Official Freewing 90mm T-45 Goshawk Thread

[Hardway]

Yeah I could have patched it up. But I would have had to spend almost the same amount as the ARF+.

The gear thing happened to me on three flights. Each time was the same. It would test fine on the ground. Then after takeoff I noticed the nose gear would be partially out. In the air, the gear would cycle down just fine. Then on retraction, the nose gear and one main would be hanging out. That I think was due to a low voltage situation causing the gear to move slow. This all happened at high ambient temperatures. My theory is that the bad solder joint on the battery connector caused a voltage drop. I unplugged the landing light to test my voltage drop theory as it draws some significant current and is on during retraction. With the light unplugged, all went back to normal for several flights. The solder joints were definitely bad. It was as if they had used some oxidized solder or something. Anyway, I am re-doing the connector and putting in a bigger BEC.

I use a CC 20 AMP Pro on all my large EDF's. Just peace of mind. And I usually redo the connectors just in case. I certainly can't hurt!!! :Cool:

[seaviper]

yeah that's my standard operating procedure now.

[DCORSAIR]

T-45 flying with the Yak 130..........:Cool:

[seaviper]

Nice DCorsair! The type of aircraft that attracted me to this world of foam edfs in the first place. Hopefully Freewing will return to something similar in the future.
How do you like the Yak?

BTW...my replacement T-45 will be delivered tomorrow. Can't wait to get her back in the air.

[DCORSAIR]

Nice DCorsair! The type of aircraft that attracted me to this world of foam edfs in the first place. Hopefully Freewing will return to something similar in the future.
How do you like the Yak?

BTW...my replacement T-45 will be delivered tomorrow. Can't wait to get her back in the air.

Yeah, I didn't wait to long to get my T-45 back in the air after a run in with the fence you see in the background in my picture, it was damaged pretty good, my flying buddy had a brand new fuselage he gave me and all I needed was both the vertical stab and horizontal stab and a new front retract, it's back in the air again. The Yak is a very nice scale flyer, I really enjoy flying it, the sound is the best of any EDF, has a nice wooosh to it on a 6s FW 4068-1680kv power plant, it is very stable and rock solid on landings, easy to grease it in, for $200 I couldn't pass it up and glad I didn't.

[EA-6B Geek]

Was able to get the T-45 put together today. Spent a few hours last night getting all of those pesky VT-7 decals off. Had a little fun taxiing around the driveway just now. Now to make it look cool with a little help from Callie, and set up control throws and slat/flap and speed brake integration etc. :):):)

[EA-6B Geek]

Putting decals on a plane is just about the best ever! Can't wait to fly this one.

[seaviper]

Awesome man! How did you get those decals off? I got my arf+ ready to fly again, but the decals are put on crooked, wrong place, etc. I would love to re-do mine. Without a doubt my favorite Freewing jet.

[jfassino]

Maiden flight on my Freewing T-45 was great, no trim needed using the stock set up and stock 6 cell 5000 mAh pack. Second flight was more relaxed and a slower landing. The flight time goes by fast but I like the sound and the solid flight controls.

I’m very pleased with my first Freewing jet.

jim

[fhhuber]

Awesome man! How did you get those decals off? I got my arf+ ready to fly again, but the decals are put on crooked, wrong place, etc. I would love to re-do mine. Without a doubt my favorite Freewing jet.

Getting decals off EPO generally means you're going to peel the paint with them.
You can trim the decals (remove the "clear" edges that will now have paint attached) then apply spray glue to stick them back on. Light coat, allow to dry completely, then another light coat and stick it down.

Of course you have to deal with the effects of peeling the paint before putting the decal back.

[EA-6B Geek]

Awesome man! How did you get those decals off? I got my arf+ ready to fly again, but the decals are put on crooked, wrong place, etc. I would love to re-do mine. Without a doubt my favorite Freewing jet.

