Miklos...she'll soar like an eagle AND land on the water like a goose. I couldn't handle another gearless belly landing, that's what spurred the idea to add floats.

Need some advice from those familiar with the Mustang's electronics

My Mustang is (was) outfitted with the dymond 1800 mah battery. I had transferred the electronics, motor and battery into a Stryker fuze (trying to make my dollars go farthur by putting together 2 planes for the price of 1.3) anyway I was flying this combo when I lost control of the plane and had to bring it down some distance away in what I thought was tall grass. Turns out the plane landed top down in a pool of standing water, the only pool of water in the whole huge field I was flying in! Both the battery and receiver got wet and the motor was running at slow speed when I got there even though I had shut off the throttle. The receiver is drying out now but I notice to things, the yellow cover got scorched at a spot near where the jumpers are located and one of the motor leads came loose from the circuit board. Is is probably shot? I know I'll be able to find out for myself after I let it dry but the scorching on the platic yellow cover leads me to believe its a goner.

Also the battery, I know a NiMH would probably still be OK but can a lipo survive a dunking while connected? Would it be safe to plug it in and test it out after it dries. I wouldn't want to run the risk of frying something else just to find out.

Although I was flying a strkyer the electronics was all Mustang including the motor so I thought this would be the place to post the question

Piper Lance..... that is the coolest thing I have seen in a while. It looks very well done. I can't wait to hear how things turn out when you actually fly it.

As far as names go, I would come up with some sort of picture of an illustrated VERY buxom chick stuck in an inner tube and then call it "Mighty Fine Floats" or possibly "The Boob Tube"

Just my 2 cents

The biggest problem you'll most likely face with the "floater" is rudder. Without any way to steer left to right the torque will just spin it. You won't be able to get enough speed to take off without a 4 channel system. I know this from converting my trashed pz mustang to a GWS corsair. I took the electronics and put them in the corsair. I tried 5 times to take off from pavement and it would only get a foot out before turning no matter what I did with the landing gear.
I held onto the rudder and gave it full throttle - this may work for you- once the engine is up to speed let it go, if it starts to turn cut the motor and try again. This may help it to turn more gradually instead of immediately. I was able to get it off the ground in about 25 feet. It flipped on landing because of the gear so I took it off against Miklos advice. I should have put money on it but he said it wouldn't be possible to hand launch it... well, 5 flights later hand launching and belly landings are just fine for the corsair.
Bottom line. I think the mustang on nicads or lipos has plenty of power to beat the drag on the floats but without rudder you won't get the speed. I'd try hand launching it and land it on the floats. And definately land it into the wind!

For the curious- here are some pics of the Mustang/Corsair.
I call it the "mustair" cuz I thought it was going to stink! But, she flies 100% better than my finicky e-starter. The e-starter is a total turkey!
Seems grossly underpowered. The mustang's 480 motor in the gws corsair however makes for very exciting and easy flying.

Greg

Thanks for all of the name suggestions. I've got a chuckle out of them all. Having just watched Pam Anderson's roast on Comedy Central last night, I think the name is going to have to be Pamela Pontoons or something like that.

I ran the plane on my carpeted basement floor last night. It has enough power to easily drag itself around on the carpet, but it does do left circles in the process. I think I'll go ahead and add two water rudders that are fixed in a slightly right position to try and overcome that. If that doesn't work, I've got a 4 chanel radio setup here, and I'll have to just cut the fixed air rudder loose and make it operable.

Pamela Pontoons

*snicker*

Good one. VERY good one.

I vote for "Pamela Pontoons".

Yeah great name

Yep "Pamela Pontoons" is great! I think Construkt is probably right about needing a rudder to make it actually work. PLEASE video the first flight though if you try to take off from the water. I'd love to see that! I hope the water is VERY smooth the day you try it though! Good luck!

Miklos, thanks for the earlier welcome to the forum. I've learned a lot from reading through the posts here. Had my 3rd flight this evening, it went well. Second flight this afternoon was a bit strange, the plane felt underpowered and sluggish. Turns out the battery was not fully charged despite the stock charger indicating charge completion, i.e. steady non-blinking LED. The pack felt cold and I thought that it had just gone into trickle charge and cooled off. I had the charger plugged into a RadioShack A/C power supply that had a cigarette lighter receptacle on it, supposedly capable of supplying 10A @ 13.8VDC. For this evening's flight, I had it plugged back into the same RadioShack charger, it indicated charge completion soon after I plugged it in, which was suspicious since I'd drained most of the charge during the afternoon flight. The pack again was cold. I ended up trying it in my car and sure enough it took about 40 mins to charge completion, the pack was warm at the end. The evening flight was quite different from the afternoon's, plenty of power, I'd forgotten how fast this airplane was. This afternoon, I must have been flying on residual charge from a flight two days ago. By the way, I've noticed that a lot of pilots on here have done very nice jobs in customizing their airplane. I'd like to put a different decal on mine, I pulled my "Ferocious Frankie" and it left a lot of sticky goop on the plane. Does anyone have a good way of cleaning the gummy stuff up without using solvents that attack the plastic or foam? Thanks much!

Vegetable oil on a paper towel, followed by a little soap and water.

Pamela Pontoons it is! I will video for sure.

Goo Gone also works very well for sticky residue.
Must follow up with soap and water if re-applying tape or sticker.
spencer1

WD-40 or peanut butter....
They also remove tar residue from your car.
And as said some soap and water afterwards.

Happy landings.

Originally Posted by joepilot55

Turns out the battery was not fully charged despite the stock charger indicating charge completion, i.e. steady non-blinking LED. The pack felt cold and I thought that it had just gone into trickle charge and cooled off. Does anyone have a good way of cleaning the gummy stuff up without using solvents that attack the plastic or foam? Thanks much!

Goof Off works good but as Sonic noted so does WD-40.

It's not your RadioShack charger that's to blame for your battery being undercharged; it's your connectors! I have had this same exact problem using the stock charger MANY times. It seemed like the first charge of the day was always terrible. I had first flights as short as ONE minute. The second charge of the day sometimes worked much better or sometimes using a different vehicle's cigarette lighter seemed to work better. When the charge took all of the 40 minutes and the battery was warm I would have full power but often the charger would tell me the battery was charged in 10 minutes, (which I think was the charger going to sleep because of a lack of a good connection). Then I had problems with the plane losing power in the air and figured out that the cheap Tamiya connector pins had stretched out inside the plugs. My problem was exacerbated by having the battery drop out of the plane while flying, but tugging on them to disconnect can do the same thing. I have just installed Deans connectors on everything and believe this will make the problems go away.
Hope this helps.