rvd

Anybody build and fly one of these? How was the kit and how does it fly ?

ramcharger

The Midwest Messerschmidt 40 is a favorite for our warbirds race. There are 2 in our club and both run old Rossi 40 Quickieee engines. They are very very good flyers but a long way from scale. I will be flying one of these Messerscmidts Aug 18th in a 4*40 and Warbirds race. It has strip ailerons and the nose looks extended over a scale Me-109.

bigbri

My Feedback: (287)

Had one years ago. Flies like a low wing sport ship, KAOS ect. I liked it a lot. If you use camo color scheme be careful. Camo really works !!
Have fun
Brian

Scott G

I just flew mine five times today. I built it in 93 I think. Mine was not built that well ... someday I'll buy a new one and do a better job.

Scott

Scott G

I just flew mine five times today. I built it in 93 I think. Mine was not built that well ... someday I'll buy a new one and do a better job.

Scott

Jim Finn

My Feedback: (2)

I have built this plane. I started by lightening it up as much as I can. It is very heavy. Then we electric flyers like to make them light. I put a bunch of lightning holes in the fuslage sides and have made built up tail feathers instead of the solid balsa shelving in the kit. I omited the landing gear and bungee launch it. Did this with a P-51 and it flys great! This Messershmit model is not very close to scale but I rounded out the fuslage a bit to help it look closer to scale. Here is a photo:

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

I built two of them many years ago. They are a bit heavy but they fly great and the kits were outstanding. I had one with a Rossi .40 and the other with an OS .46. Any good .40 should be plenty of power.

Jim Finn, I imagine you've got your work cut out for you! Aerodynamically the airplane is probably a fine choice for electric but they are quite substantially overbuilt as I recall. Love to see the electric version when you get it finished.

speedadict

I am currently finishing up my Midwest Messerschmidt. It has a Tower Hobbies .46 and I am doing an elaborate camoflage covering job. I have a lot of time building it and have several thoughts. First, its disapointing that it was not designed to accept retracts. Several people have said that they have added them without to much trouble. I stuck with the fixed gear. Also it is very heavy! On the plus side, I have built several kits now, and this one goes together really nice. The fuse is almost all plywood and goes together really smooth. I also decided to flip the engine upside down and construct a different nose. This puts the big ugly muffler on the bottom side instead of on the top. I have been extremely pleased with the kit and can't wait to finishing covering it tommorow! Then I will post a picture and get some feedback. It might take a while to get the pilot and the canopy painted, but its getting close to finished. I would love to see some pictures of finished Midwest Messerschmidts!

CSpierings

My Feedback: (29)

I bought a built one at a swap meet this year. I installed a TT 46 and painted the nose and tail yellow and flew it. It was a great flier. I could even get it to Lomcevak. I'd test flown it and had no trouble with spin recovery.

My 4th flight at lunch I was showing off for some buddies at work. Put it in a spin and it wouldn't come out on its own. By the time I got over the shock of it not recovering and started working at making it recover. It hit the ground snapping the nose off at the wing leading edge.

Finished repairing it last week end, recovered and repainted it. Flies about the same. Spins are prohibited until I can come up with a reason it doesn't recover.

It is a nice little plane and is about as fast as my Sig Kougar.

Chris

bignasdy-RCU

built one in 1991, i think. It flew fine, but had a weird stall problem. It would snap to the right when slow. Yes it was ballanced properly, yes the wing was true. It weighs 5 lbs and flew fine with an fp 40 tho required a long takeoff roll. It never would recover from any spin, no matter what. Beats me why. I drilled it into the earth many times, and just got used to gluin it together at the feild. Still have that hunk of junk for some reason. would I build another? no way. I do still have all the cutouts and plans, and was going to build one with a better wing plan, but theres too many good planes out there to bother.
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paladin

My Feedback: (9)

Bignasty, I had one in 89 that would stop flying at a much higher speed than I though it should. I also had a freaind that had the P-51D with the same problem. We were back and forth to midwest on the phone a number of times until we finally found the problem. In the first run of plans and instructions book they had us build a streight wing just like we have always done it, on a building board. Then when ready to cover it they told us to bend in some washout with the wet and weight technique (again this is from memory 13 years ago). Well both my buddy and I said their daffed! I'm not bending a wing I know I built streight and skipped that step, covered the wings, and flew them. It was terrable! Landings were horible if they could even be called landings.

Midwest saggested we try to warp the wings using the monokote, but neither of us was able to get the 6 degrees they said we needed in each panel. My buddy removed the covering from his P-51D warped the wing per the destructions, recovered the wing and it flew fine. So I followed suit. I hope they have changed that part of the destructions for the new kits! We really leaned on them to do so, because they had us jig it up, we could have build in the washout then and avoided all the playing with the two tips to get them =.

So to those of you that have built these kits lately, is this still the case?

Scott G

If I remember correctly when I built my Me109 in 93 the instructions had me heat the wing after it was monokoted and twist in the washout. This seemed to work fine. Mine would snap to the right if it got slow, but you had to be pretty slow.

