critterhunter

Got a few pictures of the P38 Lightning to show. The booms and tail feathers aren't glued in yet, and I didn't put the bottom V-stabs on to show. They are sitting on the table next to the plane.

The H-stab, V-stabs, and elevator all have flat carbon in them for strength, and I used Great Planes hinges to join everything. Tail feathers are Cell Foam 88. Still have some glue to clean off.

I'd say this plane is about 80 to 90% scale, as I slimmed the boom width way down and also increased the size of the tail feathers. The ailerons will also be bigger than scale. Wingspan is 42" and uses a slimmed down USA27 airfoil.

This plane is getting two 2409-18D 1100 k/v motors, swinging 8x7 gas props, but I might moved to three blade props later to look more scale. They'll be driven by Super Simple 40 amp ESCs and powered with a 25C 2200ma 3 cell Rhino lipo. RX will probably be a GWS. Servos will be HXT900s.

I'm going to install landing gear so I can stay away from prop savers. Bottom of fuse and booms will be sheeted with balsa for added strength, and the wing already has a fiberglass rod from tip to tip.

Amazing how the So was such a great learning tool on scratch building. Just about all of the build methods I learned and perfected on it get put to use on my other platforms.