ORIGINAL: MMcConville

Sorry for the delay in rspondfing, I've been away for a week. Here are the answers:

1. the landing gear. How tough is it. I am concerned about it being in the wings and the normal tendencies of the new pilot to be pretty hard on the landing gear at times. So I can see where a really rough landing can literally destroy the wing.

The landing gear mounts in the wing are very strong. The LG are raked forward quite a bit, which is done to get the desired ground handeling (which is amazing). A side benefit to the forward rake is the way the lg absorbs landing shock. They'll bend forward and up rather than transfer as much load to the wing. Weve never broben a lg mount loose. If it would happen, call into our Priduct Support dept and they'll take care of you.


2. low speed handling. I have flown other planes will all the stuff bolted to the wings and they can be slowed quite allot but I have to admit that they fly much better to me without everything hanging off of them. As far as new pilots are concerned, the extras will help but at times can introduce bad habits. So to help unlearn theser habits, I'll usually leave the things on until they are pretty proficient at takeoffs and landings plus basic aerobatics. So my next question is:

The low speed handeling is very good. The Speed brakes and flaps keep the sped down quite a bit. They do induce drag which makes the glide path steeper, which means a student will learn to make shorter landing approaches and perhaps evev carrysome throttle till near touch down. I think thats a plus IMHO, since the model stays closer in and is less exposed to and effected by wind.

The NACA droops are amazing. We used a pretty radical shape (thanks to the help of Dr. Michael Selig), which make a huge difference to the stall characteistric of the wing. It is impossiblr to tip stall or spin with the droops on. In fact you can actually pull full up elevator and hold it, then steer around and land the model while never releasing full up.

3. How does it handle with all the extras removed.

With all the xtras removed, including the droops, it acts like a pretty aerobatic sport model. If I'd compare it most closely to the Hangar 9 T-34 in flight performance once everything is removed.

ORIGINAL: echobot

My son got his P51 early this week and we took it out and flew it today.

The winds where gusting from 10 to 15 mph but we took it up anyway.

The info on the plane said to fly it with the fixed flaps down and we did. I didn't like it with the flaps down because it rocked side to side. I felt down flaps made the plane to unstable. When we landed we put the fixed flaps up and flew it again. The plane handled much better with the flaps up. On the third flight we took the air brakes off and flew it again. This plane handled very well but I thought it was still a little slow. On the next flight we took the baffle out of the muffler and now the plane was flying very nice. My son soloed about three weeks ago and he had no problem flying the plane with the changes we made. Since this is his first tail dragger he did bounce it quite a bit on his landings, but he still did a great job of flying the P51.

Can you elaborate on taking the baffle out? what do you need to do to remove it and does it change the idle or slow speed performance of the motor? i.e. more air leaving the motor usually means it needs more intake, did you have to readjust the settings at all?

thanks

ORIGINAL: echobot
To remove the baffle, take the nut off the exhaust end of the muffler and then remove the long screw that holds the muffler halfs together. The baffle is right where the two muffler halfs join. The baffle looks like a round disk with slots cut into it.

We didn't have to make any changes to the mixture when we took the baffle out, but you might have to adjust the high speed if needed.

Hope this helps

ORIGINAL: BIFFETT
....however we fueld the plane up and the evolution ran rich but very smooth...we decided to put the flaps in the neutral position with the wind an all......takeoff went easily with the wide spaced landing gear an large tires......left the ground in less than 15ft......climbed nice into the wind and very slow without any tendecies to tip stall.....flew a basic pattern with a couple of large loops and barrel rolls.....crisp handling without much effort at all...... landing showed just how stable this thing is.....so slow you wonder why it's still up......just awesome. Keep in mind we did'nt have to adjust anything...the servos...the trim....the engine.....nothing. All were well in the norm straight from the factory. Flew like it was on rails and as stable as I've seen......well done hanger 9 and thank-you for thisplane. An easy sell to say the least.