Official Freewing de Havilland DH-112 Venom V2 90mm EDF Jet

[Mikdys]

Thanks for the tip about the Avanti rear mains. Re the "hi-performance edition" this one is fast enough for me to smash up :D

[GBLynden]

This is a Crash Landing Of Wild Bill Flynn's Freewing de Havilland DH-112 Venom V2 90mm EDF Jet!

[fredmills]

Does anyone have a DH-112 V2 with a picture of how to attach the square nose gear door (with the 99 on it) to the trunnion using the spring? Greatly appreciate it.

[Alpha]

fredmills

The small spring attaches to the hook on the inner face of the door, then clips into a nook under the nose.


There is also a sprung wire attached to the nose strut (visible in the product photo, below).



Here is what it looks l like from the side, in relation to the door:

[fredmills]

Thanks Alpha for responding so quickly!! Truly appreciated!

[Mikdys]

Finally solved my landing problems: I've put skids underneath and I'm using wheels for take off and skids for landing. I made 3 "reasonable landings" like this today with no damage at all (as opposed to having to rebuild wings/fuse/nose after each landing!). The first landing was perfect (and would probably have been OK with the wheels down) and the second and third landings were a little heavy but did no damage (they each would have caused "bounce damage" without a doubt if the wheels had been down). All landings on grass with full flaps and no power (flaps down on final approach - avoids stalling in the last turn!).

I'm really pleased with this modification. If I'd done this at the outset I'd have saved a couple of containers of Gorilla Glue and I'd have an undamaged plane!

Simple mod - skid on belly on the ducted fan hatch (made up of plywood with balsa "filler" and held on with "foam glue") and skids on the bottom of the wing tanks (ice cream sticks buried in and held in place with "foam glue").

If you are having trouble with landing this plane I'd recommend this mod.

[Wrthog]

Awesome! Landings with this bird can be a handful ! And you can hear everyone post about how to do it, I think you will find once you start belly landing smoothly, you can transfer that to the wheels. Also on another note I’m gona put the avante rear gear on to absorb some shock, and give a better aoa. I love this stupid ugly bird!

[fire42]

Hi guys
just ordered this from eu site. Reading about it on various forums prior to coming here, I'm terrified I've spent £300+ on something that's going to severely disappoint in quality and reliability. I got the arf+ to fit a midifan I have. I don't need to be taking a gamble, though a bit late now🙄 Any reassurance or otherwise would be appreciated. I know it looks and flies well enough. Felt I'd done my homework.
Dave

[Mikdys]

Relax - you've bought well :)

This plane flies really well and sounds absolutely awesome. Everybody at my flying field loves it and comes over to watch it fly. One "died in the wool build it with IC power hardliner" said to me that "it's the only foamie I've ever seen that I like!" That's high praise indeed.

Make sure you get the C/G right. I did this using a 6S 6,000 Admiral battery from Motion RC Europe. This battery just about squeezes in but the plane balances perfectly with it.

The only downside is getting the landings right (whatever you do don't try to land with any power - unless into a strong headwind - you need to bring it in slow like a glider). The problem is the undercarriage legs compress on their springs and then bounce the plane upwards, if you land too heavily or fast, and it catches some air and then crashes down into the ground. I've damaged, and repaired, the nose and wing roots about 6 times now! It's got enough power so, if it bounces, give it full throttle and climb away to go round again. A bounce WILL result in damage otherwise. Come in around the 3 minute mark so you've got plenty of battery left to go around.

I'll admit it - I've given up trying to land on the undercarriage. I take off on it and then belly land it like a glider. I've put a skid on the fan cover hatch and covered the bottom of the model in clear plastic film. This way I can land it on the grass every time without damage even if I do come in a bit fast (it will skid along on the grass for 100 metres or so on a "bad one" which is way better than catching any damage).

I'd suggest a belly landing on grass first time out, bring it in as slow as you can with no power and pretend it's a glider. If you find you can get it down slow and with a short "slow down skid" then maybe try the undercarriage next time. Alternatively, try an undercarriage landing and go around if it bounces and fall back on a belly landing. You might find you don't have any problems with it but, if you do, either land it on it's belly like me or try the replacement undercarriage that Xviper recommends.

HTH

[fire42]

Hi mikdys
thanks for your input. Did you have any construction issues, other than sloppy wing tubes, tail incidence. I'm thinking duff servos or u/c units or reasons to get in touch with motion for service?

Thanks again

Dave

[Mikdys]

Hi again Dave,

I didn't really have any major construction issues. I have few observations though:

* I make the wing tubes a little tighter fit by putting a single layer of black insulating tape on the tubes them selves;

* I took the paint off where the tail booms glue on to make sure the epoxy could get a good grip and I also put a few small holes in each mating surface for good measure;

* with the big battery there isn't much room for an RX to fit so I cut away part of the cockpit side to fit this in - I used a Spectrum RX with a remote second aerial which I put in the nose as I was worried the battery could block signals otherwise (fade level is OK like this*).

