Hey all,
I got an original Byron P-51 mustang - the one peice wing design in November of 2007. It was kindof a trade deal and I got it for basically doing some work for the 2nd owner.
Here is how it happened. I was working in my shop one day and a customer came in to have something done. He noticed all of the R/C planes in my shop and said that he has had a plane in his garage for 15 years or so. He said that he would never build it because he had no patience in that department and was never interested in airplanes anyway. In describing it, he just said that the fuselage was very big and green, there was some sort of "weed wacker" engine on it and it had alot of foam parts LOL! After he said that, I emediately started thinking, HMMMM, is it what I think it might be? I asked him what it was and he didn't know - he just said come over and take a look and if you think that it is worth it, we'll trade some work for it. So, after a phone call, my little son, Hunter and I went to his house. He opened the garage and my son and I went in. He went to the back of the garage and slid two big boxes out from under a shelf out to the middle of his garage, my son (10 years old at the time) screamed
"It's a P-51 very loudly!!" I looked at my son thinking OOPPs I've been had! and just whisperedto him "SSSSHHHHHH." I said to the guy calmly, "Sure, I'll do the trade with ya." He said "OK" and we loaded up the truck and took this lovely beauty home.
I have been building and flying models since I was 9 years old starting with the plastic models and then going to the stick buildup balsa kits, control line models and in 1981, when I was just 13, I got into R/C.
The P-51 mustang has always been my favorite (as it is just about every aviation buff!!!) and I always dreamed of haveing a Byrons originals P-51 since I was very young. I obviously could never aford one back then because my hobby was always supported by myself working after school and during summer break in the orchards around where I lived.
Now the plane is a Byron originals P-51 mustang with the byro drive unit installed. It was made in 1981 ( I think ) because the engine has 81 on the bottom of it. I am pretty sure that it is a quadra 35 because I don't beleive that they made the 40s and the 42s at that time for this plane. If someone else out there knows more, then please feel free to let me know. I haven't taken the engine out to see what mm the cylinder is yet but I am going to eventually have to take it out to install the muffler, at that time I can look into the exhaust port and see how many rings it has and measure the cylinder width.
The kit was fairly beat up sitting in the garage and being handed down to the last owner. The foam wings were a bit beat up and the fuselage had some dents and warping from hot/cold fluctuations. The retracts were gone as were most of the hardware bags from robbing it for other projects I suppose. Some of the die cut parts were also missing but the sheets where the pieces came out of were still there - thank goodness! Also a wheel was missing. The good thing is that all of the very important components are still in the boxes.
The first owner actually started building the wings. He got through about step 4 give or take a few other things that he did. That is the black or darker colored epoxy that you see in some of the pictures. He must have lost intrest or something because it was just put away to be subjected to hangar rash and the kit being pilfored for other projects for the next 25 years or so - untill it found a person to adopt and take care of it........
Here are a couple of pictures of the wings before I started and you can see what was done before I started.
Jeff