Advice on a P-38 Lightning

I am just doing some research. I have a Guillows Lockheed P-38L lightning kit. I am wanting to build it as a scale contender, with retracts, flaps, and throttle control. However, I have been advised against this by multiple parties due to the lack of strength in the stick and tissue construction.
As it stands I am simply asking for suggestions. If you know anything of use I would greatly appreciate it. I need some other plans as reference, as it seems that I will be scratch building this now.
Although, if you can offer a convincing argument for the Guillows I'd be more than happy to listen.
I have a thread going over at yahoo's forum too, if you want to check it out. You may have to check the previous messages.

I would agree that these kits are not, excacly, too strong. But you might be able to use the kit as a pattern to reengineer it--build it from scratch, but use the patterns for scale. However, I would not be too sure that the scale of the model is all that accurate, either. That having been said, although I am not a great fan of converting RC planes to CL use, scale might be one major exception. If you can find an RC plane in the scale you want, this could be converted for your project.

Thanks,
I have one that I might check out. It was in December issue of "Model Airplane News". Yellow aircraft has an exceptional model built to scale. However, it may be a bit large for C\L. The building techniques may be helpful. Thank you for your input.

On the other hand, the McFarland Stunter was mentioned as a possible convert. In any event, I'll shop around some more.

the problem with stunters is scale. They were never intended to be scale--many are "scale like" (Like some Stukas, for instance, that I have heard about.) You can recognize them for what they represent, but they won't win anything in scale. They, also, don't have near the detail that is necessary by today's standards.

On the other hand, they would give you some construction guidelines that you could use in building a true to scale model. If this is for contest entry, you will need to make sure you have documentation.

On 11/29/00 at 2:11 pm, Sam Petre gave up waiting on an answer to his 11-28 query ay Isky's (where he had named the kit brand as a Guillow's, although that wasn't mentioned in the Yahoo query):

> I have a P-38 Lightning kit that I plan to construct over the Christmas holiday. I am going to build it as a scale C\L model. I am planning on adding an R\C assisted gear, flaps, and throttle. Is this legal for competition? If so, do you have any suggestions?

Nils Nordstrom replied to him that same day this way:

> Yes, you can run your flaps, gear & throttle with an R/C Tx as long as you run the signal up the lines & don't actually transmit a signal through the air.

The following day, I added my comment, as follows:

> The Guillow's kit is a stick & tissue lightweight that needs beefing up to use .049's, let alone to run engines large enough to pull both the flying lines and assorted batteries/servos to actuate controls with.

Shortly thereafter, Sam responded this way:

> Kiwi:
Are you suggesting that the Guillows model may come apart in the air if I add the extras? If so, how would I go about beefing it up? In the plans it suggests that I sheet the fuse in parts, but it did not specify. I plan on bracing the wings and firewalls. You seem to be familiar with the Guillows construction. Do you have any suggestions?

The fact is I didn't answer that one directly. But I HAVE seen lightweight models of the stick & tissue variety "re-kit" themselves just from harmonics generated by engine vibration - and that was in a Free Flight application with no control system, receiver, batteries, servos, etc. I never saw one do more than discard its wings and dive in, but that was bad enough.

Instead, I posted this message a few hours later:

> It's been some 40-45 years since I last built either of: 1. Stick & tissue model, or 2. Scale model.

Personally, I would be inclined to trace off the parts and outlines to use as a basis for a totally scratchbuilt model using all sheet wood for the booms, and much sturdier wing construction overall. There was a really nice semi-scale P-38 plan by the Shark 45 designer, McFarland, that I'd also want to look at if I were building P-38's for C-L.

I also remember a couple of mid-sized P-38's in the model magazines of the 1960's other than that McFarland one. All of those would provide a much more substantial starting point for what you have in mind than is afforded by any stick & tissue type design.

Sorry to rain on your parade this way, since your idea seems far from practical to me. But as I say, stick & tissue wasn't my thing after my own first few years in the hobby. Maybe someone else will check in here with a contrary opinion.

New comment starts here: the usability of a Guillow's kit for C-L hasn't gotten any new positive votes since yesterday at least. The exchanges referenced above are from John Thompson's forum on Yahoo, and quite a few of the C-L folks who participate on other C-L BBS's have been balked by the odd behavior of the Yahoo "Clubs" registration procedures. For those who don't even try reading the message traffic there, this brings them up to date.

In the 10-15 years since I last owned any RC gear/planes, I've paid little attention to RC kits. If there is a P-38 of the right size to convert it to C-L, I don't know about it.

Some thoughts in no particular order:
As LN points out, the Guillow kit is probably not terribly accurate. If you want to do contest work, it might not hack it.
If you want a lot of scale detail and function (like retracts and flaps, etc.), build the largest model you can deal with. The bigger it is, the easier it is to make these things work well. and the more relative weight the airframe can handle.
The P-38 was all aluminum, so open work stick and tissue is a poor representation of the structure. By the time you skin the kit, the weight will do it in.
For a good scale project, it is much better to start from the documentation for the full-size plane and make your modeling decisions from there, rather than letting the project be driven by the kit. Good documentation should be pretty easy to find for the P-38. Plastic kits would be a fair place to start. Many of the plastics are pretty accurate. I have seen some really nice planes based on plastic models.
All in all, it is better and easier to engineer from the front end rather than trying to re-engineer a project fromn the back end.
Regards,
Kelvin

With some digging around on the web I found some really accurate drawing of the P-38. The only problem is the writing on them are in Russian! But the drawings are good. If you want e-mail me and I'll see if I can figure out how to send them. Steve

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. I appreciate it. As a new member to this forum as well as the Yahoo's, this was very encouraging. This site is wonderful.

As far as I am concerned this thread can die a happy death, but if you have some ground shaking information on the topic, by all means please post it.

Again thanks.

-aphalteater1