Well over the holiday season I bought and completed a few war birds. I bought a used PZ Corsair, ARF JPower P-38, Airfield 750mm P47 airframe, Airfield 750mm T-28 airframe, and an ARF Eflite P-47 300. The J-Power P-38 was the prize of them all, unfortunately one motor was providing more thrust but I went out to maiden her without the stock V1 retracts because I read how much they suck. She was up in the air with a good hand launch and she flew...kinda slow. An engine upgrade was definitely needed, when I brought her back for a belly landing I tried to gently lower her but forgot about the difference in thrust and she stalled on one side and came back to earth. Both vert stabs on the bottom busted up so I will have to try to figure out how to reinforce that area as well as the tail boom. All the planes look pretty cool and I'm in the process of figuring out the best prop/battery combo for each of the custom motors that I installed. Folks on the forums have been helpful in regards to mods and stuff that my planes need. Anyhow, my hanger grows with more warbirds...

Well I bit and bought both the P47 airframe and the Spitfire airframe to fill up my need for PZ airframes. Both were pretty easy to build and I bought Tacon Big Foot motors for both, the P47 has the Tacon 25 while the Tacon 15 went into the Spitfire. I liked the flaps on my PZ BF-109 so I had to put the flaps on the Jug and I also broke down and got eflite retracts for both planes. Good thing I am single and have no kids because my money can goto my planes.

Little did I know that I needed a 6 channel rx for the P47. It took me hours to figure out that I needed a 6 channel rx to work both the retracts and the flaps. So I threw in an Orange Rx to see what would happen and voila it worked like a charm. I immediately trolled the RCgroups forum for used AR6200s which I placed in both planes. Both planes have 60amp ESCs and use 4S 2200/2650 lipos. I cannot believe how much a difference 4S is versus 3S, the increase speed was well worth the motor upgrade. Both maidens happened on the same day and both flew great and were uneventful.

Unfortunately I had my first crash with the P47 this weekend and it wasn't pretty. Due to my crappy soldering skills the motor seized up when I was coming around for a landing and the P47 clipped a large backstop fence at the school. This resulted in both wings almost being torn off but I glued it back together and it flies great...except when I switch the flaps...then it starts banking like crazy. I am trying to adjust both the flaps and aerilons so that I can still use the flaps. Maybe time for a new wing? Nuts!

Since I have a bunch of planes now I trolled the RCGroups forum for plane stands and made two out of PVC to fit my growing fleet.

Been looking at maybe getting a P-38 or a B-17 but my problem is not having a good landing strip and worry about trying to land them on grass. The voices are talking to me and I must resist...

Well I decided to get the PZ BF109 airframe for my next build and I wasn't disappointed. I had a Headsup RC 3536 motor that I picked up on the For Sale forum and slapped it on the airframe. Installed all the electronics and decided to do the flaps as well. Since I fly at a nearby school most of my planes don't have landing gear and I opt for belly landing so I also decided to go with a 2 bladed prop. The flaps make it pretty easy to land the plane but will have to consider throwing on the gear to see how it is to ROG. Anyhow this airframe only needed to have a few clicks and it was flying pretty good. It was the easiest maiden that I have ever had, I was a bit worried because I read the forums and saw that many people were having issues with torque rolls, especially when hand tossing. Not a single problem with the hand toss this last weekend. I did notice that after a few belly landings foam was slowly coming off but Max headspeed pointed me (thank you sir!) to his blog and I will be making some mods to make the plane a bit tougher using epoxy and minwax clear satin. Needless to say I really like how this bird flies, I worry that I will not have enough time to fly my birds

Well I decided to dip into airframe kits and the first one was the Parkzone Mustang airframe. At the same time I ordered the PZ mustang my Tower Hobbies mustang finally came back into stock and was also shipped. Installation of electronics in the PZ airframe was easier than expected and I also added a rudder which was also a breeze. I did have to modify both planes to be able to use larger batteries and that was a bit more work than I thought it would be. Both mustangs are fun to fly, the TH mustang is a bit heavier due to the wood in the fuse but it has the option of landing gears which the PZ doesn't unless I decide to install stuff. The TH landing gears suck so I will probably order the PZ Corsair landing gears for it. I am now a huge fan of PZ airframes, will order another warbird. I just need to decide which warbird to get, Spitfire, P47D, or BF109 and will make it a 4s for the power and speed.

Well I worked hard to think about how to fix the firewall on the fuse and just picked up some cull wood at Home Depot for less than a buck and made a firewall from it. Used the old screw slots on the left side and drilled some holes on the right, the screws on the right I dipped in epoxy and hope it'll hold. I also had to epoxy the right wing since it tore off from the fuse and also picked up a new aluminum wing rod/bar since the old carbon one broke in the middle inside the fuse. Glued back both plastic wing brackets where the foam attaches to the wing since they became lose in the crash. All in all it looks good to go and will test it out tomorrow.

Unfortunately I was trying to do a high speed low pass at the school where I fly and the Wildcat hit the top of a fence, here are some pics of what I had to work with.

Do I need to buy a reamer? Or is there something else I can do?

This is me...

RC Flying Newbie (3 min 36 sec)

Just finished the Thunder Tiger Zero and about halfway through the Guanli Zero. Here is a pic of both. The Thunder Tiger is on the right while the Guanli is on the left. I like the deep color of the TT (rightside) versus the Guanli but the foam on the TT is much softer than the Guanli.

Decided to try my hand at doing an ARF kit and chose the Thunder Tiger Mitsubishi A6M5c Zero Fighter. It was a bit more work than I thought and now I know why people buy RTF planes. Still was alot of fun to do and will be working on the Thunder Tiger Warhawk next.