Michel

Hi Ticketec

Would you put this as piloting mistake ? Or as a building mistake ? A friend of mine ( Pami )at the flying field has a Giant P-51 . The retracts have 6 holes to hold down the 622-5 retract system ( a rather large system ) , out of curiousity I asked him why he didn t use allen bolts with blind nuts , he only had small screws holding down the retracts , and his answer was that he wanted the retract system too break lose freely

You know Dave that this is truely food for thought


My thoughts are with you Dave [][][][]


Michel

ticketec

My Feedback: (2)

Hey gents

thanks for the condolences.

It was piloting error. i initially thought that i had slowed her down too much, as i was at a new field, with 15-20kts blustery conditions. but after watching the vid, i don't think she was travelling that slow....

could have been a gust, i could not have pulled up enough, first flight with the lower cowl on and it might have pushed the CoG further forward, all in all, i put it down to pilot error.

I had acutally only completed two circuits with her when i heard a bang. i suspected that the standard muffer had come lose. I elected to land just in case it spun round and hit the prop.

Hey Michel,

I agree with your mate on that one. the trick is to find the balance between, being a good "fail safe" joint, and having the correct strength for everyday operations. if you setup your attach screws as the shear point, then you can beef up the bearers and surrounding area with confidence.

I'm still going though the aircraft and doing a damage assesment. the fuse doesn't have a mark on it, so thats good, but i broke both retracts. the mounting lugs actally snapped clean off on one of them. but struts are bent, althought i have already straighten out one of them, both top wing skins have cracked[:@] both leading edges are damaged[:@] and then the expected damage to the bearer areas... the gear doors survived wth only minor damage.

Well, now i can start ordering replacement parts..[&o]

Thanks

Dave

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Hey, Tick

Sorry about the bird, but you've got the right attitude. Put it back together and fly it again. Don't know if you'll need any new wing parts, but here's the TF url that has the parts list:

http://www.top-flite.com/parts/topa0110pl.html

shafs

Hi Ticketec

Sad to see that really nice mustang like that. like the person above i have one of the giant ARF TF mustang and i will be haveing a look at makeing some changes in that area.

Shafs

I B BUCK

Hey tic sorry to here it . we"ve all been there.
Bob hunt is right you sure got the right attitude.
Buck.

manolomartin

Dave:

First of all, I`m really sorry, some time ago I post my first contribution to this thread telling you that your Mustang is one of the best I`ve ever seen.

I love building and detailing so much, that it`s been to difficult for me to accept the idea that airplane models are born to get damaged (or lost) from time to time. But let me tell you: when a model gets hurt for the first time, you usually get rid of that fear to damage it (I guess it comes included in the kit box) and then you`re ready to start enjoying your plane.

Don`t wait, you`re a true builder. Cut, glue and paint wherever necessary and bring that beauty back to the air as soon as possible. And enjoy it, make any acrobacy that comes to your mind, thats what this things are for.

Manolo Martin
Mexico

hornetcv64

I agree. The damage doesn't look that bad from the photos and you have one of the most realistic paint schemes that I have seen. Get her in the hanger and repaired.

Flying Beagle

slide show of the Mustangs & Legends

http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/con...nds/index.html

there were 20 P-51's in the air at once, flying in groups of three and four, one row after another, totally awesome!

ticketec

My Feedback: (2)

Hey guy's

I'm really touched by your comments... Thanks once again.

I finally edited the video of the crash landing so here is the link.....

http://www.rcuvideos.com/item/JDTVGFZNNDG4MM40

Thanks

dave

ticketec

My Feedback: (2)

hummm, the RCUvideo posting did work... here is a link to you tube instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq4i-txrZL4

thanks

dave

zope_pope

Ouch. Sorry to see that happen. Was it deadstick? It looks like the airspeed just wasn't there to make her flair. I took off my gear on my 86" Yak a month ago with a deadstick that i flaired to early. Very similar. Again, sorry it had to happen.

How are the repairs going?

zope_pope

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=908

CHECK THIS OUT!! This is too cool. I may go electric now.

saramos

Sweet. Just gotta see how to maintian a scale cowl.

Michel

Hi

A lot of people are flying electric nowadays , I have personaly have nothing against them , but on that note , I have nothing for them either . It has the same meaning as an ARF . you crash it and go buy another one . Without the mechanics , it just doesn t seem right .
Don t get me wrong , eveything and everyone has its place . There are seveal members in our club that will fly there foamys berfore they take up there expensive 33% . I cannt appreciate ARFs and I cann t see me flying a Blackand Decker


Mike

ticketec

My Feedback: (2)

Hey Guy's

Firstly, I have to say thank you to you all. i was touched to read so may messages of condolences for my 'stang,

but the good news she is on the mend. the repairs are all but complete. it's in primer and i'll start painting soon. I have order the replacement parts from robart and am just waiting for them to arrive now, so i hope to post some pic's when she's back on her legs again.

