I just went ahead and bought the correct backmount motor at Aircraft World. I ordered the 8mm backmount kit too just in case I find a way to use it. They also had a front mount motor cage - interesting, bought it too since it was pretty cheap.

I've been waiting a very long time in the hopes I'd find a replacement. Finally, thanks to WesternFlyer, my waiting is at an end.

Hoping to take her to the Reno Air Races and get the pilot and crew to sign her this year!

That's awesome. Hope you can get the autographs.

I just maidened mine last Sunday. I was worried about it since it weighs in at 3lbs 12oz empty, kinda heavy for its size I think. But it flew perfect, and only needed 3 clicks of down elevator.

I'm running a 3025-8 Hyperion motor with 10x8, Plush 60A, Castle BEC, a 4S 3000, HS 82MGs, and a HS75BB gear servo. I had to reduce max throttle to 80% to keep the output at 874watts, 56amps.

Very nice! Always good to hear that others are still flying theirs!!!

That's just about the same setup I run on my built one except I think there's a 75 or 80A Castle ESC and a 10x10 on the nose and a 4S 4000mAh in the hatch. Definitely one of the nicest flying Mustangs out there.

Wow, those planes must be smokin fast!

Kevin

I haven't flown mine flat out yet in a straight line, but it will climb straight up too high for comfort, without slowing down

Pretty close to or maybe a bit more than 100 mph in a level pass at sea level. Not quite that fast up where I'm at at 4500'... But the advantage I have is that I draw less amps in the thinner air 10x10 props are pretty hard on the batteries and motor down in the lowlands!

I have one of the earlier P51-D kits NIB that I would like to build. It does NOT have a battery hatch, and the retracts have a lot of parts that appear to be brass.
With nearly 400 pages in this thread, I do not have the time to go through everything. Can someone offer some highlights of issues I am likely to run into, and suggestions for improvements or enhancements?
Thanks
Steve

I'd replace the retracts with electric retract. Can't remember exactly which Hobby King ones I purchased but they were pretty much a drop in fit. That'll save you from having to setup the mechanical retracts which can be a bit fiddly and might jam in flight (this happened and caused me the Suzie version of this model).

You could cut a battery hatch but I'd probably go with removing the wing to swap the battery. If you do that I'd suggest an external shunt. Himax makes one as does Sharp RC: http://www.sharprc.com/

The first generation P-51's also used a solid wood electric motor mount. Most of us used some silicon bath tub caulk when mounting it to the firewall to help dampen the vibration.

Finally spend some time and get the spinner balanced. It'll also help reduce the amount of vibration.

Other than that I can't think of anything else that I needed to do to get my first generation Hyperion P-51 in the air. I hope you find that yours is as sweet an airplane as mine have been

I haven't done any serious flying since my first daughter was born nearly 7 years ago, but every time I come back to RCG, I like to check in on this thread. Sure do miss flying my Suzy. What ever happened to NipponDave?

I flew mine last weekend for the first time in quite a while. I initially had problems with the servoless retracts I had installed in the wing - one would go up/down but the other would not. switching the connection cabling around didn't really solve the problem but upping the voltage out of the UBEC seemed to.

Once I'd resolved that glitch and had her in the air I immediately realized that all these years I've been flying her with WAY too much control throw. Of late I've been flying primarily pylon and setup the pylon racers so that full elevator/aileron throw is just right for getting around poles.

The P-51 was massively twitchy with the initial throws. Felt like every little elevator input caused the nose to shoot straight up or down. Got her back down on the deck and dialed them down substantially.

Second and subsequent flights were much better. Makes me wonder how many other airplanes I've setup in the past with far too much control authority.

Not sure what happened to NipponDave. I did ask the HyperionRocks account about the possibility of reissuing these birds and received a typed guffaw in reply

I noticed this place sell the Ki-84 which is or was Hyperion
http://www.zyhobby.com/index.php?mai...oducts_id=2183

Looks like Hobbyking has brought back the Hyperion P-51 in .25 size. Check out the announcement video for the P51 Composite.

Blue Nose version with topside battery hatch and e-tracts included.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/h-king-n...1200mm-47.html

Around 190.00

Nice! Maybe they'll resurrect the Wingrider Mig3 one of these days!!!

Zombie thread resurrection alert.....

I picked up one of these second hand... needs some work, the covering is a bit raggedy in places and it has a rip or two I will need to fix. The retracts (mechanical) are bent and don't work properly. No retract servo installed. It's original version, so I'll need to unbolt the wing to plug in the battery.

It's actually this particular one: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/show...postcount=1938

I saw that Hobbyking got their hands on it and has released it as H-King Composite P-51 - https://hobbyking.com/en_us/h-king-n...1200mm-47.html Of course, being garbage Hobbyking, there aren't any spare parts listed or available.

Can anyone tell me what size electric retracts I can put in it? No way I'm hand launching this monster. Once I get the thing flyable I'll circle back around and see if I can juice it up and really get some speed out of it