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Steve Rickett 1

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  1. Hi Chris... Yes, I have built 2 Ziroli P38's now...and lost both of them. I had put Laser 360's (because I had one already, so purchased another!) The model, obviously, had plenty of power, but was not overly fast. I used to regularly fly with other WW2 fighters and it wasn't any faster than them. Both of mine suffered from Elevator flutter. Catastrophic, and without any warning at all. The flutter probably only lasted a fraction of a second before failure of the entire Tailplane on the first version, and I lost 1 servo on the 2nd version, and damaged the remaining servo, which gave up 3/4 round the emergency circuit to land... I had done a lot of work with the second model to try and rectify the issue, and it flew for 85 flights, over 3.5yrs before the end. Perhaps the servo gears has started to wear, or linkage slop developed...I don't know. The main issue is that the Ziroli P38 elevator is prone to flutter without some redesign of the Tailplane itself. Just check on YouTube...there are a few videos of the same issue, unfortunately. On a positive note, the model flew beautifully, with a very benign stall. I never had a total engine failure, just a loss of 1 cylinder on one engine once and the model was quite flyable as long as into engine Rudder was used, and the speed kept up. I keep considering building a 3rd...I liked it that much. I'll try and remember some of the other mods I made. The booms as per the plan will crack and break just behind the wing. I made my wing break either side of the boom, with the wing joiner passing through. This kept the boom structurally, in one piece. I didn't like the Undercarriage units being mounted from top down. So I moved the uc plate up and mounted the units from the bottom. I fitted fowler flaps to the first model and plain split flaps to the second. Fowler flaps looked great, but were more trouble and I didn't notice any difference in stall speeds. The second model had 2 servos in the Tailplane, with small bulged hatches. The Tailplane is so thin, you can't get big enough servos in there. I can't remember what servos they were but were probably Futaba minis. I should have fitted HD full-sized servos in the booms and then had short, solid linkages to the elevator. I strengthen the Tailplane and the 2nd version, improved the Tailplane joining system, and then mass balanced the elevator..... Next time, I think I would increase the thickness of the tailplane, among other ideas... I hope this helps. Fwiw, my Libellula weighs about 70lbs and flies ok on a pair of Zenoah 38's. They will certainly fly the P38, but I think you will be left wanting a bit more ummphf! Best of luck.
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