Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Hello everyone

After being a long time lurker and builder I've finally decided to start a build thread on my project.
Last night I finished sheeting the outer wing panels and mocked the whole plane up. Holy cow this is one big bird!
Before I get up to speed I should give a little back story to how I got here. I've been building airplanes since I was 6 or 7 and started flying rc with my dad until I went to college.
Then I got heavily into Rc Helis but found that was way to expensive! I've always had a scale project on the back burner but never managed to finish any of them, I think i just like to work on them. I love old balsa kits and building from plans. I'm 26 now and still can't get rid of the building bug!

Three years ago from this winter I decided I wanted to go for the gusto and build the ZP-38. I had at one point framed up a Ziroli Skyraider and Zero but lost interest in those and sold them. I bought the plans and some wood and started tracing and cutting. I went to the Wram show with my dad and could only afford the front retract. Robart gave me a voucher that when I could afford the mains I would get the Wram show cost. I bought them next year for $400. I built through the winter and come March the state of Rhode Island got flooded. I called it the great flood of O10.
The center section was on the building board and was saved I lost the parts to the tail sections and outer wing panels. They weren't built so I thought I made out ok and recut them. Come spring time I decided to get into classic motorcycles and didn't do any work.

I moved into my boss/friend's house he bought and brought the whole project with me. My girlfriend at the time came with me too. Come winter time of 2011 I decided to get back into it. I finished building the center section and outer wing panels. It was a weird situation with the girlfriend and I ended up spending more time working on the plane then on her! The day I broke it off with her she managed to get into the basement and demolish the outer wing panels and a framed up Ziroli Dauntless I just picked up. Fortunately my friend is quick and hid the center pod behind the stairs. If she had found it that would be gone and I would have given up on this project. I didn't feel like cutting the wing ribs yet another time so I just ordered them from Lazer Lizard.

I took another break and worked heavily on a 1972 Sportster I turned into a 70's chopper. That consumed most of my resources and I couldn't get any work done on the plane. Come winter time of last year I made another push and finished framing and sheeting the booms and tail sections. Come spring time of this year my bike was on the road and I was seeing another lady (who is much more understanding of my hobbies!) This brings me up to speed now. I started back in about a month ago and finished sheeting the second boom, sheeting the outer wing panels and glassing the tail feathers.

Last year on Thanksgiving I went to Thomas Mcguire Jr. Air force base with my parents and took 200 photos of his Lightning. My aunt lives an hour from there Its the only one I've ever seen in person and it is amazing! Needless to say I'm going to be modeling mine after his airplane. The plan is to have the plane ready to fly for spring time. I want to finish it with flite-metal so I may get the plane sealed with primer and test fly before I put the time and energy into applying flite-metal. I am limited to the things I can do at home because I work at a shop making molds and laying marine paint. My friend/boss doesn't want fiberglass or primer dust at the house so I'm forced to bring it to work to do major sanding/priming or painting. When I can though my friend will stick around with me and I do have access to a massive paint booth tools and materials.

The main point of this build thread is to document the work I'm doing, get insight from others, and maybe if you guys don't mind a push over the cliff so I can see this thing fly. I tell all my friends about it but I know they don't appreciate the time and work that goes into it. I certainly don't think I'll be blowing anyones mind with my craftsmanship.
Enough about me though! If anyone is still reading here are some photos of my plane from today, a few from the real deal and one of my chopper if anyone likes that sort of thing too!

Thanks for looking!

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Here are some pictures of the full scale

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Some more pics

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Hi Kyle,
Quite a project and life history. My name is Fred Menna and I live in N. Scituate RI. Would love to see the project and talk planes. I'm only about 15 miles from you. Good luck with the build. I have built and flown 4 p 38's through the years, Largest was 100 in. I'm an avid Warbird builder and flyer and have had numerous build threads on RCU. You will find the guys on this site very helpful and knowledgeable.
Later,
Fred

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Hey Fred
Yeah I've seen your name before and thought that you weren't that far from me.
Yeah that would be great to get together, where do you fly? I'm going to be looking for a local field come springtime. Maybe we could meet there so I could see it.

I haven't gotten much done this week, but I stayed up late tonight and finished off the shear webs for the outer wing panels. I"m going to be tired for work tomorrow but its worth it! I'm hoping to get the wing mount blocks in the booms this weekend and start working on a jig so I can finally see her on wheels.

Kyle

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Hey Kyle, don`t know what you talking about , but looks to me like you`re pretty damn good with that balsa. Man don`t feel bad about the girlfriend thing trust me, most of us go through hell with the wife or lady when it comes to this hobby. That`s why quite a few of us is single. Better that way. The lady has her place and we have ours. She visit then GO BACK TO HER PLACE.
Any way you are almost there man, keep pushing because there is a huge rush coming on maiden day. Nothing like seeing your creation take to the skies. The feeling is magic.
Big respect to you.

