H-King Composite North American P-51D MUSTANG 1200mm (47")

H-King Composite North American P-51D MUSTANG 1200mm (47")

Well, I just love warbirds, there are couple of them in my hangar, all of them are foam models.

When this nice airplane was announced , I just said to myself that I've got to have it.

To say the truth, it is not cheap plane, you need to purchase all electronics, ESC, servos, motor, propeller, battery and have your own radio and receiver. It comes with servoless retract gears which is nice surprise. But it surprised me how well built the model itself is.

Starting from the fuselage, which is made of composite material and painted extremely nice, with all possible details, over to wings and control surfaces. One minor issue is that on some spots on the wing you will need a little ironining, but that is no big deal.

Unboxing:

 Assembly

Getting it ready for flight takes some time, at least 2-3 full afternoons of work if you want to do everything right. Installation of servos take time, because you have to prepare servo mounts and glue them, glue CA hinges (yes all control surfaces are hinged with CA hinges) and do a little drilling and adjusting. And there is additional work to do, install servoless retracts which came with the kit. This is a kit which requires some knowledge about building airplane models.

Servos used for wings are Corona 929MG, you can fin them on HobbyKing.

Fuselage

Since fuselage is in one piece, there is not much to do except install servos, glue horizontal stabilizer and hinge control surfaces, but it also takes a lot of time. Of course, like on the wings, after gluing everything together, you still need to mount control horns and use supplied push rods to connect it with servo arms.

Now, after that you can install motor on provided motor mount. I had to use all spacers provided plus added some washers to set correct distance for propeller.

Suggested NTM Prop Drive 3548 1100kv which I used is worst choice possible. I only did maiden flight with that motor, and replaced it immediately, very poor quality motor which produces a lot vibrations. Here is video about that poor motor:

Don't buy it, better solution is Turnigy D3548/4 1100KV which I use now and can also be found on HobbyKing. Used propeller for this setup with 60A ESC is 11x6 carbon prop. I am flying it with 2200mAh 3S battery around 4 minutes, and with 3300mAh 3S battery around 6-7 minutes.

Servos used in fuselage are HK15148B Digital Servo also available from HobbyKing. Last part is canopy, it takes some time to cut canopy on marked line, I didn't glue the canopy but used 4 self tapping screws to fix it to fuselage

Maiden flight

I was alone at the field for maiden flight so all I could record is from onboard cam and static cam on the ground. But after one week friend of mine helped me with second flight, so I will put that video instead of maiden.

And what to say about this model ? It is sports scale model , so prepare that it is quite fast, not like foam models, but extremely stable and acrobatic. Build quality is excellent and I can suggest it to all warbird lovers.

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NTM Prop drive 35-48 1100 kv brushless motor from HobbyKing

Well, they announce this series as high quality brushless motors, and I had a couple of different types from NTM series with same issues.

This motor is very bad, don't buy it!!

I have used it for my H-King Composite North American P-51D MUSTANG 1200mm (47") and only did maiden flight with it. It has a lot of vibrations, and when I disassembled the motor I could see why.

Bearings are unmatched with the shaft and there is too much of free space between shaft and bearing itself.

Replaced it with Turnigy D3548/4 1100KV motor which performs excellent.

I noticed that other customers had similar issues with these motor series so my suggestion is to avoid them.

You can see on my video how it looks inside:

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Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 4

Maiden flight

Well, there is not much to say about this, I was waiting for weather to calm down a little.
Finally, sun came out and I have prepared to record maiden flight.
It was a windy day, but this model can manage that.

I had great help from friend of mine who flies mini quad racers, and he recorded great video by chasing me in the air.

Enough talking, just watch the video.

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Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 3

Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 3 - Paint

I thought that Part 3 will be maiden flight, but weather in Croatia didn't allow me to go at the field and make one.
So I have decided to do a simple paint job on this model.
Maiden flight will come very soon since it is recorded yesterday , and I need some time to put it all together.

First, let's do the canopy. Cut canopy from template and transfer it to any type of self adhesive covering you gave. I had blue one that fits just nice. Make sure that you cut mirrored canopy for the right side the other side

Let's continue by marking parts that will be painted with masking tape.
I have decided that I will paint only leading edges of the wing, wingtips and vertical stabilizer tip.

The best result you can achieve is by using paint roller.
Paint used is water based red paint. You can use any water based paint for making your airplane look nice.
You will need 2 layers of paint. Since this is water based paint, it dries pretty quick. Second layer can be applied after 30 minutes.

