Parkzone P-51BL back in action

One of my co-workers, Alan, received a Hobbyzone Supercub for a father's day present, and I've been doing some training with him over lunch the past two days so he doesn't total it again. He tried flying it himself on Sunday, and it needed lots of glue and tape after that. Alan and I had some good flights today. It was a little breezy, but otherwise very nice flying. After letting him fly two batteries through my Supercub, it was time to break out the mustang.

The P-51 is now officially a monster. (or more of a monster) I replaced the wing servos with some Parkzone 1061 metal gear servos as one of the original ones stripped a gear. The new servos are larger and have slightly longer travel- wow, what a difference. I nearly augered it in before I became used to the faster roll rates, even at “low” rate. At high rate it’ll do at least two rolls per second. It also nicely snaps back to level flight upon releasing the sticks. Hopefully the metal gears will be more durable than the original plastic gears.

It is now powered by a Turnigy 35-36 1400kv motor, as the 35-36 1100kv I previously had mounted went up in smoke a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what the continuous current rating for this motor is, but it seems happy with fairly high current levels for short amounts of time.

Amp meter results:

• 10x7 prop = 64A = 710 watts = 0.95 horsepower
• 10x5 prop = 57A = 632 watts = 0.84 horsepower

I decided to run it for now with the 10x5. That pulls plenty of current, and considering with the previous motor the max current was 43A, adding 32% more juice should up the fun factor enough.

I’ll have to try it with a 9x6 prop to see if I can get a little more speed for the same amp draw. Even with the 10x5 it’s fast, even at ¼ throttle. One problem is that it doesn’t have quite enough elevator throw, which made for some hairy dive pull-outs. I may replace the stock control horn with one that moves the connection closer to the elevator centerline for more travel.

I'm still very pleased with the Parkzone P-51BL. Very fast, stable flier, and fairly durable. It has handled lots of upgrades very well, especially considering these upgrades have upped the weight. It might be fun to build another up, but try to keep it as light as possible.