Official Freewing 80mm EDF F-86 Sabre Thread

[Lon]

Bradm, very good document for those upgrades!!

[dkalwishky]

I would also appreciate any feedback you may care to provide on the document itself.

First impressions after a quick look is WOW, nice job!

[gooniac33]

The F-86 is still the fave of my group of fliers!!

[DCORSAIR]

I really enjoy my F-86 as well, and it was free. One of the guys I used to fly with crashed it into a fence and broke it in half so he gave it to me for free, the crash also took a chunk of foam out of the wing, nothing else was to bad so I got out my old rebuilding skills and went to work on it, if you look at the wing, almost at the tip you can see the balsa I glued into the chunk of foam missing, sanded it and used permanent marker to stripe it, turned out great, it has so many flights on it I lost count. By far one of the best 80mm EDF jets.

[Alpha10]

It's such a great plane... Almost a 6s entry level plane IMHO, but the size really should've warranted us a 90mm. That would've been awesome!

I had to run a hot and lightweight setup to get it to 119mph, but she's there so I can't complain too much. : )

Just be careful taxiing in a strong crosswind.. It'll get under the wing and flip it over pretty quickly. Just ask my scuffed canopies haha!

[weedsnager]

Will they ever come out with an updated version of this bird with beefier landing gear ?

[DCORSAIR]

Will they ever come out with an updated version of this bird with beefier landing gear ?

You just have to grease it in and the cg plays a big part of that. Mine are the original retracts with lots and lots of flights, only thing I had to do was replace the circuit board in one retract, micro switch broke and let the stop on the worm gear go past its limit.

[AkumaZeto]

Yeah the CG is a crucial factor. Bing able to hold it on its mains is fairly easy when the CG is right

[Lon]

Shout out to anyone who has upgraded to the EDF inrunner unit. Did you find you had to do some trimming of foam to get the fan in?? I can't see how this can be avoided on mine to get it set in. Check out the picture and you can see i'm about a half inch short of the slotted area for the fan to fit in.

[T-CAT]

It's the same size EDF as the stock EDF, but the motor length doesn't make it any easier fitting the whole unit in the jet to seat well in the slot where the inlet lit lays flush in the provided slot. I just gradually pressed mine back and down rotating it slightly while doing that. It may disfigure some of the foam on the wall as you lead the EDF into the slot, but that's okay. That can always been fixed by slicing a tad out with a hobby knife and filling in with light weight speckle, or just leave it as is. Chances are you won't notice it a bit ;).

[Lon]

T-CAT, thanks. What you stated is what i was planning on doing. But I had to ask, scratching my head that i may have been missing something.

[T-CAT]

Not a problem at all! It's a strange fitment initially when testing. Ha-ha

[bluewaterjoe]

Hey guys... need your opinions..

I'm jonesin for this F-86 but am wondering if it's out of my league. I've been flying warbirds for about a year and a half. specifically:
Parkzone Corsair
Eflight P-47 Thunderbolt
ares P-51 (around 800mm)
FMS 800mm BF109
Also a bunch of UMX planes (Eflite corsair, mig 15, eflite P-47, eflite PT-17)

I am comfortable flying the Parkzone corsair and P-47 thunderbolt inverted, do barrel rolls, etc..

The only plane I fly that has been flagged as "advanced" by motion RC is the BF109. I can fly that okay if I don't try anything fancy like inverted or barrel rolls. This one
taught me about wing tip stalls :( and I crashed it several times in the beginning.

Do you think the F-86 is within reach for my progression? It looks awesome and I wanna hear that woooshhh!! I'm leaning towards rolling the dice and trying :)

Thanks! Joe

[Lon]

Hi Joe,
I'm thinking that my first question/concern would be what is your flying field runway like? Reason is, to have early success with the F-86 80mm. A LONG runway is so much better to get the feel for landing,. Taking off, you only need a 100' of hard surface with flaps. Grass, i have not attempted to take off on it. Landing, you have to really do everything just right to only use up 100', and most the time you would roll off the end of a 100' hard surface runwaye (unless you have a nice 5-10mph head wind to land with flaps). No problem if there is nice grass at the end :) Once in the air, the plane really handles solid and predictable, even in windy conditions. But from what you have been flying, there will be a cruising rate of speed you will have to adjust to. The F-86 80mm is not a speed demon for sure, but will be an exciting change I believe, from what you are use to. The landings could be the biggest adjustment for you at first. When you have the CG correct, your first landings/approaches, this plane will seem to go, and go, not wanting to touchdown, that's why I think it's important to have lots of runway at first.

[Beeg]

First of all Welcome to the forum bluewaterjoe!

I'm not really good at evaluating what some folks are capable of handling but my opinion of the Freewing 80mm F-86 is that it is very well mannered and easy to land. It's not particularly fast for an EDF but if you have experience with moderately fast RC aircraft you should have no trouble with this model. My FW F-86 is the most tame EDF I own so I can't compare it to others that may be a better choice. But, if you want an F-86 for the cool factor this one would be a good choice as a starter.

[RCjetdude]

It is one of my personal favorite EDF's. I think you would be fine based on what you are saying because the plane flies really well fast or slow and is easy to land. I fly mine with a variety of batteries. A Roaringtop 5800 35C which is the lightest and what I balanced it with. I followed the CG recommendations I found on RCG which places the CG somewhat aft of the manual placement. The heaviest battery I fly it with is a Turnigy HeavyDuty 5000 60C and I can almost grease every landing with it. With the lightest pack there seems to be a little greater tendency for it to want to bounce on landing so I plan to try moving it a little forward and see how it behaves. So far I have been extremely impressed with the landing gear and even with a few bouncy landings or touching down in the grass just short of our runway they have not even bent. I don't consider myself to be an exceptional pilot but the F-86 makes me look good. I set it up just like the manual said for throws and installed an A3L gyro set to just past 12 o'clock on the gain pot and it is rock solid and smooth. Some have thought it lacked power but I think it flies fine on the stock setup. I am going to try the 1800 kV Mig-21 fan in it though just for kicks and giggles.