Otherwise, it all worked straight out of the box. I have called Motion RC service about other things before and I found them really helpful so, if you should get an issue, give them a call and I'm sure they'll help out.

Cheers.

Mike

* data from my first flight:

Flight 1
RX data			Flight pack volts
A fades:	996	(Max 500)	Flt pk B volt range:	20.48 - 25.58
B fades:	187	(Max 500)	(Lipo min 18v max 25.4)
Frames:	32	(Max 20)
Holds:	0	(Max 0)
RX voltage range:	4.99 - 5.06	(Min 4.8)

[fire42]

Hi Mike
great info thanks.....I can set my esc to 6v for bec...are the servos 6v capable?

As you know these models aren't cheap and I'm possibly unduly fretting and so long as customer service is as good as I read, then I should take some comfort. For me it's a big outlay and I'm quite fastidious, I should probably learn to compromise more!

I'll have to breath easy and hope I don't get a Friday afternooner. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised when it turns up.

Will surely let you know😉

Thanks again

Dave

[Mikdys]

Judging by the RX telemetry from my Venom (the RX feeds the servos direct on my set up) a 6v setting will be fine.

The big battery is good for balance and capacity but it doesn't leave much room. You can see where I've fitted the RX (under the EC5 plug) and how the primary aerial's signal is affected from my telemetry readings. I wouldn't want to place a single aerial RX here. Maybe have a think about this aspect.

My landings on other planes are not that great always so maybe you'll get on OK. Having said this I asked one of the better flyers at my club to land for me (after I'd gone around "due to a bounce") and he crashed it worse than I do! Unless you are the best pilot for landings I think you are going to have to take great care like I have said above.

Let me know how you get on

[GBLynden]

This a Big Crash Of Wild Bill Flynn's Freewing de Havilland DH 112 Venom V2 90mm EDF Jet.

[Martin S]

Hi. I have recently bought a Freewing Venom (Swiss red airshow scheme).

I also bought an Admiral 4500mAH 6S LiPo battery, as this was the only 6S battery of appropriate capacity that was in stock when I ordered the model. I think this a bit longer than some other LiPo batteries of this capacity (length is 158mm). It looks like I will have to cut off the lip at the rear of the battery shelf to mount the battery flat on the shelf.

I have assembled the Venom. No serious problems encountered, and it all looks good.

Now I am installing the receiver (FrSky V8FR-II 8 channel) and connecting everything up.
Problem is that I am not sure where is the best place to mount the Rx – see photos.

With the Rx placed flat against the LED light controller, the battery virtually touches the Rx (with the battery as far forward as possible).
Any ideas where is the best place to install the Rx? (And the UBEC, although this should fit alongside the LiPo battery).
I can see there is unused space under the rear of the battery shelf (behind the nose wheel well), but I cannot see how to access this area, and also the cables are not long enough to reach the Rx in this area.

Has anyone else had this problem, and where did you mount your Rx?
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated.

[xviper]

My RX goes down into that hole at the rear of the battery compartment. If you pull everything out of that hole and then neatly put it all back in, a RX will fit quite nicely down there. I've also seen some people carve out foam where that trench is in the middle for all the wires to go to the rear of the plane.
I have run the old style 5000 Admiral "bricks" and now run the Gens Ace 5000. Both fit quite well.

[mshagg]

I hogged out a bit of foam at the rear of the hatch, above where all the servo leads come through, and fit the rx in there. The servo wires have plenty of room still to pass underneath.

[Martin S]

My RX goes down into that hole at the rear of the battery compartment. If you pull everything out of that hole and then neatly put it all back in, a RX will fit quite nicely down there. I've also seen some people carve out foam where that trench is in the middle for all the wires to go to the rear of the plane.
I have run the old style 5000 Admiral "bricks" and now run the Gens Ace 5000. Both fit quite well.

xviper - thanks very much for the advice - I shall give it a go. I guess I didn't try hard enough to rearrange the wiring previously!

thanks also mshagg for your response.

very helpful stuff

[xviper]

mshagg's idea is also a good one. I did that to install my gyro in that space. I've since removed the gyro because after flying it with a gyro, I realized that this plane doesn't really need one. I took it out to put into another plane that needed it more.

[Martin S]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions on mounting the Rx in my Venom.

With some careful teasing of the servo cables into the radio bay, I found that there was more spare length on the servo cables than I originally thought. So this allowed me to locate the Rx at the bottom of the fuselage under the rear of the flight battery shelf.
To keep the 2 Rx aerials at 90 deg to each other (for diversity) I mounted the Rx on a piece of scrap plastic (old milk bottle!) with short lengths of hollow control snake hot glued to it, to hold the aerials in place. I then covered this with heat shrink.
It was then easy to push the Rx down the slot behind the flight battery shelf and then around the corner to be under the shelf.
I attach some photos to show what I did.

Thanks again for your help.