Hey guys, I need some help, actually advises. I still consider myself as a beginner pilot. I can fly high or low wing foamies with successful landings, the thing is I am moving on from foamies to balsa/fiberglass and from electric power to nitro.

I just picked up a Phoenix P51 mustang with OS40 LA on it. It has never been crashed and in good condition. What should Ilook out for on my first flight. Its a 40 size so its not that small. Wingspan is around 56' so there is plenty of lift on the wings.

I adjusted the ailerons,rudder and elevator. CG is good and I havent checked for the wing balance yet. I will do it tonight. Engine is centered, its maybe 2 or 3 degree facing down. so I assume its in good alignment and ready to fly.
On my first flight I wont have a instructor around me or noone to take over and save the plane, so what should I look out for. As soon as I take off I will make sure it flies straight if not, adjust the controls from trims and what else?

When plane is in the air, it will produce more RPM so I was thinking, when I tune it on the ground I should lean it first to reach to top RPM and then richen it just a little bit so once its in the air it wont die from starvation that more RPM will cause.

Is the take off and landing will be at a higher speed than a foam plane? Will it have any glide at all in case of a dead stick?

I just need you guys to fill me in a little bit and give me some encouragement. I dont want to crash this beautiful plane.
I appreciate all the comments and advises.</p>

I beleve you are talking about the Pheonix Strega. If so it is the warbird that I do highly recommend for a first warbirds and it is the vehicle we use extensively for warbird pylon racing with engines from .46 to 1.10 However it is a major jump in performance from typical parkies and to answer your question the landing speeds are far faster more like three times as much from what you are use to.

The LA 40 is a poor choice for this airplane and will cause protracted takeoff runs, the kind where folks tend to get into trouble.

At the very least get an experianced pilot to do the maiden and do the initial control tweeks. Ignore the CG in the instructions and balance at 3/8 inch forward of the aft edge of the spar (where the open bays start.

John

Yeah, 40 seems underpowered, That does not mean that it wont fly, but will take alot of runway to get off the ground. Like Mr Buckner said, if there is a local club near you, have a seasoned pilot maiden it for you and give you insight on power, balance and overall flight characteristics. Of course if you decide to take off on your own, do search prior to flight for reviews, forum discussions, etc... you can find out alot by googling. You can find out alot about the engine and the plane in the compare products section under the user review tab at the top of this page. All that said, there is a pilot at our field that flies everything underpowered, makes him a better pilot he says, and he's probably right. Your engine placement sounds right on the money, down and right thrust, is what you want. What size and type of prop is on it? What size fuel tank? Rx Battery? get the plane up high, fly level at half throttle and release the sticks, trim then. keep it up high, level flight and cut the thotttle, see how it glides. That will give you an idea as to how it will react when landing. You'll have to do the search I mentioned before about landing, most warbird style planes have to be landed and little hot. Just be ready to go around if the approach doesn't look or feel right. If you get in to trouble chop the throttle and let go of the sticks, if you're high enough the plane should level out, then take control again. Stay three mistakes high for the first few flights. If you have a sim use it until you are comfortable. Not much else I can say except good luck!! and GO for IT!!

Also since you psooibly do not have much engine experience get the local club engine guru to make sure the LA is giving it's little all and you have the right prop on.

BTW the guru is probably the one whose engines always start instantly, no problems in the air and he lands with them running NOT the guy who spends all his time running his engines on the ground changing props and playing with the needle settings.

