RE: Top Flite 1/7 P-51 Build
well today was d-day and i have good news SHE FLY'S!!!!!!!
it was not the best weather for a maiden but it went well for the most part. today started out dead calm all day long until i got the the field to find a 15mph ish dead 90* cross wind to our runway. since i had already got my nerves up to do the maiden i decided to hell with it and went for it. it took me a couple attempts to take off the engine sagged on the first run and so it came to a stop in the grass went back to the pits and made a few adjustments and was ready for a go. take off was fairly uneventful tracked strait down the runway with little rudder required got the tail up and continued down the runway and gently lifted off. continued my climb fighting a slight right roll started the first turn and almost lost it, it was a down wind turn and she dropped a wing, got leveled out and raised the gear. did a couple passes to get rid of the jitters and got her trimmed out for level flight she needed about a 1/4" down elevator and several clicks of aileron to fly strait and level. got familiar with her and decided it was time to land so i dropped 1/4 flap and reduced throttle to half and dropped the gear no noticeable pitch change which was nice continued down the base leg and made the turn to final reduced throttle to 1/4 and dropped the rest of the flaps and lined up for the landing. not my best landing but it qualified as a good one (the plane was in one piece and still flyable which equals a good landing) ended up on the grass and a little hot and ended up in the typical mustang bow. this thing does not bleed speed very fast.
final thoughts on the landing: reduce throttle sooner and try to get on the runway.
final thoughts on the maiden: over all good (sorry no video) i need more power i need to play with the engine before the next flight. my plan is to change from an apc 16x7 prop to an apc 15x8 to see if i can get some rpms back and hopefully get some better performance. she flew well once on step but i felt it needed a bit more oomph
i still have some minor details to finish like painting my wheel wells and install instrument panel but that is just cosmetics