Official Freewing 90mm F-4 Phantom II Thread

[F16Jeff]

I balance gear down. I want the aircraft balanced for slow flight and landings. The main gear do not change the balance much since they are near cg. Nose wheel could cause some cg change all be it minimal unless it is extended long and heavy.

[Helmsman52]

I finally got around to my maiden lol. I used a 838gram Turnigy Heavy Duty 5000 60 all the forward to the bottom of the hatch. I did the 8mm on the elevator but ended up with 11mm. The flap mix was a wash so I came in hot and sheared the front gear pin. Pretty brittle I’d say... metal looked contaminated to me. Nice flyer!

[Hardway]

Not a premium pour (cast?). :Scared::Confused::Angry: Why??? I mean..... I understand all the dynamics, but a little more bend before break would be great... :Confused: Congrats on the maiden!!!

[rifleman_btx]

Yeah that has way too many pits in it to handle a hot landing, probably would have given up on an easy landing as well after. That really looks rough

[dahawk]

Reminds me of the A-10 pin

[seaviper]

+1...fingertips on the aft missile lug.

And I like the sound of the old 12 blade Freewing fans better than the FMS one.

[seaviper]

Wondering if anyone else had successfully tried a 6S 12b setup or am I the lone wolf?

I can see with the bifuricated ducting, there was a darn good reason Alpha/ FW chose the 9 blade 1750.

The FMS 90 12B is 1900kv so it’s spinning faster and the blades are at a slightly different pitch than FW. Produces about the same watts as the FW but not sure about thrust which is more important .

I have the FW/ Hobbywing 130 amp esc on order. At least I have a programming card. Will set timing to high. Will try that before moving on to Plan B- the stock FW 9B. 1750kv setup.

Meanwhile, back to gluing....

I fly the 6s 12 blade setup. FMS90/YEP150 combo. Works great. My F-4 can pull pure vertical after wheels up. It's just too quiet for my taste.

There is no problem with the ducting. The FMS fan is PERFECT for this jet. It had to be either the battery or the ESC.

On my YEP150, if you go and recalibrate throttle, then you have to re-program the esc with the card. Otherwise it goes to default settings which are for helicopters.
Yours might have done the same. That would have led to an "add to cart" scenario for sure.

But my guess is that a 130A esc is not enough.

[Hardway]

Reminds me of the A-10 pin

That is because it IS the A-10 pin.... LOL

[RuthR720]

I was out in 110 degree weather to do some more test flights with my wheels tightened. My takeoff and landing distance was the same at 125ft. The testing went great however my Phantom started to gator so I called it a day. Please offer this great jet in grey.

https://youtu.be/qIrQwae9FqU

[davegee]

I just added some AIM-7 Sparrow missiles I had made up by Chris Wolf, the RC Geek. He did an excellent job making the parts on a 3D printer. I glued and painted them up, attached them with strong magnets and Hysol glue for the magnets. Each missile weighs 1/2 oz each, so they're pretty light. Might try to do a test flight with two of them later if the rain quits!

[davegee]

rain quit, got to fly the F-4 with the new Sparrows on it as well as the other stuff. No real change in speed or controllability that I could tell, flew great, as usual. Flew just the one flight as it was a bit choppy air and got windy. I don't see any issue flying with these in the future.

[Rod_E]

Hi guys, first time post, maiden my F4 and nose gear pin sheared. Bummer.
I don't think it was a hard landing
Ordered a couple of spares and new gear door from Motion RC, looking forward to flying it again.

[TiredIronGRB]

Hi guys, first time post, maiden my F4 and nose gear pin sheared. Bummer.
I don't think it was a hard landing
Ordered a couple of spares and new gear door from Motion RC, looking forward to flying it again.

Welcome to Hobby Squawk, I've broken a few of these and started using the Flightline 1600mm Spitfire axles as nose pins. You have to re-cut the flats a little and cut the head down some so it will fit in the trunion.

[bbaumer]

I think at this point the nose gear pin should be considered an "issue" that needs to be fixed. The concept of a break away pin is great, the location of the break point ( within the server trunnion) , the effort required to replace it, and the suspect strength of the pin are bad, very bad.

[seaviper]

My F-4 is from the initial batch. We fly from a rough field. And I have dropped her in a couple times. Luckily, no problems with nose gear.

Reference the video, it looks like (and sounds like) the F-4 arrived rather firmly. Part of the game.

[Hardway]

Hi guys, first time post, maiden my F4 and nose gear pin sheared. Bummer.
I don't think it was a hard landing
Ordered a couple of spares and new gear door from Motion RC, looking forward to flying it again.

WELCOME ABOARD.... Glad you are here!!!! Have a great weekend!!!

[rifleman_btx]

It looked to me like it was a very nice touchdown, and after 3 feet I heard the pop, drop and drag. That shouldn't have happened from what I watched when I zoomed in at the initial point of contact to the roll.

[TiredIronGRB]

Anyone having this issue should open a ticket with CS so Motion will have numbers on it, if it doesn't get logged they won't realize it's an issue.

[seaviper]

Yeah those pins are probably weak. We did a bunch of touch and go's today. And I had a few hard ones. No problema though. Mine is the green one. My buddy has the nice painted one. A ton of fun.

[rifleman_btx]

Maybe one of those blind squirrel finds a nut cases? :Thinking: