Hey guys , I always thought that Precious metal was and P51-A , as per the early pics of it and the above prop intake ........
As for the red baron chad , have you seen the OK models ARF , with a very nice contra motor and spinner set ........pricey though .

Good luck , I think we are all headed for electric Reno !!

The "Red Baron" had those long propeller blades also. Of course the contra-rotating props aren't the most efficient for racing but they sure make a great sound. Check out some contra-rotating sound.

Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear Landing Up Close (0 min 23 sec)

Originally Posted by mackone

Hey guys , I always thought that Precious metal was and P51-A , as per the early pics of it and the above prop intake ........
As for the red baron chad , have you seen the OK models ARF , with a very nice contra motor and spinner set ........pricey though .

Good luck , I think we are all headed for electric Reno !!

The Whittington brothers have owned several Mustangs named "Precious Metal" over the years, all of them D model Mustangs. The current "PM", the one shown in this thread with the Griffon engine and contra-prop set up, is a heavily modified D model. The Whittingtons never had any great success with it as a racer and it was sold to Ron Buccarelli around 2002 or so. Ron raced it until 2006, again with little success, and then pretty much parked the airplane. It was finally sold again last year to Thom Richard who had it back at Reno this year.



The P-51A that you are thinking of was owned and flown by Gerry Beck and was actually a replica that Mr. Beck's restoration company built from scratch. (He had intended to market it as a kit at one time.) The airplane was used in the movie "Thunder over Reno" and that was the reason for the "Precious Metal" paint job. The airplane was never actually raced and was, sadly, involved in an accident at Oshkosh which claimed the life of Mr. Beck.

Wow Chad,

thanks for all that information. I didn't know Ron sold the airplane. So, if you want to design a "Seafang/Spiteful or a "Red Baron", that would be fine with me. I'd like to put a BIG contra-rotating prop on either one and try her out.
Sorry Scatsob, I didn't mean to hijack your thread but...........
I used to tow gliders at Stead and flew out of Tonopah and I went to the Reno Air Races as much as I could. The coolest thing in my life was flying a PC-12 around the pylons at Reno for some marketing media! Sorry, back to the topic.

Randy

That looks like fun!

Cool pics. Saw PM Friday in the Unlimited heats (yes, that day) and the plane was looking good, but he had to mayday over some issue with the gearbox overheating. It is not a competitive plane but it makes a cool sound. The pic is interesting as it shows the amount of down elevator needed and the deflection of the trim tab.

I am supprised that PM never has done well. We all know mustangs can fly fast, Strega and Dago Red have proved that. Miss Ashley proved, to an extent, that the Griffon is a good powerplant for the mustang. John did however have a lot of disposable income and it always appeared that PM was racing on a budget.

Don't worry about the hijack guys. I like the subject and untill I sort out this motor issue I can't really start the build. Looks like I might just get my money back and get the Himax motor.

I suspect it has to do with lack of spare parts and the need for longevity of the Griffon powerplant in a race plane. As insanely expensive as Merlin builds are, there is much more availability of replacement parts and there are new parts being made custom. So the Merlin guys push the boost a lot higher and the planes are more competitive. There is also a greater body of technical racing knowledge on the Merlin and the American radials. I don't think there is any question that the Griffon is the better engine in stock form but it is so rare that little support exists.

I guess I didn’t think about parts. I knew they were getting their engines from shackletons and figured there must be enough of them around that they are semi available.

Back on topic. I sent an email to Zinger to see if they will do a semi-custom spinner for me. What I asked them to do is take the 4.5" spinner they have and cut it at the point where I can use the 4" backplate on the fron portion and the 4.5" backplate on the rear portion. It shouldn’t cost too much as all I am asking for is one cut and an extra backplate. Well see that they say. This idea is clearly laid out in the paintCAD (No laughing please) image I have attached. The line denoting where the spinner is 4" in diameter, which is where the cut would be made. The question mark denotes the unknown length that I asked Zinger to determine for me. I just want to make sure it not too short so I have some room to work with.

Scatsob,

I think Tru-Turn spinners will do custom spinner work as well if Zinger doesn't work out for you.

Randy

Thanks Randy, I reciently read that they did custom work as well but figured Zinger would be the cheeper option. With TT it would be a true custom spinner, with Zinger it is more like a slight modification to an existing spinner. Thats one of my problems with this build, I am on a tight budget. And now that I think about it I should have just chunked down for the dang Himax motor. Anyone want to buy a contra motor that needs some work to run right for $90 shipped?

Thanks Chad , good to know its a D .

Scatsbob, I'm not getting why you need to do this - why not just use the 4.5with prop grooves cut in as they have done for Jet Mang and others?

For my .50 CMP Mustang, I wanted a budget and light spinner (stupid novice warbird builder me, thinking I needed to reduce nose weight on a warbird ), so I fabbed up a 2-piece balsa spinner, with front and back pieces as you depict. It actually turned out pretty well and was indeed feather weight. I turned the spinner and shaped it using my drill press, as I do not have a lathe.

Actually, the other reason I did this was that people were going nuts with spinner vibration on that model, caused by the interaction of the heavy spinner, soft Turnigy motor shaft prone to flex, and movement of the motor mount, all of which set up some sort of oscillation.

TT- I might be misunderstanding you, but I need two backplates, one for each of the props. I dont understand what you mean by groves.

On a related topic, I got an answer back from Zinger, and I quote:

"all of our spinners are p51 style,we can not make what you are talking about."

Well, I never said I had a problem with the shape....and I never really asked them to "make" anything. I just asked if they could cut the spinner at the point where the front portion had a 4" diameter. I replied and asked if they would just sell me the 4.5" spinner and just the backplate from a 4" spinner. Well see I guess.

Scatsob, I'm just curious what Tru-Turn would charge for that job. Could you get a quote from them, just for informational purposes?

Randy