I have a question regarding landing a warbird on my ‘runway’. To begin, I’m fairly new at this having only started flying a couple months ago. My first plane was an Apprentice which I’ve managed to fly dozens of times without incedent. I also have a Cessna 182 55” wingspan and a FMS Sky Trainer of similar size. I fly right in my own back yard using my neighbors paved driveway as my runway. It’s about 400 feet long with 50 foot trees at one end and a hill of about 50 feet with more 50’trees on the hill at the other end. The end with the hill is where I come in from for landing as the other end goes out to a highway with power lines running across. I’m able to land all three planes pretty well but the driveway is only about 7-8 feet wide and does make it challenging especially if there’s any crosswind. . I have yet to crash any of my planes, thankfully. Have had a couple of nose-overs when going off the runway as there’s rather thick high grass/ rocks on either side. I got the Sky Trainer to practice with flaps and now have on order a FMS P-51D Mustang 1450 mm wingspan and the Durafly T-28 Trojan 1100mm wingspan. My question is whether it’s reasonable for me to expect to be able to land these birds as I’m doing now, especially for the P-51 as it’s a tail dragger and I don’t have much width of runway to play with? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

With your background and foundation, I would think you are plenty capable of flying many more birds, including the ones you suggested.

However, as a beginner landing these in a confined space, you may have some issues.... Whether you have problems or not is moot- regardless, you will enjoy much less stress while flying if you gave yourself some more space. I have found that an obstacle free location results in increased focus on the aircraft and one's flying will naturally improve.

Thanks for the input bs, and I agree with you about having an obstacle free location. I do have plenty of airspace as I'm flying over a couple hundred acres of horse pasture. Problem is that it's a bit hilly with no real good spot to land save the driveway. There's the convenience factor of not having to pack up a car to take stuff somewhere else to fly. I can just walk out my back door and in less than a minute be up in the air. Nice way to relax a bit after a long day of work.

my rc field runway is about 500 feet but most of us use no more than 3/4 of that - if that much. you should be fine. all comes down to practice.

The only thing you dont know that all planes are differant so your maiden flight may be best in an area that allows for error .I say that knowing that my Corsair glides much further on landing if I allow it to , my P47 sinks like a brick , the Hellcat is yet again differant then the other two , so if you can at leaste maiden in a differant place with space , get a feel then go back hom

I think all the guy's gave you good advice......both of your new warbirds are not difficult to land, although they will not float in like an apprentice, as you will have to use some power and basically fly them to the ground as they will both drop under very low throttle, you will be using your rudder to help line up the runway and also control your landing roll out to keep airplanes off the grass....

also remember on take off...the p-factor with 3 and 4 blade props tend to want to turn left under hard acceleration, so youll be using a good amount of right rudder to keep them straight.....have fun...

yes remember right rudder because many will report "hey it veered left" , its like useing instraments in a real plane , you have to trust something that you mind will tell you not to do , but gradual throttle with right rudder will give you great controlled take offs

Thank you all for your shared wisdom. Lots of great advice, much appreciated. Will definitely try to be ready with some right rudder on takeoff, none of my current planes have any issues in that regard, so that will be a new one for me. Probably be a couple weeks before I get either in the air but I'll try to let you all know how I made out.

One last thing I forgot to add and we did this with heavy fuel warbirds .
If you want to see how slow you can land before your wing snaps , or nose drops ect ,
take the plane up high enough to give you a chance to respond.
Give yourself a good view so its in very good sight , (again high up) start to slow it down with less and less throttle , note when a wing drops or nose and you will know that is the danger area on landing and you dont want to go that slow .
This will give you a good feel , now if you have flaps you would have applied flaps in the test , more flaps with less throttle ect . Good test to determine stall speed

Well, maidened the FMS P-51 Mustang today. This was my first time flying a low wing aircraft. Here’s how it went. First off, received Petie on Friday, about 3 weeks after I ordered it from Banana Hobby. Everything was intact and included, no surprises. Took a couple hours to put it all together, everything went together well, everything working as it should (that was a relief). Took it out to fly on Sunday morning, nice weather and just a very slight breeze off and on. First takeoff was a bit hairy as Petie wanted to veer left down the runway (driveway) as I increased the throttle. I was afraid of over-compensating to the right so as I had it going down the driveway it was getting closer and closer to going off into the rough where it definitely would have nosed over. I decided to just gun it and give it some up elevator and she took off probably a few inches from hitting the rough grass. That was close. So from there just flew it around at about 2/3 throttle and trimmed it out. A few clicks of down elevator and a couple clicks of right aileron is all it took. After about 8 minutes on the 4S 2600 mAh that came with it I brought it down for a landing. Wasn’t sure what to expect but figured it would be eventful. I was afraid to bring it in too slow and stall but brought it down a little too fast. Just barely caught the left gear on the grass which caused the nose to tip down and broke a prop blade. Other than that it was a success. Thankfully I bought a set of replacement blades. Well, put one on and tested it out only to find out that there was a pretty significant vibration even at relatively low RPM. Figured at first that maybe the shaft was bent as well from the impact. Took the spinner off and ran the motor with no propeller attached. Sure looked to be straight as an arrow. Decided to check the weights of the individual prop blades and what do you know, all three originals weighed in at 12.3 grams whereas the replacement weighed in at 11.2 grams. Took that one off and put one on that also weighed ~ 12.3 g. Put it back together and throttled up, this time it was nice and smooth. Managed to take it up another 4 times, one more broken blade upon landing was the only damage sustained. The last landing was aborted two times as a real bad crosswind seemed to come out of nowhere. Finally landed on the third attempt with the nose pointing at about 2 o’clock as it hit the driveway. Still not sure how I managed that one without any damage but the feeling of accomplishment on that one was just great. Should have the Durafly T-28 Trojan coming by the end of the week, can’t wait to give that one a try. Thanks again for all the advice previously given, it sure did help!!

Congrats man!

You wont need any help or advice with the Trojan; you will find it handles taxi, takeoff and landing all much better - as it is a tricycle setup rather than a taildragger.