 kts: doesn't tip to either side, just COMES DOWN when you get below about 40
That appears to have been solved by the flaps and the CG change. I had the long runway and a little headwind, but it appeared to really float on my first pass at 40 kts
The "weak spot" inherent to all 38's in the booms appears to be laid in with some carbon fiber, not sure if during manufacture or after-market
I thought the gear was made by a guy named Gene Barton in MO, but when I sent him some bent mains to repair several years ago, he denied they were his, although he did a really nice job of re-build. They are air-up and what I can only describe as "spring-assisted air-down." I also have an all-air back-up set by Robart, which is much "slicker"-looking, but much less heavy duty. I have never flown with the Robarts
My inboard Fowlers are air-driven, separate tank from the gear, while my outboards are the painstaking servo-driven self-built pieces of art it took me all winter to copy off JQ's CBA. I'll try to post some pics, if I can find them
Once I got the DA-50's rebuilt and found the perfect prop match (Xoar 20-12's) they turn 6900, and I think are the perfect propulsion for this model. After the batteries to the nose and adding 2 lbs of lead to get the CG JQ recommended, my filled-up weight is up to about 64# and I had to dial in about 15 clicks of up elevator during the maiden and did NOT require any down elevator mix during flap deployment, as have many of my other 38's
Very excited you have the molds. Keep us updated on your progress