Excellent work on the Phoenix!
It's a shame we can't do much about the huge gaps in all of the removable hatches.
If it weren't for those it would be a shoe-in for the real thing

Thanks for the complements. I'm really happy with how well it turned out, too.


I was going to post this other video and forgot. This was shot the day I wrecked the airplane. Flying formation with two other friends with P-38's.

Two are the Banana Hobby version. The other is the older E-flite version. They look great in the air together.

This is the last video I have of my California Cutie before it became the Phoenix. It was a perfect day, with perfect white cumulus clouds in the background. Pardon the quality. I had to reduce it considerably because of size limits.

I did some creative editing. A few of the shots are of actual P-38 formation flying. In the first video, I just added background music to the original video we shot that day. In the second version, I intermixed it with real aircraft sounds as well as some additional background music.

P38 RC Formation flying Video with Soundtrack (4 min 39 sec)

P38 RC formation flying (4 min 40 sec)

nice formation flying, very scale like. Will you be doing any more or has crashing put you off lol.
bet you'll be keeping a closer eye on your if you do!

Love the Phoenix!

Well I got mine the other day and I started putting it together last night and I forgot how stumped I get over how the wiring is supposed to be ran through. When you run the wings through, are the wires supposed to be above the top of the wing and visible to where the turbo housing connects, then you connect the Y's and run them through that hole in the wing, and tuck them all through that thin channel under the wing and into the fuse?

I'm not so sure why this plane stumps me with the connections but it does....

Originally Posted by nigelsheffield

...bet you'll be keeping a closer eye on yours if you do!

Ya' got that right, Nigel. After having to rebuild it three times, I'm starting to getting tired of putting it back together again! It's a lot more fun flying. :-)

Originally Posted by Aros

Love the Phoenix!

Well I got mine the other day and I started putting it together last night and I forgot how stumped I get over how the wiring is supposed to be ran through. When you run the wings through, are the wires supposed to be above the top of the wing and visible to where the turbo housing connects, then you connect the Y's and run them through that hole in the wing, and tuck them all through that thin channel under the wing and into the fuse?

I'm not so sure why this plane stumps me with the connections but it does....

Todd, yes... But the idea would be to keep as much wire out of the pod or it will get crowded really fast. I pull the wires into the pod to make all the connections, then I pull them back into the wing & into the nacels to keep the pod as clear as possible.

Youtube still has size limits? I thought sure with the addition of HD video there wouldnt be. I'd really like to see that video again in HD!

That was seriously some of the best formation RC flying I've seen yet! I couldve sworn a few of the shots were full-scale.

Thanks Dangaras...So by pod you mean....(?)

Originally Posted by Aros

Thanks Dangaras...So by pod you mean....(?)

The center pod.. I thread all the cables from the nacels under the wings into the center pod, then after everything is connected with the Y cables, I try to pull as much cable back into the nacel to keep the pod as empty as possible.

Go it. Thanks!

Just FYI...the pod is also referred to as the gondola, the cowling up to the trailing edge of the wing is called the engine nacelle, from there to the rudder is called the tail boom, and the portion of the wing between the nacelles is called the center section.

The P38 is one of very few aircraft that have a gondola, another notable aircraft was the P-61 Black Widow. Many variations on this basic design were proposed and built, such as the XP-49 and XP-58.
A few others with gondolas:
FW-189
Fokker GI
Hughes D2 and XF-11
F-15A

The XP-73 Swordstar was basically a single engine nacelle and boom from a P-38 put together in a conventional fashion.



Might be able to kit bash this plane and build one of these if you had enough time...

Wow, who knew? That's a really cool history lesson. Thank you!

I'm running into an issue with my motors. They aren't arming. When I plug the battery in I hear the initial ESC tones but not the final tones to tell you the motors are engaged. Throttle does not work. Black to black, red to red I assume? All other controls work normally. The ESCs were getting pretty warm for just sitting there while I got the control surfaces dialed.

Do you have to program the ESCs? I got mine from Hobby King and I have no idea if this is a knock off or true J Power....Any ideas?

I had the same thing, I just maid sure my throttle trim was all the way down...

I'll give that a try...Thanks...

Originally Posted by Aros

Wow, who knew? That's a really cool history lesson. Thank you!

I'm running into an issue with my motors. They aren't arming. When I plug the battery in I hear the initial ESC tones but not the final tones to tell you the motors are engaged. Throttle does not work. Black to black, red to red I assume? All other controls work normally. The ESCs were getting pretty warm for just sitting there while I got the control surfaces dialed.

Do you have to program the ESCs? I got mine from Hobby King and I have no idea if this is a knock off or true J Power....Any ideas?

Remove one of the red ESC wires temporarily to determine if the ESCs are fighting each other.

Then check your esc cables. I had the same issue once where my cables were too long. I used shorter cables an all was well.

I also set the throttle trim, push throttle to full, plug in flight battery, listen for two quick ESC tones, pull throttle to zero, ESC beep battery cell count & ready tones.

Make sure your throttle channel is not reversed???