A product called Microsol, used by plastic modelers mainly, loosens decals up very well. A good bit of soaking, and all of the large decals on the T-45 came right off, including the national insignia on the fuselage which was not even close to being in the right place. No damage to the paint whatsoever with this method. The small detail decals where a different story. They must be from a different batch. No amount of soaking would get them loose, so they are all staying. So, it's a mix of the originals, and Callie's stuff. Guess I'll live with all the little decals being like they are until the time comes to sand it all off and start over.

How about some motherhood on speed brake set up? On real Navy jets they are primarily there to keep the engine at a higher and more responsive power setting flying around the landing pattern. Critical if you're really flying the ball, but not sure that's so necessary on an RC model. How are you guys using them?

Also the slats. Flying the T-45 I don't remember every even thinking about them. They came all the way out when you put the flap handle down to the first detent. They were just sorta there, unlike the A-4 where they'd pop out into the airstream just when you weren't expecting it, and sometimes one at a time! How are you all setting up the slats?
Can't wait to fly it!

[seaviper]

Maiden flight on my Freewing T-45 was great, no trim needed using the stock set up and stock 6 cell 5000 mAh pack. Second flight was more relaxed and a slower landing. The flight time goes by fast but I like the sound and the solid flight controls.

I’m very pleased with my first Freewing jet.

jim

Congrats Jim! <Salute>

EA6Geek:
Yeah I figured you might have been using Microsol. My decals are so messed up that I think mine is getting a total repaint in the near future.

Speed brakes: Some will tell you you don't need them. At my field, however, a steep approach is usually the safer bet. And I use them on final and landing. Mine are programmed such that they travel in/out on a 2 second slowdown. Book says 50-85mm of travel. I use about 72mm (works out to 50% on my radio). BTW I had to go and adjust one of them. Tedious. But doable. I use the programming to make them "automatic" so I don't have to go and hit any switches while the pucker factor is high. My programming is:

If, throttle below -70%( my taranis does +-100% so adjust for yours) for at least 1 second AND flaps full AND gear down, THEN boards go out. The only reason I would have all the stuff out and throttle back would be to slow down or get down. If any one of those conditions changes, such as in a go-around, the speed brakes are retracted automatically. I have about 20 or so flights on this setup and I really like it. I had to tune the throttle setting a bit because I do add throttle on roundout and reduce a little to set down. For me, the above stuff works great. I also have a tone and a verbal warning that brakes are out.

Slats: on the full scale they just go with the flaps. I have tried takeoffs at flaps 1 with and without slats. I like the slats out. It's scale that way anyway.

It's fun to experiment with these things. I hope to get to fly mine in the next few days.

On one of the videos I posted earlier in this thread, I had an early version of this programming in effect. There was no 2 second slowdown on the brakes though. You can see them slam shut after rollout.

One more thing, that landing light is 5w LED. That means it's sucking a lot of juice (I'm guessing 20% of the BEC capability). So if you have gear issues in flight, try unplugging the landing light until you can throw in a bigger BEC

[EA-6B Geek]

Thanks Seaviper. Sage advice. I was thinking of setting up the speed brakes similar to what you've done. The Futaba I'm using may limit my ability to do it exactly as you have, but I'm going to try.
Was also thinking about disconnecting that taxi light. Naval Aviators don't fly around with those on, even at night, so turning it off is closer to scale anyway.
Thanks!

[DCORSAIR]

Thanks Seaviper. Sage advice. I was thinking of setting up the speed brakes similar to what you've done. The Futaba I'm using may limit my ability to do it exactly as you have, but I'm going to try.
Was also thinking about disconnecting that taxi light. Naval Aviators don't fly around with those on, even at night, so turning it off is closer to scale anyway.
Thanks!

I fly mine with Futaba 7C with a 617rx, so I know how limited channels can be on the T-45, I have the slats go out when I go to full flaps, and the speed brakes I pop out on final or when I touch down, I really don't think they work much, don't feel or see any changes when I pop them out in the air or on roll out. To do all this with only 7 channels is kind of fun, slats and flaps on a reverse Y harness plugged into channel 6, power supply and speed brakes on a normal Y harness plugged into channel 7, that is how I get everything to work and it works great.