A lot of times park fliers don't pay much attention to the WIND direction. You need to be sure to take off INTO the wind and "DO NOT " pull the plane off to soon, let it get it's speed up.
After take off DON'T fight the plane just take it up high and then trim it. When it's trimed, fly a few approaches about 30 / 40 feet up to get a feel then when you get ready to land " land INTO the wind " don't try floating it in, keep just a little throttle on to maintain " forward speed " but control the flying speed with the elevator. ( throttle management )
But as said above, if you can, find someone with glow experience to assist. GOOD LUCK !!!! ENJOY !!! RED

Well the thing is, Yes its a Phoenix Strega .This plane is used, I got it off of Craigs. I want to upgrade to a four cycle but since there is a OS40 on it I just want to get it up there. I will definately go with a bigger engine soon.
My biggest concern is landing because it will be a lot faster than what I am used to but Im sure I can manage that too. It came with a 11x6 and 11x10 props. So I was planning to use 11X6 first. RX battery is 4.8 volts I dont remember the Mah, its powering 5, 3001 Futaba Servos and a Chinese Micro receiver its on fm 72mhz and 250cc fuel tank.

How much flight time should I expect on full throttle or what is safe? 4 mins maybe? and what is the range on fm 72? My 2.4 system is hooked up to my foam plane and I dont want to remove it from that one because I have only one 2.4G receiver.

If you guys say I must use 2.4 G then of course I will. I really dont feel like crashing this one. Thanks for the advise I will look up for OS40La reviews and Phoenix Strega reviews so I can get a better idea of what I am dealing with.

Do not use an 11x10 prop on an La 40 that would be disasterous. An 11x7 may well be to much for this engine also.

My speculation my well be no more than a 11x4 and that may well not get the airplane off the ground within your runway.

I am itimately familiar with this airplane having assembled/modified many of them and trained new pylon racers with this great little airplane and I know you do not want to hear this but must say it. You are not ready for this airplane and the results are very predictable if you do not seek mentoring i.e. A little help from an experianced flyer of this type airplane.

John

G'day

I am sure you don't want to spend more money but if you turned up at my club with that plane and your history I would suggest you pull the LA 40 out of the Mustang and put it in a trainer like the Sig Kadet LT-40. This would enable you to make the transition from floating foamies to "real" aeroplanes without killing your Mustang.

Planes like the Mustang like a bit more power, need to be carefully eased off the ground and can be easy to stall when landing and you will not have had any experience with these characteristics with your foam models.

I have an LT-40 which I have flown with a number of engines including an Enya SS40 which is similar to your LA-40 in power and performance. It has also had a Saito 56 four stroke and currently has an Irvine 40 diesel. It is a good versatile airframe.

At the very least, please do as the others have suggested and go to a club and get some help. The alternative will be a short life for your Mustang and we don't want that do we?

When you do fly the Mustang, an OS AX 46 would be much more suitable.

I have an almost new LA 40 and it works fine with a 10 x 5 or a 9 x 6. And I consider it very underpower for your strega. The battery that you should use could be a 4.8 V in any range between 700 and 1200 mAh.

The plane is very hot on landings, I have flown it with a SuperTigre 45 and a 10 x 6, with very low RPM at landings so I figure out that is the design of the plane what makes it fast and hot for landings, but do not worry about it if you have a good far sight



I have some particular question regarding your move to nitro:

Is the price of lipo batteries?
Price of electronics?
The smell of nitro?

I will appreciate your comments.

Good luck in your project.

As we have said, find some glow power flier help.

Your 72 meg radio is fine , no reason not to use it. I fly them all the time, just DON'T forget the freq. pin.

I think I would try a 10x6 or 10x5 prop on that 40, but I would do some testing before flying it.

4 minutes would be an electric flight. You can probably get closer to 10 minutes and if the throttle hangs up you will probably think you are up there for a hour. ENJOY !!! RED

G'day

I missed the question about the glide.

All aeroplanes can glide. Some better than others. I had a Phoenix P-47 Thunderbolt that dead sticked on me a couple of times when the engine was being sorted out (Thunder Tiger 91 four stroke) and it had an amazingly good glide for a warbird. The trick is to keep the nose down to keep the airspeed up. If you are high enough you can glide for miles in anything.

Your Strega will have a larger glide angle than a purpose designed glider but will still glide well so long as you don't do the usual beginner thing and try to hold it in the air with the elevator. You just have to let it sink at a fast enough rate to keep its airspeed up to where it likes to be.