RE: Kyle Lord's ZP-38 Build
 

Thank you 91 I appreciate it! Yeah I've lived that life too and I'm trying to find a good balance between the two. This weekend I got my lady to come watch a movie while I worked. Movie was her pick ;)

1) This is one wing panel with wing tube and dowels epoxied in. Shear webs are finished.

2) I sheeted the bottom of the outer wing panels and got the leading edge wood glued on. I don't like the way the wood glue sands but I couldn't justify the expense of super glue.
This way I can start blending the outer panels into the center section.

3) I drilled the hole for the nosecone and tapped the block and countersunk where he bolt goes through. It's not perfectly flush to the nose but because of the curve I'm thinking bout matching the screw to it. I still have to sand the 1/64" plywood where it mates but I didn't want to do that until I I could firmly bolt it together. I even added another locating dowel to the top because I found I could shift it about 1/8".

I'm planning to run two large Ni-Mh flight batteries in the nose. I have heavy gauge wire running to either side of the center section for the receivers. I don't want to run switches so I'll have to take the nose off to turn off the airplane.

4) This is a random piece of carbon fiber I laid up on a piece of glass. Not that exciting but I'm planning to cut it apart and use it for servo hatch covers.

I need some help figuring out the receivers. I plan on running two 2.4Ghz receivers located in the wing directly above the boom. Originally I thought this makes sense to run one receiver for one side. The more I thought about it makes more sense to have the outer flaps on one and inner flaps on another. This way if I lose a receiver the flaps will be balanced.

I'm thinking the elevator servos should be on the same channel because its a wooden plank connected to two servos. If one should fail can the other one really overpower or at least flex the elevator?

I'm thinking the throttles should be placed together on the other receiver. This way they will be matched and if I lose the elevators then I will have throttle and if I lose throttle then I will have the elevator. Should I consider running a twin-sync? I have a little twin experience and plan to get some more before I fly this but would it be worth it?

Does my planned setup make sense? I've never set up a redundant receiver and I think this will work but I'd love to hear from people who have more experience.

Thank you all for looking!
Kyle

Updates
 

Hello everyone,
Well after a 6month hiatus to finish up my motorcycle and a Goldberg Chipmunk I've been hard at work on the P-38.
I have since joined the South County RI club and have been flying there. Thats more than I can say in the last 8 years since I've moved to Rhode Island!
Since I took these photos yesterday i have glassed the booms. I've heard that they are weak when build in wood so I used a foot long section of carbon fiber cloth just behind the wing and 1/2 oz cloth in front and behind. Its hard to explain so I'll get some pictures of that tomorrow.
I still have to finish up the flaps, all linkages and install throttle servos, and glass some misc parts.
I'm planning to test fly it before I prime anything else. Flying season will come to a close soon and I have to know if it will fly before I invest any more time, money, or energy into it.
Thank you for looking.
Kyle




http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1909964http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1909965http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1909966http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1909969http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=1909970

so you have two zenoah G38 (EI) in her?
wow, she is going to have so much power!!!

Looking good!!

A flying buddy built the Z P-38 and had the issues with the booms cracking behind the wing. He repaired and reinforced, but it didn't hold up. He ended up rebuilding the booms with the fiberglass parts that Ziroli offers.

Nice work Kyle and welcome to the ZP-38 club. Don't get in too a big hurry getting this plane into the air. This p-38 is a proven design and they fly very well. I first started flying my "California cutie" back in 2003 and have somewhere between 150-200 flights on mine.
It looks like you are using g62s for engines, good choice. I first started flying mine on g45 and they performed great but left me wanting more power on those hot and humid days. I converted them to DL50s about 6 years ago and am considering on going with 60s this winter.
Are you going with the stock magneto's or did you convert them over to electronic ignition?
Don't bother with the Twin Sync. I had one on mine and they caused more problems on mine than cured. In about 30-40 flights I had with with the twin sync I had a few pull backs to idle happen on good running engines ( to reset you would pull the throttle stick back to idle and this would disable the twin sync and you could bring the power back up).
I also had some serious damage occur when I lost throttle control and could not bring the the engine power down to land. I was not able to kill the engines in flight ended up having to fly her into some tall grass at almost full power to get her down.
When the plane was rebuilt the twin sync operated normally but the problem resurfaced while testing on the ground and the cause was a bad pin connection between the micro chip and the socket on the board. With another recent power pull back I have since pulled the unit out.
Here is a couple pics of my Cutie and the new paint scheme as Bobcat II.
I will take some pics and post to show you how I did some things on the set up of my plane.

Hello P 38 lovers, sorry for using this topic, just want to inform modelers that I want to sell my Ziroli P 38 model. It's in building process, but I have so many other project, simply haven't time for everything.

Here is my building topic here on RCU, so you can check how look my model until now.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-w...ade-mirce.html

I have brand new Robart landing gear and wheels for Lightning, and ask for model just as much as cost me parts until now.
Building until now is free:cool:...
For more information, send me e-mail...

Best regards

Mirce