RE: Top Flite 1/7 P-51 Build
Hey, Sean
My daughter has no internet access so I didn't get this until just now, in New Jersey at my son's. (Saturday evening) We got out of there before the ice storm hit. Did it?
For the last six months, I have spent some sleepless nights over that Mustang, wondering if I'd managed to assemble a $1200 eisenschwein. The maiden was such a non event. I fed in a little power, it rolled straight about 15 feet, the tail came up, I added a little more power, it started getting light on its wheels, I gave it a little more, and it started climbing out. It flies beautifully with the gear up, and needed about 1/16" of down trim for level flight. I never did get anywhere near using full throttle. I'll save that for another time. I dropped the gear and the flaps and trimmed it, made one missed approach, and set it down. It slows down really nice with those barn door flaps and the gear hanging down. I just blipped the throttle now and then throughout final approach to keep the speed from falling off too much, and set it on the mains. She rolled about 15 feet and stopped.
The 1.20 AX is an amazing engine. It was turning 8400 rpm on the ground at 600 feet above sea level, on 10%, one click off peak, with a 15x10 APC. I put one 12 oz tank through it before the flight, a mix of full throttle, half and idle, and it ran for 21 minutes.
I'm pretty happy with this one. The only bug that popped up was the tail wheel assembly. With the weight of the plane on it, that silly setscrew is not enough to prevent the wire strut from pushing up so far that it blocks the retract mechanism and the thing won't retract. I put a stack of washers between the bushing and the mount, to make sure it stayed where it belonged, and all was cool. I also could not get the engine to even spit by hand, so ended up using a starter and messing up the paint on the spinner, but what the hey, flying is the important part. It's why we're all in this.