Some years back an Airbus (real passenger plane) ran out of fuel over the Atlantic thanks to a leaking fuel line and some mistakes by the crew. They managed to glide it for 350 km before landing it. The landing was rather "hot" as they could not use flaps but they got it down in one piece. Just.

If you do a search for Airbus Glider you will find the story.

Trees. Crosswinds. The Earth. Impatience.

There are two approaches to a first flight. One is to taxi around, gradually working up to "hops" into the wind and stretching the hops to low flights and eventually getting airborne. This is the Wright Brothers method.

The other choice is to get airborne and get altitude and then trim. Make sure you have 100 feet or so altitude before attempting the first turn. Also do some slow passes (again at altitude) to see how it slows and whether it has stall or snap tendencies at low speed. Good to find out at 75 feet instead of six.

Neither is better or worse, and both require you to have the model balanced before the flight. BAlanced both lengthwise and laterally is recommended.

Stop! Don't try it yet.[sm=drowning.gif]

Pull the LA 40 out and buy any old trainer for it.

Set the beautiful Strega aside until you buy a stronger engine for it.

In the meanwhile, practice all you can with the trainer.

Only then, go for it.

Regarding learning the tricks of combustion engines, find experienced help, and more important, be extremely careful around that spinning propeller!!

Well, I watched enough utube videos and read enough about os 40la's. Im not going to try to take off with that engine. Its not that I dont trust my skills, its just matter of gravity versus OS40la plus the weight of the plane just doesnt add up. When I run the engine at full throttle and pick up the plane and hold it in vertical position, I can still feel plane weighs the same. I assume full throttle would at least make the plane feel lighter ( Im not even talking about vertical climb or hovering). Everybody suggested OS46 here, I was thinking about getting a 4 cycle Magnum xl52, what do you guys think about Magnum? Is it a wrong option? I really want to go with a 4 stroke and stay in budget. What do you guys advise?

I can't comment on the Magnum, but I'll echo other thoughts, I'd buy a used, but decent shape .40 high wing trainer and slap the .40 on it. This way you get a forgiving airframe and can fly a nitro and get a feel for it. You said you can fly foamies, but haven't said what kind/type/style of foamies.

Then while you're flying the trainer, save up your pennies and get a good engine for your Mustang. Good luck!

An LA 40 is a wonderful 25. For what they are the LA line is pretty good. Just not the top of the power chain. They are really user freindly, reliable, tuff and available. The air bleed carb is the easiest for a newby to fart around with and still work well. A buddy had an LA 40 tht was old and beat to ...well it was rough, cracked case, chipped lugs and the like. In a club build session we demonstrated making motor repairs with JB Weld And used it for the example. It flew well for 2 more seasons
10/6 prop is about the max as this thing needs to rev up to get its power. The 11 and up props just won't let it breath.

Well I have build maybe 10 different foamies from depron and other materials. The power option I usually deal with is around 450 ,550size electric motors on 3 or 4 cells. I fly high and low wings almost 2 or 3 times a week. I have a p51 mustang with air brakes and flaps and also a Cessna 182 with flaps.so I was pretty confident about the Phoenix strega. But everybody was talking about os 40 being under powered so I just bought a magnum xl 52 4 stroke. Im going to install it on mustang and maybe ask for some help for the first flight.

Excellent Plan [8D]

John

Sounds like you should be OK, then. Good luck!

I just installed a Mag 52 on my trainer to test it, I hope it makes good power , the bench tests have been less than spectacular.
My Enya .60 four stroke is very very powerful in comparison.
Iwould make sure your receiver is a full range one and will handle the amps your servos need.

The magnum is a great engine, but it needs to break in to demonstrate the power and reliability.
Is not as powerful as are the OS or Saitos engines on the same range, but they do make to job. Check the valves because on all my magnum 4 strokes engines I have found that they ship them barely assembled.

Given my past experience with my first magnum 52RFS I have gone over this one and tightened and checked everything. Bench testing with the new one has been rough but more promising than the original.
Hope to test it today.