flyable p-51 mustang

freddyman

newbie
a scratch build p-51 mustang that I made for flight capability. it was hand drawn and painted, then scanned by my printer so the possibility of making more is possible. its outdoor performance is outstanding, being easily capable to fly a distance longer then my own house on a vertical launch.
 

Attachments

  • paper p-52 1.JPG
    paper p-52 1.JPG
    634.2 KB · Views: 112
  • paper p-51 2.JPG
    paper p-51 2.JPG
    599.4 KB · Views: 159
  • paper p-51 3.JPG
    paper p-51 3.JPG
    611.9 KB · Views: 100
  • paper p-51 4.JPG
    paper p-51 4.JPG
    607.3 KB · Views: 96
  • paper p-51 5.JPG
    paper p-51 5.JPG
    554.8 KB · Views: 142
Last edited:

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
That's pretty good, but I make flying airplanes that have baffled many people. Looking at that model, you must be meticulous about the airfoil shape. Yours is out of shape. You fix the up, weight it out properly, add a little extra weight right on the center of gravity, as this weight will help it go farther by storing the energy you put into it by throwing it, it will glide much farther. I have achieved (from a four story building, 200 feet of a near level glide, before the model gradually came down and landed nose up, just like a real plane, about 300 feet away. The were unconventional in Shape.

Here are some Renders I did of the basic design. These were hollow. They C.G. was established by moving the tail section with the high mounted elevator to the proper position, that would give me a center of gravity with the nose ever so slightly down. The elevator was set to put the aircraft nose up. The chines along the nose of the aircraft generated a lot of lift, and this gave the weight for the C.G. to be proper, but also provided an incredible amount of lift. these planes could be tossed across a room and many times, accidentally, I hit friends in their noses or foreheads as the glider flew so level, they did not see them coming. I taught all of my friends how to make these. I got in big trouble at Sikorsky when I threw one and it went waay to far. An engineer picked it up, looked at me and asked me where I got it from. I told him it was one of my designs. He asked me, quite a nice way, if he could "please have it, to show the boys upstairs". I gave it to him. Some engineers then asked if they could have one for themselves, but I told them I was not really supposed to be doing that on company time. That engineer reveled in the fact he was the only one to have one. We became friends, and it turned out because of his position, offloading to other companies, I was able to bring back "In House". That plane changed a lot of things for me, and I got raises because of it. It flies like the Dickens, if set up right. Since it is hollow, it does not fly fast, it flies slow, and very long. Very very long. It can be modified many ways, but I found that keeping the bottom completely flat achieved the best results. Maybe we should start a glider section? I designed these. I have not seen others like them. There is a very easy way to make them. I would share it, but with stipulations. There has been too much piracy lately, which is why I will not release my models.

It saddens me that someone here is doing this, but I believe that person also belongs to another forum and that is where his heart lies, and lies and lies. I don't know what to do about it, but if I find out, I will list his name, address, phone number, picture, email, everything I find out, so everyone knows he is a thief not to be trusted, no matter what price I have to pay for it. We are being trusted with complete works, and I take that far more seriousness than anyone can imagine. Sorry for the rant.OR1.jpg
d lies and lies. OR2.jpg OR3.jpg OR4.jpg :)
 

freddyman

newbie
very informative post, but i must inform you that the wings were not like that originally. they were very clean and even had the correct laminar flow wing design as the real p-51, but one certainly long flight made it's way from one end of my house to the other and dangerously close to a chained, very playful rottweiler/mastiff mix. as well as crinkling the wings a little, blanco ( our dog) ripped off the right elevator.
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Oh I could see the "fun" damage. It takes a real love of flying to put so much work into a plane, then toss it. I used to make the really big rubber band powered Bi-Planes, with 14" wing spans, rake fluid on the rubber bands to get extra twisting. I would only throw those where there was really tall wild grass at the end of fields at the local park. There is nothing worse than getting a big smash up on a plane that could take you a month to build.

Wing shapes do not work on smaller planes, for instance, as the physics does not carry down. The laminar flow shape for a mustang would be way to fat for any paper model, scaled down, the air is relatively speaking, much thicker. Making the airfoil shape the same doesn't cut it, which is one of those things that makes model flying so interesting. :)
 

freddyman

newbie
the way I designed the model allowed the wings to be thin towards the leading edge and thicker towards the middle. the way the wings attach to the fuselage is made for this very purpose. perhaps I should add it's not the scaled airfoil of the actual p-51. and the wing design seems to be doing it's justice. I've gotten some really impressive flights out of this plane outdoors. it's proven to be able to fly well over the distance of my house during a vertical launch, so every little addition to aid with lift even at this scale counts.
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I used to test fly planes by tying a thing fishing line to a hook popped into the end of the wing, right at the center of gravity. I could get the line out around 20 feet. You really get to see the plane fly. I eventually ,I made a jig that I set up having the plane hooked up to a motor with a two foot arm sticking out with a string hanging down from the ceiling on around 8 feet. I would have a string coming up the wall over to the center pulling using a bead chain, so the string wouldn't knot up, I was able to mount an controllable elevator and have the thing take off and really have some crazy flights. I eventually flipped the thing around, and did it off the floor. I could actually land the plane. You had to have the rudder make the plane turn outwards or it could get tangled up. There is a commercial version of these, where the electric motor is in the plane. The plane was cheezy looking though. Gliders are a blast, especially playing with the air foils. A "S" shaped air foil has great characteristics in tiny aircraft. You are right about every little bit counting, in this scale, I think errors are magnified greatly. It's hard to make a gliding airplane, and making one that looks like a real plane is really hard.

I wrote what I was trying to say wrong. Obviously you are making wing foils that work. I mean to say that "NACA" airfoils do not scale. Making air foils for gliders is very informative. If you set up a big far with a grid to straight out the wind, you can make a wind tunnel of sorts. The trick is to get the air to move in a straight line. It's not has hard as it seems, and watching the plane, or autogyro, which I used to make a lot of, is a blast! I've always wanted to make a "real" nice one. Mine were too thrown together. I think what you doing is great. I have a couple of really simple Ekranoplan models in the downloads section that fly in ground effect really well, and waay too slow, you really can see the craft floating on the pressurized air! :)

Link for D.I.Y Wind Tunnel = http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/wind-tunnel-toc.shtml

Penny Ekranoplans Link = http://zealot.com/threads/flying-penny-ekranoplans.176956/

wind-tunnel_A.jpg
 

freddyman

newbie
i appriciate your posts. their very informative and would definatly be of help when i make more planes.
p.s- spoiler alert. i'm putting the tomcat on hold for a bit. around this weekend hopefully, i would have a 1:72 scale flying blackburn buccaneer finished
 

zathros

*****SENIOR ADMINISTRATOR*****
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
The Buccaneer was such an innovative aircraft, and really had a chance to prove it's mettle before being retired for good! A Beastly (in a good way ) machine!! That rotating drumb carrieda lot of varied ordinance. That is a big bomb bay on a not so very big jet! :)

9008711377_a5084d1224_z.jpg


he2d03-raf-t-006686-main.jpg
 
Top