Thanks


dave

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Hey, Dave

My hat's off to you for the way you got all that landing gear into that skinny wing.

Here's some shots of my "mocked up" wing.

I traced the #4 and #5 ribs from the outlines left in the balsa sheets that the real ones came from. Made them of 3/16" balsa.

I cut the pockets for the retract rails 1/2" above the rib bottoms in all four places on #4 and #5.

I made long rails out of some 1/8 x 1/2 spruce, laminated to get 1/4" thick.

I stuck the factory #6 rib in place and ran the rails up to it so I could mark where they end up. I'll probably make this rib, and numbers 4 and 5 from 1/8 ply.

I think I'm going to make 1/4 ply landing gear plates that are solid outboard of rib #5.

A couple of notes here:

I changed the LG rail pockets just enough so that the rails angle forward as they go towards the center. This is so the axles will end up a bit more forward (gear down) than they would otherwise, so hopefully less tendency to nose over in the grass. This also puts the 4" wheels in the scale location as shown on the plans.
I've put in a couple degrees of toe in, for straight tracking on takeoff. This causes the trailing edge of the tire to be a bit high when retracted, maybe too high for inner gear doors. Not sure yet.

saramos

I like your mock-up. This post is really going to help me when I finally get to my build. Because of the limited space, I plan on trying to make a custom set of wheels or, if I get too lazy, a set of thinned Dave Brown wheels. Those Robart wheels are so fat, and I mean fat not phat.

Scott

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Hah![>:]

You guys are gonna hate this.

The Dave Brown 4" Lite Wheels (item LXB913 at Tower) are advertised as 1 & 1/4" thick.

I just measured my 4" Robart scale treaded wheels (item LXES56) and they are 1 & 1/8" thick. (I used a carpenter's square, and measured down to a flat table.)

They're not phat, but they are a bit on the heavy side. The 8 spokes are a good match for the actual P-51 wheels, tho.

saramos

The Dave Brown wheels may be thicker out of the package, but it's my understanding that the hub can be disassembeled and the wheel and hub can be trimmed thinner, then reassembled. I'm not sure which thread I saw this in, maybe even this one.

Scott

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Scott:

I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure you can do it. I've had them come apart when I was drilling them for a larger axle.

Flying Beagle

I posted pics several pages back, I "sanded" a pair of foam Dave Brown wheels down to 1 inch thick, then "ground" the hubs down as well

saramos

Yea, I thought it was in this thread. The Dave Brown wheels are not the most scale looking, but they are light and you can make them thinner.

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Here's some shots of how my main landing gear is turning out. I made a one piece, 1/4" plywood gear mount that lays across Rib 4 and 5, and keys into a doubler on 6. This is so the whole mess would stay flat while I was playing around with it.

The retract installation design of this kit causes the struts and wheels to angle towards the rear of the airplane. This can easily be seen by measuring the distance between the strut and the main spar on the plans: the inboard end is 6 cm from the spar, and the outboard end is 6.5cm away. As Mustangs are notorious noseover birds, I wanted to avoid that and get my axles as far forward of the CG as possible. To do this, I moved the mounts forward a bit on the inboard end. This put the 4" wheel right over the scale, retracted location shown on the plans. Pic one shows how my strut is angling forward, as viewed from the wingtip end.

Doing this causes a lot of material to be taken out of the leading edges of all the ribs except W-3 and W-6. Pic two shows this pretty clearly. I'll being doing some major reinforcing with carbon fiber strips after everything is permanently in place.

Pic three shows how the rear edge of the Robart 4" scale wheel sticks up above the sheeting line. This is due to putting a little toe in into the strut/wheel when it's extended, and to the fact that by getting the retract mounts as far forward as possible, I've moved the wheel forward into where the wing is thinner. Looks like I'll have to be content with good ground handling, and no inner doors. The jury's still out on the outer doors.

Pic four shows how far out in front the axle is when the gear is extended, which was my goal.

More later.

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

Fitting the retract mount plate to the three ribs was a "cut and paste" operation, but after everything fit well, it was a simple matter to trace the mounting outlines from each of the three "mockup" ribs to 1/4" plywood. These were cut out and sanded, and fitted together, and will be used in place of the factory ply doublers on the balsa ribs. During the tracing, it occurred to me that I could have the ribs "wrap" over the retract mounting plate, adding some strength at almost no cost in weight.

I have scanned the three rib doublers and the one piece retract mount into my data base if anyone is interested.

saramos

It looks like a nice installation. One thing comes to mind though. It looks like it might be kind of tough replacing the rails in the event they are damaged in a hard landing. It still might be the best way to go. Rather have a little more work repairing a hard landing than haveing a wing fold.

Scott