An absolute beginner scratch builds an FT P-40. Now with maiden vids

[Dunfielder]

Ordered on the 14th of July. Arrived today. 3 days short of a month to get here. But now I can fly again!!! More flight footage coming soon!!!

 

[Marty72]

Good to hear!

My props are 2 weeks and counting. They have been at my post office for 2 days, not sure why or what the problem is. I've made this exact order before without issue. Luckily, I have a good supply of props, just expanding my quiver.

 

[BATTLEAXE]

Good to hear!

My props are 2 weeks and counting. They have been at my post office for 2 days, not sure why or what the problem is. I've made this exact order before without issue. Luckily, I have a good supply of props, just expanding my quiver.

The LHS i go to has props for 2-3 bucks a piece, APC and MAS. No matter what i am in there for i always grab a few... to stock the quiver as it were.

 

[danskis]

@P40VRP - check your messages

 

[NortheastRC87]

So Dunfielder,
I've been flying for two weeks now. I bought the E-flite Apprentice STS kit, assembled it, bought a good charger and headed out....oops, for got to mention that I spent a bunch of time during the Covid season flying a simulator on my iPhone: Electric RC Lite. It's free. Took me like a month to take off, circle the field, and land with crashing...I'm a slow learner. Anyway, I heard stores about RC groups and decided to go it alone. So far so good. I have a dirt road in the middle of know-where for my private landing strip. View attachment 172643

I bout the STS as my first plane also. I took it out on a windy ass day and had a light "oops". Once that happened I decided that maybe going big or go home was a bad idea lol.. so I ended up buying the Sport cub S2. The DXE4 that came with the apprentice Binds to it and has been the best decision. I have learned to fly pretty damn well, the only down side is there has to be zero wind or less than 5mph. It's small so you don't need a huge place to fly it at all and is an excellent flyer... Loops, barrel rolls, stalls, just an all around awesome little plane. I have even mounted a mini camera to the top of it. Pretty awesome!.. good luck man and don't give up!, The reward is awesome!.✌️

 

[BATTLEAXE]

I bout the STS as my first plane also. I took it out on a windy ass day and had a light "oops". Once that happened I decided that maybe going big or go home was a bad idea lol.. so I ended up buying the Sport cub S2. The DXE4 that came with the apprentice Binds to it and has been the best decision. I have learned to fly pretty damn well, the only down side is there has to be zero wind or less than 5mph. It's small so you don't need a huge place to fly it at all and is an excellent flyer... Loops, barrel rolls, stalls, just an all around awesome little plane. I have even mounted a mini camera to the top of it. Pretty awesome!.. good luck man and don't give up!, The reward is awesome!.✌️

Little tip for you. If you want more opportunity to fly in the wind, epoxy a nickel into the nose inside the fuse just over the motor. It will have better penetration. I did this with the Sport Cub S which i believe is very similar

 

[Dunfielder]

Battery charging. Going to try and get a flight in this evening. First though some quick and dirty black stripes on the bottom of the wings. This will hopefully aid me in orientation.

 

[Dunfielder]

Had to wait until today due to wind and rain. Got out with my brother again. Unfortunately the wife was busy and couldn't come to video for me. My brother brought his drone out and said he wanted to film with it. That's what we did and it didn't turn out as good as we would have liked but it is what it is. Bro hasn't flown his drone in quite some time and has never tried to follow a RC plane with it. So there are flashes of P40 here and there!! Some nice footage of the area at least. No sound though. Videos are best viewed in 4k. even if your running 1080 hd. Otherwise its pretty fuzzy.

I actually used up both of my lipo's today for the first time ever!! That alone feels like an accomplishment!!! Got about 7 or 8 mins of flight time total. Again unfortunately most is not recorded .

So here is the very end of my first flight which was my best as far as I'm concerned. I was again just flying around having fun. Flight plan went out the window but it turned out ok. My brother didn't realize he wasn't recording until I was almost out of battery. But he did catch the rough landing.

I wish he had gotten more footage of the first flight, but like I said it's his first time and he definitely needs practise. So I put in my second 3s 2200 and got a toss back into the air. This flight was much the same. No flight plan. Just have fun and do some rolls and loops. I do one roll past the drone that he actually caught on video! He caught more of the second flight but still missed a fair bit of it. I crashed because I was coming in for a landing and got disoriented. You can just catch the crash in there.

So I walk of shame over to the general to check it out and find it ain't too bad.

After a quick looksee I find a small crack in the other wing. Luckily It stopped at my reinforcement.

I had planned on building a new plane so I chucked the general again. By myself with an underhand toss this time and it went pretty good. But I heard the prop hitting the nose of the fuselage on a close pass and brought it back in as soon as I heard it. This Video just catches what was probably my best landing ever. Broke the prop though dang it!!!!

