P-38 Pusher MJ - Twin boom with a twist

by matjey | March 26, 2018 | (7) Posted in Projects

I'm still being fond with the idea of a pusher setup airplane and to put the realization onto a model that originally a forward engine setup is something that challenge the idea of the creation. This is where I came up with the pusher setup for my P-38 Pusher MJ aircraft design.


The Idea behind it

The idea is to convert the twin front engine of the actual P-38 Lightning into a pusher single motor R/C aircraft. To begin with, I started drawing and designing it with Sketchup. The process is pretty much as what I've did with my previous build. From Sketchup, and then to the actual plan drawing than later be sent to plotter for printing in A0 paper size as single full page plan.


P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.

Instead of twin engine forward, I've designed it to be a single pusher setup.

Printed the single page plan on the A0 paper size and ready to be cut and transfer onto the depron sheet.


The Build Process

Building the plane is pretty much straight forward according to the plan layout. And if you have experience building one of the Flite Test aircraft before, this one should be a breeze. Nothing fancy on the plan layout and I have included all the basic needs for a plan that you can follow along. I will not go deeply onto the build details. However I will give some keypoints of the aircraft building that you should take note of.


Straight forward plan layout


The crucial part in the assembly of this plane was the wings section. The wings need to be glue together in a dihedral angle approximately 20 degree. This is to ensure the stability of the airplane itself for this particular build. Furthermore since this plane were build to have some kind of slow flyer characteristic, dihedral wing give it more calmness in the air.


The dihedral of the main wings.

Enough room space to tuck in the lipo together with the RX and ESC.
The cockpit cover being secure to the fuselage using wooden stick and a rubber band.
The motor mounted using a piece of plywood and hot glue to the foam board.
I'm only using 3pcs of 9gram micro servo. 2 for the aileron and 1 for the elevator.

The build time for this aircraft took me around 4hours starting from cutting out the paper plan, cutting out the foam, hot glue everything, and tuck in all the electronics. A total of two sheets of depron required. 

The power setup that I'm using on this aircraft are:

  1. Turnigy 1450kv
  2. 9x6 prop (recommended 8x6)
  3. 1800mah 3C lipo
  4. 30A ESC
  5. AUW: 620kg



The Maiden Flight

The next day after assembling all parts together, I'm off to the field to maiden it. A breeze of wind does not deter me from maiden it as I believe this baby can handle a breeze to a light winds. 

 



The Plan

There are currently two variants of plan that you can choose to work with, full page plane or tiled plan. Both can be downloaded freely at the URL below:

  1. Full Page Plan in pdf
  2. Tiled Page Plan in pdf


Conclusion

Overall, the objective to have a pusher setup aircraft and a slow flyer are achieved. It does glide with less tip stall onto it. I would recommend to who ever want to build it, make some increase of the ailerons and elevator surface to give it more authority. The boom a bit sensitive and easily break in case of hard landing. You might want to stiffen it by embedding some sort of CF spar onto it. A three point landing gear would be great to have should you want it to be able to take off from ground.

COMMENTS

Flying Penguin RC on March 29, 2018
Nice article and build. Looks very smooth in the air. Great job sir.
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matjey on March 29, 2018
Thanks Flying Penguin RC. As intended, it fly slow and low tip stall.
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Eeck62 on April 14, 2018
The link to the full page plan and tiled plan no longer work. Would it be possible to get a copy of t he tiled plan?
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matjey on April 14, 2018
Sorry Eeck62. It's must been some updating of the plan and the url is changing due to that. I was planning on putting the plan inside Flite Test forum board but since they will undergo major maintenance, I'll stick the plan on the other website at the moment. I have update my article with the correct URL. You can download the Tiled-plan here: https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showatt.php?attachmentid=10868825&d=1523205232
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Eeck62 on April 14, 2018
Got them, thank you very much! The P-38 is such a cool plane!
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matjey on April 15, 2018
If you happen to build one, please post it in the forum I've created here in Flite Test forum board. Would love how you come up with your's P-38 profile.
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Nathaniel on March 28, 2018
Nice article, like the simple design!
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matjey on March 29, 2018
Thanks Nathaniel
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jamboree1 on April 1, 2018
It was a fun build, I'd post a picture of it here if I could. This needs to be added in forums, if it is i couldn't find it.
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matjey on April 2, 2018
Glad that you enjoyed building it. Sadly, this post didn't make it for the forum post. Feel free to start it.
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jamboree1 on April 3, 2018
You need to make the post yourself in the forums. I did post pics of my build in RC Groups under Lawn Dart Flyer. If you start a forum post I will contribute on how i built with DTFB
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matjey on April 4, 2018
I've created the forum post here: http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?39774-P-38-Pusher-MJ-Build-log&p=394701#post394701 Feel free to chip in
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tomh on May 2, 2018
Very nice, flies better than the twin boom pusher I built and maidened the other day. I win some/ lose some..I may try yours or go for a vampire look with a 40" span
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matjey on May 2, 2018
Wonder how it will turn out. Looking forward to it.
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tomh on May 2, 2018
very cool looking, but spent the last hour or more taping tiled plans and noticed many things were not aligning correct at all. started with building a wing panel (and I've built several FT planes) and after dry fitting around the spar(which incidentaly did not align with the cut out locations on the plan) and the top did not overlap the bottom half. I don't get it- the scale is correct (one wing section measures 21") Did I accidentally
print a beta version? I really want to build it, but..
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matjey on May 2, 2018
Oh ya tomh, do you print with 'tiled-plan'? I guess it maybe because of the printer setting as it turn out just fine from my side. Can you reach for a 'full-plan' instead? Feel free to join our forum and we can discuss it there. https://forum.flitetest.com/index.php?threads/p-38-pusher-mj-build-log.39774/
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Air-headed Aviator on April 22, 2018
as a fellow fan of twin booms and pusher aircraft this gets my seal of approval!
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matjey on May 2, 2018
Thanks. Appreciated it.
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P-38 Pusher MJ - Twin boom with a twist