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P-51 Gallery

House Construction Gallery

 

Got everything setup on my P-51 and took it out for it's maiden flight on Saturday Afternoon.

Got to the track behind my old highschool, which was an ideal location, it has both an ashphalt track for take-off/landing, and a very large inner area that's grassy incase I had any .... "mishaps".

Anyway, get out there and double check movement on my control surfaces and check radio ranging and everything appears to check out.

Give it some throttle and roll it down the track, though I had a few issues keeping it straight. Get my aileron/rudder channels sorted out, and after a few tries I can get it to execute a pretty stable take-off rollout.

Get it lined up again and give it the juice. It get's rolling on the track pretty good and the tail starts to lift off, so I give it some up elevator and it promptly noses in. Fortunately I didn't break the prop, and there are only a few minor scuff marks on the spinner.

Try it again and the same thing happens. What the heck is going on here? As I'm driving it back to the start line I wiggle my elevator up/down and notice that the Elevator Channel is reversed. DOH! So I reset my transmitter to reverse the elevator channel and it responds correctly. About this time it's getting a little overcast, so I get it lined up and give it another try. I'm just planning on getting it into the air to check stability/Center of Gravity, anyway so I figure I've got some time.

Give it the juice and it starts rolling and bouncing down the track. About 40 feet down the track the tail lifts up and I give it a little up elevator, and it's airborne. It's wallowing a little though, and the controls feel mushy. I bring it back down pretty quickly and as it bounces on the ground the retainer on the right landing gear pops off and my tire goes cartwheeling away, this promptly drops the right wing to the pavement and it skids out.

Now it's starting to rain very lightly, and I can't find the wheel retainer, so I decide to call it a night.

Only some minor damage, a little bit of scuffing on the leading edge/tip of the right wing, and two scuff marks on the spinner, and a little scuff in the chin, plus one lost wheel retainer. Not too bad really, I think it's a little tail-heavy and though I'm loathe to do it I may have to add some weight to the nose to get the CoG set properly (Or carve out some weight in the tail. I think it's the aftermarket tailwheel I'm using that may be throwing it off) It's also a little heavier than stock and I'm not sure why. My scale indicates 17oz all-up weight. GWS literature claims 12-14oz AUW.

I'm going to put a little bit of reinforcing tape on the wingtips to protect from damage. It'll be less weight than putting on plastic wingtip skids.

P-51 Gallery

 

Picked up a GWS P-51D Mustang last weekend.  Got a picture of all the parts out of the box, and the first step in assembly, attaching the two fuselage halves together.  Added two more pictures.  Pic 3 shows the hinges being installed in the rudder.  Pic 4 shows the Rudder and Steerable Tailwheel attached. Pic 5 shows the main wing in the middle of attaching the Aileron's.  You can see the Linkages that operate the two ailerons, and the plastic hinges epoxied into the wing itself.  Both are now drying.

P-51 Gallery

 

Picture 1: Huge Furball over Nivelles.  Three allied aircraft "Shiznit", "Cryn", and the unidentified grey circle, vs. 5 109's and a single 110 axis aircraft.

Picture 2: An HE-111 dropping a bombload over Namur.  I'm in the top of the bombed out church tower when I saw this guy coming in from the east.  You can see two of his bombs on the way down, the two black dots below him.  Fortunately his bombs were a little off target, and missed the South Army Base, instead impacting in the city proper.

Picture 3: Puma55 delivers myself and 3 squadmates to a Forward Base on a mission to sap (destroy) it.  We were successful, and opened the Forward Base to Andenne, which allowed us to go on the offensive.

Picture 4: A Contest Team leaves the Namur -> Andenne Forward Base towing a CA 1937 AT Gun.  I was in an S-35 providing security at the Forward Base (we held off three Axis FB Busting teams.  I landed an HE Shell right into the back of an Opel Blitz from about 600 yards out, killing 5 Axis Sappers.)

Picture 5: Jarhead 9 rolled his Laffly down a hill avoiding the strafing run of a Bf-110.  Unfortuantely, there was a Panzer just up the hill to our left, who finished off the rest of us.  The screen's a little grey because I'm injured (you can see my Health and Stamina bars are both over half gone.)

Picture 6: Envy3CD, Jarhead9, myself and another of my squadmates swim the river and prepare to infiltrate an Army Base.  The bulk of our squad and several "Lone Wolves" were already in town on the other side of the river, keeping the town contested and holding the bridge, denying that part of town to the Axis.  Unfortunately, an Axis trooper stumbled upon us (just as I was preparing to toss a grenade into an AI MachineGun Nest protecting that side of the Army Base).

 

Picture 1: Furball over Namur.  In this shot you can see several Allied Aircraft duelling with a bf-110.  The explosion in the distance is a german aircraft which has just crashed.  Just below me, you can see a 20mm Anti-Aircraft gun, the the French CA mle 38.

Picture 2: A smoking bf-110 passing over the river between Namur and Andenne.  You can't see it in the picture but the right engine is shut down, when it passed low overhead, you could actually see that the right propeller wasn't actually turning.

Picture 3: A Panzer atop the hill east of Namur.  You can see two penetrating hits to the lower forward hull.  This tank fired at me once more before the entire crew was killed.

Picture 4: Here I am riding on a French Souma S-35 Tank as we make a dash for the south part of Andenne.  You can see Warchant in a Panhard AMD 178 also charging towards Andenne.

Picture 5: A Convoy of Panhard AMD 178's and Souma S-35 Tanks.  We were bringing several vehicles from the rear town of Profondville to Namur to fortify the supply in that town in preperation for an offensive.  One of the vehicles ahead of me is firing up at a German Aircraft spotting our convoy.

Picture 6: Several Infantry in the back of a Laffly S-20 on our way into Andenne.  A bf-110 is making a run on one of our forward observers.

 

Here are a couple more images of my GWS Tigermoth, now completed, including a few flight pics.  The only thing left to do is complete epoxying the cowl together, it's currently screwed into place, as it should be, but I have some tape holding the two halves together.

Pic1 Pic2 Pic3 Pic4 Pic5 Pic6

 

The Trouble with Goblins v1.1 (714KB) is an adventure designed for 4-6 players of level's 1-3.  Approximate running time is 1.5 to 2.5 hours.

View the Readme

Download the Intro Movie for The Trouble with Goblins in MPEG (10 MB) Format

 

Here are a few pictures of the GWS Tigermoth I'm currently working on.  27.5" Wingspan, aprox 25" long.  The plane is about 85% complete, in these images I was installing the optional flying wires between the wing struts, to provide additional strength to the wings.

Pic1  Pic2  Pic3  Pic4  Pic5  Pic6

 

The Trouble with Goblins v1.0 (Now v1.1 @ 714KB) is an adventure designed for 4-6 players of level's 1-3.  Approximate running time is 1.5 to 2.5 hours.

Download the Intro Movie for The Trouble with Goblins in MPEG (10 MB) Format