I belong to two clubs, and about 9 months ago I invested $10 on tickets and 'won' a tired out looking World Models P-51D ARF that had been raced about 6-7 years prior by the North Dallas and Richardson clubs. The covering on the wings was "racer/military" with large yellow panels for identification, the canopy had yellowed, the pilot was a racer, the engine Thunder Tiger .46 was siezed up, it had a Pitts muffler, a full Airtonics radio system. In short, it was in pretty sad shape, but for $10 bucks, how can you go wrong?[:D]
I had a JR 642, so the radio equipment could stay. I decided to replace the battery and change the charge leads to standard to easy the field duties, then had her up for a test hop to se what I had bought. The Pitts muffler did little to tame the noise, and the race prop was not helping either, but overall the plane was in reasonble shape and flew decently. I replaced the muffler with a regular one, and changed the prop, so now I had a sport P-51.
The P-51 became one of the 'winter projects', scheduled for a complete recovering job with custom decals. Hmmm, what scheme should I pick? Well, most of you folks who have seen my 2548 birds know that I am partial to "Miss Marilyn II" from the 343rd Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force. I completely stripped off the old covering, and somewhat to my dismay discovered some poorly repaired damage to the wing. It looks like the result of a hard landing, followed by an impact with the fence (repaired divot looks distinctly like the pilot box posts). That took a couple of days to repair, as did some poor glue joints that are not unusual in the older ARFs. The cosmetic dings and other hangar rash got filled in, then covered with Monokote Aluminum and Olive Drab covering. The new cowling was pained using Monokote paints, and the Rudder and red stripe were done using Monokote adhesive trim tape. It is, by far, the largest Monokote job I have ever done, and it was a "learning experience"[:I] I wrapped up the cover job shortly after the LSN in March, and then ordered the decals.
Well, here it is July and I just finished the decal work. There were several delays as I unknowingly got behind the queue for all of the scale builders who were established customers and had their orders in well in advance at Cal-Grafx, who advertises in Model Aviation. Once they got to my order they had several emails to me to confirm the size and placement, and kept me informed. Overall, I am quite happy with how the decals came out, and it really helped make the plane 'pop'. It is no longer an ugly duckling!
Weather permitting, she will fly tomorrow
That all got done by March
Resurrected P-51
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- Ed Kettler
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- Ed Kettler
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- Joined: Sat Dec 15, 2001 6:05 pm
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