I've had my eye on three planes that are reported to be slightly less hostile than the average WWII fighter model - the E-Flite P-47D, Alfa F4F and Art-Tech P-51D. I almost pulled the trigger on the Alfa, but then I noticed that Art-Tech has come up with something new... The Mini Mustang, which seems to be a smaller, more basic version of their larger P-51D. At $45.95 for the ARF kit, I figured I didn't really have a lot to lose.
This is your basic foamie warbird, with throttle, aileron and elevator only. It comes with a brushed motor, 10 A speed controller, servos and pushrods all pre-installed, plus battery, charger, flight simulator and spare propeller. All you need to do is drop in your own receiver, attach the wing and go fly. Their website says it has a 280 motor and 11.1 V LiPo, the box says 370 motor and 7.4V LiPo, and the plane comes with NiMH. I'll have to see if I can figure out what motor is actually in there...
Anyway, on with step one: the build. If you can call it that.
Let's see, attach part A to part B... Yeah, I think I can handle that
One hour of radio installation, digging out foam to make room for a 1000 mAh LiPo, devising creative ways to dispose of the puny NiMH and US spec charger supplied with the kit, and programming the DX7 - easy kit by anybody's standards. Nice scale lines and good silver color, but it looks a little... flat. Exactly like a styrofoam RC plane, in fact.
Even a hasty weathering job really helps bring out the warbird in her. The silver is still the same color, there's just less light by now. I also took time to glass the ailerons with .75 oz cloth and water-based polyurethane. I'm going to do the whole wing once it breaks, but I want to give the stock bird a chance before I make it too heavy to fly
The attention to detail is amazing at this price - just look at all that tiny lettering all over the wing and fuselage. If those were decals instead of stickers, this would be worth the price even if it never flew. It's no Alfa or FSK, but it seems to be one of the nicer Mustangs out there. I wasn't really expecting that.
Nice foam quality - reasonably smooth, even surface and hard enough so picking it up doesn't leave dents. Decent cockpit detail for the price, too - this will certainly do the job in flight. No pilot, though. Guess he saw what's coming. He wouldn't have a chair to sit on, anyway - the canopy is attached by three magnets and the battery slides in under the instrument panel. I need a decent LiPo more than he needs that chair.
She's a belly lander, and looking at the thickness of the wing, I think she's going to stay that way. No point in doing retracts if you can't make them look clean, and I have enough additional weight as it is. There are nice hard inserts at the nose and air intake to protect the foam, so flopping on grass shouldn't be a problem.
...and that angle really makes me realize how badly it needs full invasion stripes
Fingers crossed for a maiden tomorrow, if this bloody wind and rain would just give it a rest for a couple of hours...
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Mika
HDX500 SE V2
HDX450 SE V3
T-Rex hybrid MD500, used to be my Belt CP
King II/CopterX 450/300 hybrid
HBFP brushless separates
Lama V3 to V4 conversion
Walkera 4#3B