[EA-6B Geek]

I fly mine with Futaba 7C so I know how limited channels can be on the T-45, I have the slats go out when I go to full flaps, and the speed brakes I pop out on final or when I touch down, I really don't think they work much, don't feel or see any changes when I pop them out in the air or on roll out. To do all this with only 7 channels is kind of fun, slats and flaps on a reverse Y harness, power supply and speed brakes on another Y harness, works great.

Interesting! Tell me about reverse Y harnesses, never heard of that before.

[DCORSAIR]

Interesting! Tell me about reverse Y harnesses, never heard of that before.

Never heard of a reverse Y harness??

I think the one I have is an Mpi one, don't remember exactly, I know for sure I have one made by Expert as well, haven't used that one yet. Well if you notice on the T-45, that when you hook the slats and flaps up to a regular Y harness you will see that they work opposite of each other so with the Y harness that has a reverser installed on one of the leads, it reverses the servo that you have plugged into it, in my case I needed the slats to be in when flaps are up and out when I drop the flaps and this servo reversing Y harness will do that for you if you don't have enough channels to work with. Now I did hear that the servo you plug onto it will not center sometimes and you have to adjust the little slotted knob to recenter your servo but in the case of the slats on the T-45 it really doesn't matter because all you need is a reverse signal to the slats and they will work fine because there is no end point adjustments on the slats, they are either in or out.

[RCjetdude]

Oh really, never heard of a reverse Y harness?? I think the one I have is an Mpi one, don't remember exactly, I know for sure I have one made by Expert as well, haven't used that one yet. Well if you notice on the T-45, that when you hook the slats and flaps up to a regular Y harness you will see that they work opposite of each other so with the Y harness that has a reverser installed on one of the leads, it reverses the servo that you have plugged into it, in my case I needed the slats to be in when flaps are up and out when I drop the flaps and this servo reversing Y harness will do that for you if you don't have enough channels to work with. Now I did hear that the servo you plug onto it will not center sometimes and you have to adjust the little slotted knob to recenter your servo but in the case of the slats on the T-45 it really doesn't matter because all you need is a reverse signal to the slats and they will work fine because there is no end point adjustments on the slats, they are either in or out.

That was a new one on me. Had to look it up.

[EA-6B Geek]

Thanks DC. More great advice. Just purchased an inline servo reverser and a CC 20 amp BEC.

[seaviper]

After my T-45's argument with the tree, I have decided to re-power with the FMS90mm EDF unit and the YEP150 ESC. Hopefully testing this evening. With any luck, we will have video. And hopefully the grass is cut.

[seaviper]

Ok I got in 4 good test flights today.

Here is flight number 4

Today, we arrived to find the field not yet mowed. The Bahia was rather high. It covered the wheels with some high ones sticking up above the bird. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. That we did.
She performed quite well on the FMS unit. The sound is not quite as loud, or maybe as base sounding, as the stock unit. But it sure launched out of that grass no problema. My estimate is that she launched on average in about 150ft. That's with flaps 1 and slats out.
Also, using the stock bec but without the landing light, there were no issues with the brownout thing.

Overall I love the T-45. It makes a great jet trainer. Top speed is not record setting. But she is fast. And she really excels at energy maneuvers.

As for the dings, I'm gonna fly her with spackle for a while. The stock decals were put on crooked and in the wrong places. Also the stock paint is not that great. So I plan on taking her down for a complete repaint in the near future. Right now I'm thinking a non-scale snow camo. But a scale scheme might be in the future too. We shall see. I'm just happy to have her back in the air and performing nicely.

I really do recommend the FMS/YEP150 combo for this bird if one is so inclined. All I had to do was trim the tabs on the FMS fan a little and sand a small area under the hatch. Photos of that operation are available if anyone cares.
And the XT90's work fine. The YEP 150 uses 12 ga wire.