[gbanger]

Welcome to the build thread of my Hanger 9 P-51 Mustang 150 ARF.
I thought it would be interesting and hopefully educational for anyone thinking about building a larger scale plane or even help out a first time builder with their project.
I have all but decided on the electronics package and will discuss that in a later post, but just to let the cat out of the bag a little, I have purchased an EFlite Power 160 and will probably be running it on 10S spinning an 18 x 10 2 blade prop.
I will try and remember to keep the posts and photo's coming on a regular basis.
The Airframe specs are:
Wingspan - 2032mm
Length - 1727mm
Wing Area - 70.97 sq dm
Flight Weight - About 8.5 kg
The flight weight of this aircraft will be well over 7 kg's so that means I need a heavy model endorsment for it and myself as the pilot! So I will discuss that as we go through the process.
I picked up the aircraft today and as you would expect, I was like a kid at christmas ...
We will check out whats in the box out next post.

   

Gazza

[secant0give]

Very nice Gazz,
I'm looking forward to following, what will certainly be, a very interesting build!!
Hanger 9 are known for making very nice ARFs. I'm keen to see what you think of air frame kit. ??

The power 160 will be a grunty motor if it's anything like the G160 I have, It should be better actually as my G 160 is a cheap copy of the Eflight motor.

I can recomend 12S with the 160. It will take it no probs at all and the extra power would make it spectacularly caperble to fly areobatics with !!

[gbanger]

I'm sure the 12S works fine on light weight 3D airframe Jason, but I think dragging around a 9 kg plane with a lot less wing area would probably fry a few to many things.
What prop are you running mate?
What is the flight weight?
How many amps are you drawing at full tillt?
What prop are you spinning?
Don't mean to sound blunt, but 3D aircraft spend half of the flight at under half throttle,
an aircraft like the Mustang will spend most of it at over 3/4.
Running it on 12S would mean spinning an even smaller prop and the maths on that with a 9 kg airframe wont quite cut the mustard.... I would probably need a 500 meter strip to get the sucker in the blue stuff.

[wingtipper]

very interesting , i'm looking forward to the electrics involved in this one , and the pics .
will it fit in your van ?

[gbanger]

OK up till now I have been making desicions on what hardware I am going to use.
With those decisions finally made and ordered, all of my goodies have finally arrived.
So here are a few pics of "Whats in the box"
   
Packaging was pretty bloody good.
   
   
   
The retracts are build like a tank, I am very impressed with the quality of the included hardware. All the control rods and clevises are high quality anodised steel.

---

Aileron and Flap Assembly using 5mm bullet style pin hinges. I used 30 minute epoxy to glue these bad boys in.
                   

[rustty1]

Good looking kit Gary.Much patience required up to this stage.Will be good to see it airbourne!

[wingtipper]

the quality looks brilliant !

[Flying fisho]

Another plane ready for the Gazza touch. Finished off with your normal attention to detail should produce an awesome plane to watch & fly. Keep us posted on it's progress.

[secant0give]

Very nice, The mustangs I've seen all seem to fly very well
I think this will be superb! Can't wait to see it on the air !!

[Raptorfly]

A master at work.
What's the FMS book doing on the table? Building the Hanger 9 with FMS instructions?

Jokes aside, what a nice looking frame. I hope to be there for the maiden.
Keep the pics comming.

[gbanger]

That's the 2012 FMS catalogue ya maggot!
Would you like me to bring it down to the field... it's got some cool stuff in it!

[paulj]

You must have good eyes George.
How could you tell it was an FMS catalogue?

[gbanger]

The Aileron and Flap servo installation is finally finished. All of my control surfaces are being run by a new servo that I have never used before, they are Turnigy TG 1258's I am hoping that all the research and forum posativity if have read is a good thing, I could not find a bad word about them, so that is a big posative, they have a mountain of torque with 12 kgs at 4.8 volts and 18.5 at 6 volts so they are wearing a big pair.
They are a lot more expensive being Titanium Metal Gear Digital Corless Servo's so lets hope the forums are on the money, preliminary testing at home is good and I am pretty happy with the feedback I'm getting.

The pictures below show the assembly of the blocks on the servo carriers, the servos installed in the blocks and the final assembly in the wings with the servos arms installed and trimmed.
When I build all my aircraft I bind the new reciever at the start of the build so I can plug in label and trim every servo during installation. It just makes the build so much easier. If you have not done it before, take the time on your next build to set up and trim all your servos as you install them, it simplifies setup and takes away any concern or doubts you may have on initial power up.

   
   
   
   
   

[smuzz]

What do you mean by "trimming servos"?

[gbanger]

Sorry that is just a term that I use and probably isn't correct, primarily I mean adjusting control thows on your radio and in particularly your preliminary end points, it depends on whether it is Aileron/Flap etc but fine tuning zero on the contol surfaces and how much adjustment you have is critical to making the aircraft easy to adjust without adjusting linkages. Then after the maiden you can make physical changes without having to make mechanical alterations.
My Mustangs servo bays only allow a certain limit in control throws. To avoid damage to the wing structure I start with my throws set at 50% on the radio, then I increase them until I get the movement I want without causing airframe damage. When you have 15 plus kg Titanium gear sevos they don't stop when they come up against piss weak shit like balsa, come to think of it plywood doesn't actually slow them up to much either!

[brotherblonde]

Coming together nicely Gazz. But then again, everything you build looks beautiful mate.

[smuzz]

Got it now - and it all makes sense, thanks.

