Would it be possible to fly the plane with just rudder/elevators?
I made one, and was planning to try that out, since I only have so many servos right now.

It should fly fine with R/E if you add about 1 3/4" dihedral under each wing tip.
That's 6.5 degrees which is in line with Gene's slowflyer parameters.

It can be slowed down enough that flying with ailerons is not hard at all. It was my 2nd outing with ailerons. Spending a half hour on the FMS flight simulator flying the 'Full Fuse printed P-40' model helped a lot.

I have to say that the one that I built for my brother that I built for him on the previous page has been rather disappointing. However, I think it is mostly due to two things. I need to have him flying with a somewhat smaller battery pack and I need to get him a new motor. This one has taken too many crashes. Either way, I will be giving a flying report as soon as I have these things rectified but so far I must say that it looks good in the air but definitely is a little quirky almost like it's tail heavy as it loses power in turns. However, I can assure you that if anything it is a little nose heavy. Time to pop that new motor on the front and see if I can fix this silly turn issue that it has.

Salter

Hmm.. well, a bit late for dihedral as I glued the wing in already. Oh, well, never TOO late I guess, but maybe I could try it with the ailerons.

Salter,

Not sure why it's not flying well for you. Hopefully the smaller battery pack will help.

It oughta' fly GREAT , considering its heritage ...sure looks good !!!

Well, what if I don't cut/glue the dihedral right in the center, but perhaps about an inch off the fuse? FWIW, I made the wing a bit longer to make up for my slightly fatter foam. Here in the northern climate, the FFF is a bit thicker. I just used what I could find at the local Habitat For Humanity Re-Store. It only cost about $1.50 for about a quarter of a full bundle. They have more too, might pick it all up.
But back to the 109. Would the dihedral still work if it starts about an inch from the fuse? I had already glued the wing in and it is pretty solid. I see some planes are like that. Would it work here?

I've never tried it and I'm no expert, but I think it would work just fine.

Some others here say that blu cor is now being made differently. You're lucky to have access to the old stock.

Yea, VeeDub... It should be fine. Heck, most times the wing is hidden under a crutch or inside a fuse for about 1" or so from the root.

Haven't tried the new stuff , I'd assume you the skinned side in a tension application , such as the underside of a wing or the outside of laminations .... the printing is on the unskinned side.... nice surface , but I wonder if the printing wipes off as easily ...?????
Just for grins , last night traced out the parts of my FB's GWS Me 109 kit . He ended UP with Jers' Corsair and he loves it ... now a Me 109 that he won't have to worry about ( he painted the other one so nicely , it's a shame to risk it , except for special occasions of course...) Turned out Huge >40" ... long too !!! I think I like yours better.....

Originally Posted by kdahlhaus

I worked from a bitmap file of Gene's P-51 plans that was exported from Adobe Acrobat.

Next time try importing or opening the pdf directly in your vector graphics program. I have had good luck opening Gene's PDF plans directly in Freehand. His PDF's are vector based so the vectors come through intact. No need to redraw the vectors. I modified his DC3 this way. I also have done it to develop graphics/paint guides for his planes during my builds.

If you export from Acrobat, it will turn it into a bitmap which is much less useful as you have seen.

Cary,

That's good advice - vector is by far the way to go here. I'll take a look at some of the free vector programs and see what they offer in the line of imports. I just went with the tools I have available.

I replaced the motor I originally had in the plane - a generic CDR off of ebay - with a 15 turn / 25 gauge CDR from www.westport-design.com. It had much more authority and flew faster. The motor is a good option for those not winding their own.

If any one builds one, it would be wise to extend the fuse crutch another inch or so. I had an upside down landing that put a crease in the fuse from the base of the rudder to stern of the crutch. It required some bracing. I'll update the plans when I get a minute.

kdah , I built 3 using a tracing of the GWS Me-109, I had your version , but this was requested by a FB ... pretty similar to yours, but mine (#1)initally wouldn't turn (Talk about hairy !!!!) had to add a credit card (pirates of the caribbean)taped to the rudder for turning (AET) active rudder would have been handy ... Just a bigger rudder for now ... painted Up they look fine !!! Love these profiles but I have a suspicion that the crutches are blanking out the rudder at high AoA...a straight profile version reinforced with bamboo sticks (holiday sparklers) will test this theory ...Plus , I need a bigger motor for the 40" ws... slow with the cd motor ...but light and glides well ...now that it turns ...

I faced that problem too when trying to maiden the Blu-Strega.... It dropped out of the sky when doing loops, because the scale sized horizontal fuse was not wide enough to support it... and it tore! My current fix is to hot glue skewers connecting the tailplane to the rear of the main wing... and one more skewer inserted in the bottom main fuse of the plane. The frame twist that was so familiar in many profile 3D planes is gone...

I reckon that why we used to be putting big a$$ control surfaces on these flyers was because the frame flexed in flight, and regular sized surfaces couldn't turn these things .