I just bought a nitroplanes p-38 lightning...52" model....just over $100.00 with shipping....i am going electric and im guessing the overall weight to be about 4 lbs. Im looking for a set of brushless motors and esc's that will provide some spirited performance. Any suggestions? I can easily fit a 30c 2250mah lipo in each nacelle for power. BTW the model is put together well but the fit and finish are lacking a bit...and the instruction manual is very poor. I was looking at the eflite 480's or one of the neodym brushless motors....

I gave the GWS one, it's a little smaller. I use 9x7 counter rotating 3-blade props, thunderbird 18 ESC's, 2812/900 motors and a single 3200 mAh 3 cell Lipo. It's fast. The same motors with 25 amp ESC's would give a little better, but they're what I had.

I just finished an E-Flight Fairchild PT-19 ( 2lbs 4oz auw) that I powered with an emax 2815-09 along with an emax 40 amp esc. from toysonics.com. This motor is supposed to be in the 400-500 size range. It puts out around 300 watts at wot with a 10 x 7 master airscrew e- prop and draws about 28 amps. I am using a 2200mh 3s. Needless to say it will really scoot. It also flies very nice at about half throttle. I have been geting about 10 min. of flight time with just cruising and a few aerobatic moves. They cost about 30$, the esc about 25$. This is the third emax motor that I have bought and I have had good luck with all of them. A pair of these in your P38 should give it some pretty good kick.

Try and get around 110-150 watts per pound. I don't know what the output on the 480 motors are, but Eflite has been good to me

I have two Eflite Power 32s on my Do-335, but it weighs around 7 lbs.


Jeff

My Bro-in-law had the same plane and outfitted it with HiMaxx 2816-1220 outrunners, 8X6 3 bladed counter rotating props on a single 3s Lipo 3000 to 4000mah I don't remember exactly & TB 36 ESCs. She flew very well and had plenty of power well over scale flying. Not unlimited vert. On about her 5th flight one of the ESCs malfunctioned, and caught fire in flight. She crashed and burned, literally!!

hey rick, im sry about your brother in laws plane. Im looking at the pics and it seems like it was starting to burn on the other nacelle also... maybe that 3 blade prop was pulling way more amps then he thought it was....not enough safety margin on his esc? The eflite 480's are a little pricey.....i can take the scorpion 35a esc from my trojan and buy a second one....trying to get the best bang for the buck for around $100.00....this plane seems to be an "inbetweener"....needs something between a 480 and the next range of electric motors... I havent really weighed it yet as its not really put together....some have said it is every bit 4lbs and some say about 3.5.....2 motors with a combined 500w should be about right...ill probably need to look at all the specs for watts and amps for each one considered...the right size esc's and batteries in that order.Some people live by the 20% rule also....they plan system around performance difference of actual and stated by manufacturers which the general consensus seems to put it in the 20% range on average. This coming from lots of people with many years of flying and building....might be looking closer to $135.00-$150.00 before im done!

Leadtongue,
Yea, we also saw that. The amps pulled, using a watt meter, were well within the ESCs ability. I don't remember the exact numbers, but checking amp draw is ALWAYS part of the build and a good margin of safety is built in. As a plus to Castle Creations, they warrenteed both ESCs with new ones. The only thing we could figure with the 2nd ESC starting to burn was a major malfunction upon impact or some big voltage spikes when the first one fried. Without rudders, she's pretty much uncontrollable when one motor shuts down. If I were to build one, I'd disable the BECs and run a seperate UBEC to power up the Rx & servos. This was not the case with this model, although 4 small servos on 3s shouldn't have been a problem. I've gone to using UBECs on everything. Good luck.

Rick

im looking at a pair of scorpion 2215-1860 motors.... max cont power rated 320 watts....max cont current 30 amps....should be fine paired up with 2 scorpion 35a esc's....price for motors alone compared to eflite 480"s i save enough for esc!

1860 Kv? With what, a 6 inch prop?

scorpion prop data shows an apc 7x5sp will draw 253.47watts and provide 35.49 oz thrust......apc 7x4sp will draw 284.6 watts and provide 37.53 oz thrust with the 2215- 1860.
The 2215-1860 is rated for 320watts max cont power and 30amps max cont current

How did you ever come up with the name " leadtongue " ? Sounds more like a musical group.

