Aluminum sheeted P51-D foamie.

[Archimedian]

are you going to be making some wheel wells for scale looks?

I will not be adding wheel wells. I would be too afraid of compromising the wing integrity.

How did you mount the shocks to the wing?

The shocks are mounted by boring a hole in the wing surface immediately behind the wing leading edge. GorillaGlue+water+glassBalloons is then rammed into the cavity. Finally the shock tube is inserted into the hole.

The gorilla glue mixture expands approximately 3x, creating a rigid foam amoeba inside the wing cavity.

I will make a brass or plywood collar plate that will rest on the outside of the lower surface where the shock enters the wing- to spread the force from any rearward deflections.

Gear is mounted a smidge forward rake. (1 degree of wing incidence + 91 additional degrees of landing strut incidence.) And mounted with 1-2 degrees of TOE-IN.

 

[Archimedian]

Progress update. All flight surfaces are complete. now she needs only servos to be placed, power pod, and paint.

Here we have a detail of the rudder and attached wheel.

Airframe complete.

 

[DamoRC]

Wow - Shiny! Nice work, the rivets must have taken forever.

DamoRC

 

[Grifflyer]

That looks awesome!

 

[rockyboy]

What a great project! And @wilsonman will be so happy to see another rivet obsessed builder

Back on the antenna topic, if you can get a receiver with dual antennas and stick one out the top and one out the bottom that will help with getting a clean control signal through. If you're flying FrSky most of their receivers already have this. With Spektrum you might need to get a satellite receiver to connect to the primary receiver to give you this functionality, but I'm not as familiar with their product line.

 

[Morgan]

That thing looks awsome !What is the wing span?

 

[Archimedian]

Ill try that with the antennae. I may be able to mount the entire receiver in the canopy bubble. So far there has been no interference at short range with the reciever deep in the Fuse.

Here is another slow motion capture of the suspension, this time with powered movement. The mat is a bumpy doormat. The decals are just paper and tape for now.

 

[Grifflyer]

That looked pretty smooth!

 

[jamboree1]

Isn't anyone going to say something about the coffin in the living room?

 

[Namactual]

Isn't anyone going to say something about the coffin in the living room?

LOL
I noticed this as well.

That mustang looks great Archimedian, keep up the great work!

 

[rockyboy]

Isn't anyone going to say something about the coffin in the living room?

You mean you don't have one?

 

[jamboree1]

You mean you don't have one?

In fact I do, we keep it in the closet until Halloween though

 

[Crow929]

Wow, great slo-mo video. You can really see the benefit to the suspension there. Nice work!

 

[Archimedian]

That particular coffin has a silk and tempur-pedic interior.

Anyway, painting has begun, all that is left is the power pod and aileron linkage. As far as handling, it tracks straight and lifts the tail gently during taxi.

Im considering invasion stripes in black and white on the underside of the wings and fuse. The paint job is a bit of an amalgamation of different fighter groups, but this model isnt superscale anyway so perhaps the ancestors will forgive me for the sake of visibility.

 

[rockyboy]

I always go on the side of visibility over scale accuracy - but then again I'm not taking anything to Top Gun either

 

[Grifflyer]

So far painting looks pretty good.

 

[Archimedian]

Checking in with a slow motion video of the finished landing gear shock absorbers in action. Shes all ready as far as i can tell. 530grams. A bit heavier than id like, but thats what i get for the firm airframe and aluminum sheeting.

 

[Grifflyer]

Have you flown her yet?

 

[d8veh]

Really nice work. I love it. I have one comment in case it helps. The landing gear is very innovative. I think it'll work great on tarmac or concrete, but if you try and land on grass, I think it'll get ripped off because most of the force is backwards, not up and down.