30 minutes after putting second layer of paint, remove the masking tape and your model is ready to dominate the sky.

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Full video:

Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 2

Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 2

Time to continue.

First, sand the control surface edges to 45 degrees, both ailerons and elevators.

If you don't like sanding, you can do that with sharp hobby knife.

Do the same 45 degree bevel on wing where control surfaces hinge. Sand the leading edge of the wing to round.

Now, you need to make a groove in the wing for wing spar.
Grove can be made with dremmel rotary tool or just by cutting the V shaped groove with your hobby knife.
For wing spar  best to use is carbon tube 4-5 mm diameter. If you can't find that, you can also use balsa square rod, or purchase plastic arrow at hunting and fishing shop and cut to size.

 Mix some 5 minute epoxy glue and fill the groove with it.

And finally put the spar in the groove.

Be sure that wing is on flat surface, use some wax paper to cover it and put flat weight on the wing. I use books, but you can use anything you like.

Finally, when glue cures after 30 minutes, add transparent packing tape over wing spar.

Time to hinge control surfaces. I use tape hinges because they are cheapest solution, and hold very well. Be sure to put tape on both sides of control surfaces. In the next picture you can see how it should be done, and second picture shows final result on elevators.

Continue on assembling main fuselage. first glue those 2 longer doublers to fuselage intake sides and then glue in the fuselage sides itself.
You can use UhuPor glue or hot glue.

Prepare the hatch, glue hatch doublers from inside, but be careful not to put glue on part where hatch closes.

Continue with rest of the fuselage parts. Don't glue the bottom fuselage with hatch yet. We will need to install electronics before that. before closing

I have prepared motor mount from 3mm plywood. Mark motor holes and drill 1mm holes. Add a drop of CA on those holes. I use self tapering screws to fix the motor to motor mount.

 

Next is fixing the motor to the motor mount and gluing it to the fuselage with 5 min epoxy glue.
I use some scrap balsa pieces to reinforce the motor mount with fuselage.

While glue cures, prepare the servos. Be sure to center servos first and then mount servo horns.
After that, mark openings in fuselage for servos, cut them out and glue them in with hot glue.

Most boring part is (for me) connecting control surfaces to servos.
Use carbon rods, steel rods, anything you have, I use rods from old umbrella. Make Z-bends with pliers for servos, and use stoppers on horns for ailerons and elevator. This will take a lot of time, and final result is shown on following pictures.
After you finish that up, power on the servos and your radio, and center all control surfaces.

Now it's time to put that last fuselage piece with hatch on and glue it.

Only thing left is vertical stabilizer. on this model it's rather big, so I use 2 techniques for gluing it. First, I glue it with UhuPor, and second, I put some hot glue to it's sides as seen on the picture.

Finally, add packing tape to the leading edges of the wing and those wing tips, since they have tendency to break during landings in grass.

Final part is to glue U shaped intake at the front of the fuselage.
You can then sand all what you think still needs sanding, and you are ready to fly.
Full video of building this model is available here:

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Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 1

Scratch build RC airplane tutorial - Part 1

First, you have to decide which airplane you will build.
There are a lot of plans available on https://rcflug.ch/plans/ but since this is beginners guide, I have decided to build most simple plane, F-16 from Tomhe.
Plans can be downloaded from this LINK.

Plan is in PDF format, my suggestion is that you download full version, not tiled one, tiling will be made through Adobe reader during printin.
All you have to do is select "Print", select your printer, click on "Poster" and check "Cut marks".

When printed, prepare a hobby knife, metal ruler and some tape. You have to cut all printed papers where marked with Cut marks, and after that, connect all tiled papers into one big template.

It is now time to cut all the parts out of template. this takes some time, be patient and cut everything precisely.

When you cut all the parts, it is time to transfer them to depron boars.

For this airplane, you will need 2 sheets of depron or similar materilal, 6 mm thick and they usually come in size of 1000 mm x 500 mm.

You will notice that wing part is too big for one sheet of depron. So just cut it in half that it fits the size of depron, use some tape to fix template to depron, and pencil to draw around template.

Later, you will glue those 2 parts together.

This takes some time, mind that your knife should be always sharp, otherwise this foam board will be hard to precisely cut.

And finally, when you cut all the pieces, you can test fit everything, just to check that you don't miss something.

I have recorded all steps in this video, next video and blog post are coming soon.

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