Rich

I love combat flight sims...i loved microsoft combat flight sim2 and used to play heavily on the old microsft game zone.....always wanted a "skin" on a plane like the p-40 mouth on the cowl with the tongue sticking out and bullets coming out! Also from years of online gaming you can develop some really nasty trash talking. I could be very bad....hence leadtongue was conceived. Btw i still play cfs2 online at "thecfs2flightdeck.com" nice wwll south pacific sceney and planes for all you warbird lovers -check it out! Also my sister in law lives in frenchtown....their daughter is the little girl (she's 13 now) who was not allowed to sing at the school sponsored "idol" show because the song contained references to god. They are born again baptists and some christain groups sued the town on her behalf. They eventually won their case but did not ask for any monetary damages even though her rights to free speech were ruled to have been violated.

Thanks for the update.
Small towns can & do have small brains in charge. I live on the edge of Kingwood / Frenchtown border. We used to live in a apartment unit near Rays Sport Shop on 22.

Rich

yeah Rays sport shop! i used to go there all the time....spent a small fortune on wet and dry flies and various fishing gear over the years. i lived in bound brook for a few years on van kueren ave....always went to rays or effingers.

LT, I flew mine on Tower Pro 2915-5's, spinning 9x7x3's. With the proper counter rotating prop set up. Flew like a trainer it was probably the second best flying P-38 I ever had, the 90" is even better.

Oh and on the "destructions" and their chingrish explainations. Lotta steps are missing, like a real important one. Unless they've updated the manual, in mine no where did it mention installing the leading edge wood pins to scure the front of the booms to the wing. Miss that and all that holds the wing on is the plastic supercharger covers.[X(]

And take some epoxy to the gear blocks, little weak there. I installed air retracts in mine.

Great little bird, but it is a P-38. You don't land it, you fly it to the ground.

Is the "flying it to the ground" thing common to all P-38's? I bring my GWS in at 1/2 throttle, only cutting the power after the main gear touch, or it drops like a rock. The TwinStar (56" WS) will glide in, heavy and fast, but gliding.

Dave, every P-38 I've flown has been that way. It's not like flying a Cub, where you can just float in. A P-38 is a heavy wing loaded plane, so yeah you have to fly it till the wheels touch, they won't glide worth a darn. You fly nose down in the last part of the landing approach to keep the speed up, then plant it.

Honestly the E-Flite version was the only one I've ever had that could be somewhat landed at slow speeds, but that in itself caused another problem. By forgetting to fly it all the way down at speed you could get caught in ground effect, where it would want to balloon up just before it touched down. Was usually followed by an ugly stall as there was no speed left to keep it going. Would drop a wing and snap roll, cartwheeling to a stop. Followed by a lot of glue and CF reinforcements. LOL.

On my bigger ones, even with flap deployed to somewhat slow it down you still have the props spinning big time as the same still holds true, too slow results in ugly landings.
I doubt any of them come in at less then 1/4 throttle. Just my thing as if it starts to go wrong I already got em turning and can flip off the flaps and do a go around.

With out this type of approach, you are commited to landing, just how it ends up landing is going to be more up to the plane then you.

glacier: those tower pros your using.....isnt that way overpowered for the 51" model? Or are you flying the 90" size? Nevermind i perused your profile gallery and saw you had them on the 51"....that must give some awesome performance! What type of flight times do you get with that setup? Also from what i can see from pictures is that the 90" size is of much better quality....no? Just picked up two monster power 10 1100kv motors for $40.50 inc. shipping from hobbypartz.com

i just picked up 2 new monster power 10's....375watts @ 28amps 1100kv i think will work well with this plane....i also picked up two monster power 25's....550 watts @32a 870kv...i will probably use on some future model....i now see the power 15's are back in stock now...425watts@34a 950kv......all these are selling for $19.95 apiece at hobbypartz.com Their specs are mimicing eflites power series motors but at 1/4 the price! Only hope the performance is up to snuff and specs are what they claim...at this price i'll bite and see! I'm wondering if their pricing is a mistake on their side...check out their sister site and what they are charging...maybe i should snap up the 15's while they're at this price too. I drive a honda accord so my model sizes will be limited to what i can fit and take to the field or what models can easily be assembled and deassembled and transported. Looks like 8x6x3 blades will do good on the 10's. If i decide to get the 15's i'll use the 10's on my parkzone t28....

I just happened upon what i think is one of these. it is 52.5" ws, fully assembled when i bought it, the guy i bought it from didnt know anything about it. I would like to make it nitro with a pair of .10, or .15 2 strokes, or equivalent 4 strokes. Any idea if this thing will stand up to nitro. I am sure i will have to beef things a bit, but has anyone ever done it, any advise?

RickAvery, if you had an RX pack in that P-38 you could have brought it safely home, assuming sufficient altitude for a dead stick landing.