[gbanger]

Retract Installation
The Big P51 comes with a very nice set of high quality mechanical retracts.
I was looking at using servoless units but these things just looked to good not to use. The only let down was that the heavy duty plywood fastening points in the wings were twisted so I had to do a lot of modifications to the retact flange plates so they would pull down square into the airframe.
When I pulled them into their locations to check the initial operation they were both heavily overloaded due to the torsional stress being applied to the housings by the flange plates. It took a lot of trial and error fitting, checking, removing, modifying and then refitting to get them operating smoothly, at the end of it all I have them operating very smoothly but I am not very happy that an ARF aircraft that cost over $800 has so many build issues that cost hours of my time to rectify.
Anyway here are a few pics. You will see in second pic how much the flange was out when first installed. And the 4th pic shows how much I had to twist the flange to get it to sit right without streesing the housing.
Almost forgot... I'm using Spectrum A7000 retract servos, these big suckers have 18.5 kgs of torque at 4.7 volts and 25kgs at 6 volts. So there is no stopping these bad boys when to hit the switch... they will either close of break the wing in half, but you have to have that sort of power when your retracts weight almost a kilo. Next... tailplane and rudder!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

[secant0give]

Very Nice Gazz,
I see what you mean from the pics about having to do some serious fitting during the instalation!!

These retracts do look very well made tho' Should be a ripper !!

[gbanger]

Tailplane and Rudder Assembly
You would think that assembling the tailplane would be pretty simple, so did I ... Wrong!
The elevator and rudder assembly was pretty straight forward using large CA hinges, everthing lined up very nicely but the tailplane locates on 2 large alloy rods that run through the fusalage and the rods didn't line up with the composite tudes in the tailplane so once again I have to stuff around for a lot longer than I should have to get them on. Then when I did get them on they didn't sit flush with the airframe, once again very I am very dissapointed with the fit up of such an expensive aircraft. Anyway I finally got it all sorted and drilled and taped the 2 holes that secure the tailplane to the fusalage. Its designed to make removal for transport easy but I wont be taking them off again.
I finished the rear wheel and its steering assembly as well, it wasn't without issues as the pivot tube that the axle runs through was far to tight and had to be enlarged with a small round file so the bloody thing would turn. Smile Gary, we are getting there... be it ever so slowly.
       
       

[wingtipper]

loving this plane GAZZ , i hope i get to see this one . i might build one of these one day .

[secant0give]

Gazz,
I had similar troubles with the tailplane spar in the Blue Yak55M, the one I got from HK
I go it all fitted nicely, parrellel to the wings and made joiner so they would work with the one servo then I discovered the tail plane was twisted

Oh well I've got a new new tail plane now and It's back to the building board, making this one fit. I am happy enough because this one is very straight tho'.

The super and cheaper Yak55M was very nice and staright but the tail plane isn't removable It's glued in

[gbanger]

Finished the Electronics installation and did the first wing to fusalage fit up to test all my servos under load to check that my control system has the balls to hang in there for 10 minutes.
My JR 11X radio has a servo test function that simulates maximum flight load on all the servos at the same time for all long as you have it switched on, a very handy accessory to have to give the electronics a good work out.
I am using a Spectrum AR 12120 reciever, well its not really a reciever its more of a big BEC with a reciever built in. They cost the earth but they really are the ducks guts. It can supply 15 amps constant current up to 25 amps burst (like you would ever need that) they can run up to 12 high voltage digital servos. It has 4 sattelites but they are really the only communication links between the aircraft and the radio, the reciever is just a big power distrbution box.
Anyway electronics testing complete, just got to install the motor and ESC to set all that up now and we will be in the sky soon.
       

[smuzz]

Hmm - interesting stuff Gazz. Looking forward to seeing this one in the flesh!

[gbanger]

Almost forgot to mention.. its is the latest thing from Spectrum and has dual power supply with power sensative redundancy.... so to cut through the technical crap, it runs 2 separate power supplies they switch from one to the other if power drops below an acceptable limit.
I am running 2 x 2S 2100 mah Dualsky reciever packs. They should be good for at least 6 flights.
   

[wingtipper]

what a great idea , i didnt know an all in one unit , with dual redundancies existed , and that TX feature is great . cheers

[gbanger]

Oh... they exist mate... they just cost an arm and a leg!
I actually had to sell my kidneys so I could afford to buy one!
But its peace of mind... so when all that money is belting around in the sky... you have a little less anxiety.

[gbanger]

Power Plant Installation
As this is an I/C upgrade the motor mount had to be designed from scratch. I had a number of options available but ended up using a plate and bar stand off, I manufactured the mounting plate from 4mm Aluminium, picked up the 1/2" rod from Kellets and my good buddy Jason machined them to size and tapped the ends 5mm. I used the existing fasteners already mounted in the bulkhead to mount the plate and recessed the Allen head bolts into the bulkhead that hold the stand off rods to the plate. I had to do some very fiddly mathematics allowing for the bulkhead being angled down and to the right to get the spinner to sit perfectly in line with the cowl.
The motor is an Eflite 160 (245kv) powered by a Turnigy K Force 70 amp Opto ESC. Full power is only 58 amps so the whole thing should run pretty cool.
I am spinning a 16 x 10, 3 blade Master Airscrew.
Running on 10S will produce a little under 9 kgs of thrust, that gives me a power to weight of 1.16 to 1, that's magic for a big heavy warbird.

       
       
       
   

Now I just have to finish off a few fiddley finishing touches and will be heading off to PEMAC for a maiden... once I sort my batteries out.

[Claudius]

Looks awesome Gazz.

[secant0give]

Very nice mate !!

Nice Neat installation of all the electrics too Top Job !!