This snap did eventually kill my 109. But it was my dumb thumbs, not the plane. I was making a very slow pass on the edge of the stall when a club member's plane flew by mine at close proximity. I reacted with a bunch of elevator and snapped it right in.

I would definitely build another, just have to be a little less jumpy next time...

Scott.

bignasdy-RCU

yepp, I remember that heat the covering garbage. It dosent last now does it. I dont want to mess with anyone, but it was the worst flying plane I ever had, and was cartwheeled a million times till it wasnt worth fixin. I gotta admit, the fun factor was way up there.
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paladin

My Feedback: (9)

The thing that gets me is if I knew that I'ld have to play games with wing warping I'ld have built in the correct washout by adding my own TE jig. Mine was done just like the picture on the box with 1/4 in seams in the monokote and the heating of the monokote which had to be done atleast once a month eventually ruined those monokote joints (I had to put masking tape over the joints because if the joint got hot it would give letting the wing go right back to were I started). Final solution was to remove the covering give the wing a shower then bend it up on my work bench and let it dry. After two or three showers the wings were pretty close to = and I recovered it.

It flew well after that, but it was nothing to write home to mother about.

My buddy and I realy lobbied to have an addendom put in the kit to show how to adjust the TE jig to build in that washout.

Oh well, live and learn.

gut

I've had my midwest 109 kit on stand-by now for 3 months... just to many other projects on the board (lazy bee & scratch bi-plane)...

This particular midwest kit has a supplement instruction sheet stating that here is no need to twist "wash-out" into the wing... It says that the CG should be moved forward 1/4 inch and that low speed flight will not be impaired....... There is no mention of building washout in, but when I did my wing a few months back, I followed the advice of a fellow RC nut with experience flying this kit and build in the correct washout by adding my own TE jig...

I'm nowhere near completing this bird yet but I'll scan some pics and post them later to show my progress...

Gut

Dougboiler91

My Feedback: (23)

Overall this was a nice airplane to fly and build. I built mine in 1991, and still have it to this day.

A little washout in the wings is a must as the others have pointed out. Mine will snap out if given too much up elevator, but overall it's a very zippy plane. Mine is fast, it's really cool to bring in at full throttle on a low fly-by. The crowd loves it. I slapped my old Royal 46 on it a few years ago and left it. Originally, I powered it with a Super Tiger GS 40. This was a great combination, but that engine ended up on my Scat Cat Quickee.

I learned to fly a tail dragger with this plane. Of course, I've rebuilt it several times after snapping it on take off. My fault totally!!! Get her up to speed before you lift her off the run way.

Have fun, I sure have over the years with this plane.

Dougboiler91

Thumper1

Take a long, hard look at the elevator linkage. Years ago, we had two of them destroyed because they wouldn't pull out of a dive. Another guy had this problem and recovered by giving the plane full down elevator, it went into an outside loop and he was able to recover it. I believe he said that the elevator linkage as supplied was flexing. It's been a few years since this happened, and it didn't happen to me, so the memory is a little vague.
Good Luck
Bill

Dougboiler91

My Feedback: (23)

Good point Bill, I'll check the elevator linkage out next time she goes up. I do have golden rods that could be flexing some.

Dougboiler91

Thumper1

I don't think you will have a problem with goldenrods. As I remember it, the problem was with the way the metal rod had to be bent when using the as supplied kit pushrods. Like I said, it was a long time ago, but I usually remember when someone destroys a plane for reasons other than dumb thumb.
Later
Bill

gut

as promised, scanned some pics of my Midwest 109, sorry but the scanner I'm using isn't the best....

first pic... the fuselage profile from the plan, not very scale like I must say......


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gut

second pic..... this is the overlay I've created from a 3-view of the Bf 109E..... I'm trying to scale out the fuselage as much as posible. I got some work cut-out for me!

Shok

My Feedback: (28)

i had one of these about 10 years ago with a y.s. 45 and a tuned pipe, it was a rocket and a lot of fun.

gut

third pic.... showing progress to date. this bird has been on the back burner for a few months now (lazy bee and scratch bi-plane on the board)

Changes to date show extra lightening holes cut with hole saw, profile change to veridical stab & rudder, re-positioning of horizontal stab by 1 inch "higher". I've built wash-out into the wings and have sheeted them.. I'm using fixed LG for now to keep it light and the tail gear is re-positioned to scale location. Power is an OS 46FX driving a graupner 3 blade 10-7 prop with a slimline muffler. As you can see, I've mounted the power sideways and will build a permanent upper cowling around it... (just beginning to frame this in now) lower cowling will be removable to access the engine, fuel tank, etc...

gut

last pic for now... A close-up of the power plant, prop and spinner.. I'm using a Du-Bro 3" spinner for now to replicate that of a E-7 variant... I'm thinking to do a scratch spinner for the earlier E-4 variant later.. Although not perfect, the dimensions will be close to 1/8 scale..


questions or comments ???

Gut

gut

I just thought you guys might be interested in seeing what can be done with this kit and a little inspiration... My buddy Pierre sent along these pics yesterday showing his MW 109....
His version of a Gustav..