I recently went out and purchased the Parkzone P51D to have a fun semi-scale foamie for those times where you just need to get out and back from the flying field in a short space of time, and want a super-fast model that you don’t mind bashing around a bit.
As many forum posters have noted, this is a fabulous looking foamie, however doesn’t pack quite the punch that one would hope for with a Mustang.
The main challenge I have found is that on days with wind more than 5kts this RC electric model does tend to look a bit sluggish in the air when travelling upwind.
There are really only two components you need to change out to get this plane absolutely roaring around the field, in addition to checking your battery is up for the task.
a) Upgrading the propeller.
The propeller that comes with this Parkzone P51 is a 9×6, and with a medium-low revving motor of 960kV means the top speed is somewhat limited.
So the best thing to do is add more “bite” to the prop – I swapped it with a spare Parkzone T-28′s prop (9 x 7.5) to give it theoretically 25% more speed (before aerodynamic inefficiencies etc are introduced).
b) Changing the ESC
This little model only comes with an 18A ESC, and when run on my watt-meter at wide open throttle (WOT), reads about 15A with the default prop. As a result, making the prop 25% bigger will increase the amps by approx 25%, with a likely scenario that I could damange the ESC, resulting in radio failure and a downed-model.
So I changed up to a 25A ESC to allow for this increased load on the controller.
c) Check your battery
The battery which came with my model was a 1300mAh 15C (which reportedly bursts to 20C). On WOT we are pretty much reaching the maximum discharge level for this battery (see our other article here on understanding battery C rating).
As a result, I purchased a 1500mAh 20C battery which is used for performance flying, and the 1300mAh battery is thus left for less throttle-intensive flights with this model, and for my other parkflyers.
How does it run?
The new prop pulls just on 19.5A when on WOT, which is well within the performance limits of the 25A ESC, to the point that it generally comes down cool after a typical flight.
The added weight of the 1500mAh battery is negligible and hasn’t noticabally impacted performance.
And most importantly, this plane flies like a Mustang now! It’s quick, responsive and really looks the part down at the flying field!
This upgrade is highly recommended, you’ll have a ball!