[bluewaterjoe]

Hey Guys.. Thanks a lot for your perspectives and the warm welcome - I really appreciate it!

Our field is grass and I'm guessing we have about 200 feet. The field is a big square surrounded by about three foot tall weeds/shrubs. So, the lowest you can get before hitting the beginning of
the field is about 3-4 feet. Hitting the field as early as possible is definitely something I'll have to practice with my current warbirds. Good call on that Lon!
Also, in regards to the difference in speed being an exciting change is a change I'm really looking forward to. I've stopped shaking
with my current warbirds lol. Maybe that's a good indication to take the next step :).

It's really helpful to hear your three perspectives and opinions regarding the flight characteristics, CG and battery options. You guys have given me the confidence to get one of these birds
and experience another facet to this fun hobby. Man, it really has grabbed me... so much fun!

Thanks guys for taking the time to help me out!
Joe

[chopper]

bluewaterjoe, you remind me of myself - about the same length of time flying and many of the same planes. If you must have an F-86, I've recently had a lot of luck with the 64 mm version. This was my first 'real' EDF (other than the UMX a-10 and Habu). I got it about 3 weeks ago and have been flying it about every 2nd or 3rd day since then. My first two launches were overhand and resulted in the plane inverting and nose diving into the ground (twisting my wrist on release?). I had reinforced the fuselage by gluing a sheet of thin balsa into the front intake so the only damage was some minor crumpling of the foam at the very front. 3rd launch was an underhand toss and I haven't looked back since. It was an adjustment from my warbirds, much more twitchy than I was used to, so I turned the rates way down. Also, if you need to scrub a landing you need to be a little ahead of the ball to give it time to spool back up to gain speed for a go-around. There also isn't a rudder, but I haven't missed it too much. Which brings me to the other benefit of the 64 mm version - it's a belly lander. I also have a relatively short blacktop to work from. Landing some of my other planes is like hitting a carrier deck sometimes. A carrier deck lined with concrete parking blocks and backed by a ditch. The 64 mm can land about anywhere with minimal fuss and is extremely forgiving of cartwheels, endos, high grass, mud, and nose first landings. Just mount some carbon fiber dowels it the fuel tanks it uses as landing pods, and make matching holes in the wings to epoxy them into. You can cut the throttle and glide it in just as easily as a trainer. last weekend I put a Hobby Eagle Gyro in it and wondered why I never used one before. I get about 4.5 minutes of spirited (usually around 2/3 throttle) flying on the 3s 1800 batteries I use. I'll probably upgrade to the 12 blade fan since I'm comfortable with it now and it was pretty easy on my budget due to the price. From the air you'd probably be hard-pressed to tell mine from the real one, but I don't get nervous when my timer goes off and tells me it's time to land. Just sayin.

[gooniac33]

Hey guys... need your opinions..

I'm jonesin for this F-86 but am wondering if it's out of my league. I've been flying warbirds for about a year and a half. specifically:
Parkzone Corsair
Eflight P-47 Thunderbolt
ares P-51 (around 800mm)
FMS 800mm BF109
Also a bunch of UMX planes (Eflite corsair, mig 15, eflite P-47, eflite PT-17)

I am comfortable flying the Parkzone corsair and P-47 thunderbolt inverted, do barrel rolls, etc..

The only plane I fly that has been flagged as "advanced" by motion RC is the BF109. I can fly that okay if I don't try anything fancy like inverted or barrel rolls. This one
taught me about wing tip stalls :( and I crashed it several times in the beginning.

Do you think the F-86 is within reach for my progression? It looks awesome and I wanna hear that woooshhh!! I'm leaning towards rolling the dice and trying :)

Thanks! Joe

it is a perfect jet for you just going by what you have listed! Really easy to fly but it has the jet sound and speed. The only issue is the runway you will fly from. You need a decent size runway.

[bluewaterjoe]

Chopper and gooniac33.. Thanks for the great input and sharing your perspectives!

The price on the 64mm is definitely easy on the wallet and certainly is an option to consider. Chopper, it does sound like you and I are in similar spots and its helpful to hear your experiences on the progression. I'll have to watch some YouTube videos on that size and thanks for the tip on the underhand launch (never tried that). I'm guessing jumping to jets in either the 64mm or 80mm will be a fun rush. However, I gotta say after watching some of the videos on the 80mm I'm drawn to the substantial size and the awesome sound it produces.

All you guys have commented on the size of the runway and that's probably my biggest concern at this point. Our field is grass and just doesn't feel that big compared to most of the videos I've seen. I'm thinkng take offs would be fine but the landings may be a different story! I'd probably have to hit the very beginning of the field right after the tall grass ends. I guessed our field is about 200 feet but I may have to do a bit of measuring. I'm kinda judging how far it is from Home to first base on a baseball diamond and thinking it's about twice that distance. maybe...

I'm in a suburb of Chicago so our weather is still a bit chilly (although this weekend is supposed to hit the upper 50's) so I have a few weeks before pulling the trigger on this. I'm also sitting on a new FMS P51-D V8 Marie that
I need to get together.

Anyway... I'm thinking this jet thing is gonna be a blast!! Then there's that red Yak-130 that looks so cool :) ...

Thanks again Guys!
Joe