Well both lipos at about 55% after this so I didn't replace the prop. The General is starting to get kinda ragged. I think it's rebuild time. My brother thinks I should mount it on the wall seeing as it's still in one piece. Maybe I will. Had a blast as usual today. Next time I promise I'll find a way to get it filmed on a phone or something so you see the whole thing!! Who knows maybe bro will get some skills at filming the plane with his drone lol.

I'm going to leave you with one more video. It's my brother flying around the area to finish his battery after I'm done flying the P40. You can check out my flying area. Again sorry there wasn't a lot to see of my flights but there is some and hopefully next time will be better. Well I got a plane to build !!!!

 

[Dunfielder]

Took the family down to Mayerthorpe area and stayed at my cousins acreage. Of course me and cousin Ritchie were like brothers growing up back in Newfoundland, and well... we destroyed a lot of stuff in our day lol. Good times! So I brought the general and expected it to be confetti by the end of the visit. My niece shot some footage of the flying on her phone. I flew for about 10 minutes total with no crashes and had both lipos at 3.85v per cell so I was really happy. I flew for 4 mins then landed which you can see in the first video. Then I swapped batteries Flew for 5 mins landed. Swapped batteries again and flew for 1 min. I used my battery checker every time I landed. I was really surprised that the General only suffered a stripped servo on my very last landing when the arm struck a big clod of dirt. All the landings were about the same as the first one which she got on camera. Had a great laugh as usual and enjoyed my last visit of the summer down there. Here is the bit of video I have.

 

[danskis]

Your doing awsome......might want to put some foam in front of those servo horns.

edit: don't forget you have a throttle stick if you get in trouble....just shut the motor down as sooner as you can. (you may already be doing this but it was hard to tell from the video)

 

[Dunfielder]

Your doing awsome......might want to put some foam in front of those servo horns.

edit: don't forget you have a throttle stick if you get in trouble....just shut the motor down as sooner as you can. (you may already be doing this but it was hard to tell from the video)

Thanks man! I actually tell my cousin that in one of the vids. Told him the secret is to stay high and you can save just about anything by chopping the throttle let it come down some then pull slightly up. This was my first no crash day!! I actually did some trimming as well. Wife picked up some readi board at dollar tree but it's black! Anyone ever use it to build before? Probably gonna be a pita to see lines with my crappy old eyes!

 

[The Hangar]

Thanks man! I actually tell my cousin that in one of the vids. Told him the secret is to stay high and you can save just about anything by chopping the throttle let it come down some then pull slightly up. This was my first no crash day!! I actually did some trimming as well. Wife picked up some readi board at dollar tree but it's black! Anyone ever use it to build before? Probably gonna be a pita to see lines with my crappy old eyes!

I've had great black foamboard, but the last batch I got had serious issues with trying to get paper off. I won't use it for MS builds but it works great for the simple older FT designs.

 

[Mikeyintexas2]

Hello zero experience builder/pilot !!! I made this thread just for you. I am 40 years old and I have never built, nor flown, an RC aircraft. When I was young RC planes were expensive balsa masterpieces with fuel engines. We didn't have the money, and I really had no interest in building a plane for months to watch it turn into a pile of match sticks in seconds. Fast forward to 2020. I'm watching a Flite Test vid on YouTube. I watch the two Josh's having a blast with electric airplanes made of cheap foam board! After consuming FT vids like a crack addict I decided now is the time to build a plane. I printed off the plans for the FT P-40 warhawk last night. Tonight I joined and cut out my templates. Tomorrow I'll mount them on poster board so I have a nice set of templates when I inevitably wreck my bird.

I chose to scratch build because I want to be able to fix or replace my plane by myself. I did however order power pack C from Flite Test. Gotta give them some support for the great work they do! I have not picked up any radio gear yet, but I will probably be grabbing a flysky i6x and matching 6 ch receiver. Over the next bit I will post updates and pics on my progress all the way up to and including the maiden flight ! Follow along with me on my newbie RC aircraft adventure and see if I fly or die tryin. Tonight I have attached an image showing a pile of paper and one showing the pile of paper it turned into lol!

I will post again when I have finished mounting my templates.

I have done1 Flite test kit and 3 scratch builds. I have been into model airplanes as a kid and used to build with balsa as my first choice. Flite Test introduced me to foamboard airplanes and I was instantly hooked. Long story short, here are a few pics of my scratch built P-40. I have to modify thing a bit as it is nose heavy even with the battery as far back as possible, but it does fly and fly well at that! This is by far my best looking foamboard build to date but many more planned for the future!

 

[Mikeyintexas2]

I have done1 Flite test kit and 3 scratch builds. I have been into model airplanes since I was a kid and used to build with balsa as my first choice. Flite Test introduced me to foamboard airplanes and I was instantly hooked. Long story short, here are a few pics of my scratch built P-40. I have to modify thing a bit as it is nose heavy even with the battery as far back as possible, but it does fly and fly well at that! This is by far my best looking foamboard build to date but many more planned for the future!

P.S.- I have added a lot more detail to it since the previous pics. Will post the updated ones soon and hopefully a vid or two!