solentlife

Unboxing...

Large box arrives .... rip of the black plastic wrapping to reveal :



Why Lanyu ever called it a Mustang ... no-one knows ... but anyway I have the near plain version without any gear .... previous I have the carnival looking yellow job.

It may be cheap - but its well boxed and supported..



Full Instruction book ...



Decals to apply :



Wing is straight and I cannot see any twists as I had in my first one ...



Fuselage with rods installed ready for servos .. and of course the small bit to cut from tail to insert stab and elevators ... then glue back in..



bag of props .. wheels ... glue etc.



canopy to fit ..



Rudder with tailwheel fitted :



Stab and elevators :



Underside in wing bay for servos :



Top section for LiPo and RX :



That tail where piece to cut out - glue back in ... and rod shown :



Designed for stick mount brushed or brushless ... I will fit a ply plate and pole mounted motor ...



Probable setup :

Air 2210 1400KV 210W motor
or
2830 1100KV Turnigy motor

30A ESC

8x5 or 8x6 E prop

1300 3S

Servoless retracts

FrSky with single torque rod servo ailerons, rudder + elevator, retracts.

Wing span 890mm (35")

All up weight ? factory say 480gr ... but my first one ran out more like 550gr and ended up with better gear at just under 600gr.

Lets see when she's finished as I had to add a big chunk of lead to my first one !

Nigel

solentlife

First that tail area ... cut out the small filler piece ... then scrape away the paint to get a good glue joint. As we all know ... the paint used is not the best and judicious use of tape can remove it ...



Tail stab / elevator comes as one piece ready to fit ... clean up paint area again .. epoxy and slide in place ...



Note the use of cocktail sticks and band to pull the joint together ...



Couple of MG 9gr servos with the Z bend rods supplied ..



Horns are glued and clipped by a friction plate on other side ... rods have nylon clevis supplied. (I remember mine didn't last long before - so later will swap out for quick links etc.



Silly me ... forgot to put a pilot in ... will carefully remove glazing later once I have 3D printed my 'boy' to put in there.



Traditional torque rod ailerons ... single servo. My older one - I eventually fitted split servos ... but this will suffice for now ... again a MG 9gr servo ..



All fitted in ... I changed to a 2826 1400KV Turnigy motor fitted to the post mount supplied. I had to use my own post glued in though as I cut the supplied one to fit a different longer motor .. so was too short.



Spot the mistake ? I put wrong decals on fuselage / wings ... the smaller ones should be on fuselage and larger on the wings !! Too late now ...



With 1300 3S ... 2826KV 1400 Turnigy, 8x6E prop, 40A Aerostar ESC, 7ch FrSky installed .... total is 490gr ... well below what I expected ........... AND she balances on the spot !! I have fitted the silly cartoon fixed U/C till I receive my retracts ...



I may prop back as I know she was well powered before ... and was actually designed as a 9.6V Brushed geared setup. She flew as well !!

Well pleased ............

Nigel

solentlife

Retracts .... got the smallest I could but still a little on the deep side for the wing.

Solder iron and hot-cut the mount / wheel area ....



By time I had the servo body in - I was already partially through top skin ... so decided to cut out sections and will fill in later once retracts mounted fully.

Yes I went for ME109 fold outwards ... avoiding the smart alek on the field pointing that out if I make the fold inward !!



Can't decide whether to try create ply mounts ... I hate these as the mount screws are so near the edge and you have to make indents for the servo body screws ! .... or to just glue them in permanent. Trouble is the legs have the set screw flats 90deg out ... so i'll need to get at the set screws at times to straighten the wheels.

Nigel

solentlife

OK ... I ran up the Laser machine ... quick scan of servo unit to JPG ... vector the shape to cut out ... in 5 minutes had both servo ply plates and epoxied in ... 30 mins later all screwed up ... leads led on surface as the retracts are reversed means leads exit outboard and need to be fed back.

Anyway ... all in :



Nigel

Panther

At the price I am tempted to get one myself but a few things must come first.

solentlife

I really enjoyed my first one .. but I was pretty rough with it and it suffered !! It was also a Brushed RTF ... that I hacked at.

This one is overpowered and should have a better chance of long-term survival !!

I have the originals wing still and I fitted that with separate aileron servos....

Nigel

Griff Murphey

Shame they used a cartoon color scheme more like what the Royal Navy painted on ships. Your assembly and upgrading reflects your usual high level of technical expertise.

solentlife

Just have to wait for decent weather now ... and to finish proposed travels.

I am thinking about carving out that battery bay more ... as stock its designed for an 8 AAA cell NiMh pack ... not exactly the biggest !!

One of the problems is the ESC sits under the battery shelf and it has to come up via a small hole to the removable cockpit / battery insertion area. Once battery in and connected - the plugs and battery lead are hard to get out of way of the cockpit to fit.

I've just modified the cockpit base a bit and its a squeeze ... but it works.

Nigel

solentlife

Shoving data into eCalc gives interesting results.

I had the APC E 8x6 on there and it gives over 1.6 Power to Weight ... but flight down to about 7.5mins ... so I thought ... OK - better to pull that P:W back and entered a Gemfan flexi 8x4.5 .. 1.3 P:W ... over 9mins .... and motor well in its power band ...

So that's what will be used to see what we get ...

Nigel

JetPlaneFlyer

Nice - at this scale if it were me I'd forgo the landing gear, save weight and make it hand launch. Unless you have a bowling green or paved surface retracts at this size often end up more trouble than they are worth in my experience.

solentlife

My first one had plug in crap wheels till I got fed up with them ... then hand launched with clear underside. I agree.
It had a nasty habit though biting you on launch !! It really had a sweet spot on throttle ... not enough and she flopped - too much and she torqued.

Here you can see the crap fixed jobs :



But this one - because we have Cirava with paved runway ... I thought it would be nice to have them. They don't go true flush when up as the wing is not deep enough ... but should be ok wheels up onto grass.
I haven't fitted fairings or anything ... its just bare legs and wheels.

Nigel

solentlife

Gave her the maiden ....



On the 2826 1400kv, 3S 1250 and 8x5SF - she flew on 1/2 throttle ... I made mistake in video ... its not 2830 1100kv

Now have to find a way to get the Soloshot3 tag mounted on her to get better videos.

Nigel