Official Freewing 80mm EDF L-39 Albatros Thread

[fvu@sbcglobal.net]

I just finished building my new L39 camo, this is my first Freewing Jet, all my other Jets are E-Flite, and after comparing the two, the Freewing has E-Flite beat internally, blue box, wiring etc, but externally not happy with Freewing at all, I have learned to always check, and tighten everything on a plane before I will fly it, and I also put three coats of minwax Polycrylic over paint, first off the decals are garbage, who the hell uses water type decals on a foamJet, second thing, I took off EDF cover, and when I did the paint peeled write off, it wasn’t even adhered to foam, and the whole plane is like that, it peeled in several areas, I know what happened they did not clean the foam off, before painting it, you have to wipe the foam down, before painting it, so I got some touch up paint and started to touch it up, then I thought to myself, that this is ridiculous, brand new Jet, and paint peeling everywhere, so I contacted Motion, they told me to fill out form online and take photos, which I did and the idiot from customer service said doesn’t look like peeling paint to me looks like a chemical was put on it, so I sent him a reply explaining I had to put polycrylic over the the foam to stop it from peeling, and he basically said their was nothing they could do, and to be honest with you this is the second plane I’ve bought from Motion, I never had any issues with my Old Crow, but I have dealt with Motions totally lack off customer support, on receivers and stuff, Horizon Hobby would have replaced plane no questions asked, Eflite has Freewing beat hands down on paint and decals, I still would probably purchase another Freewing Jet, but since their paint and decals are horrible, I will check the paint before I i ever started assembling, and I will be going back to Horizon for everything else, Motion idea of product support is a joke, I have only had a issue with one of HH planes I purchased, it had a big dent in foam, but they looked at my order history, and after seeing that I have spent a lot of money with them, they sent me out a new plane, and said just keep the old one for parts, when I purchased my L39 I also bought one of their Admiral 690 receiver/gyro, and it bound and then it quit working permanently, I called Customer service, and he told me I would need to fill out a return request, and return item, that part I was ok with that, but here’s where I had a issue, I asked him if he was sending a replacement, he actually told me that I had to wait until they received my receiver and evaluated it, so basically this idiot thought it was ok for me to have a $500 Jet that I now can’t fly, over a $30 receiver, so I I explained to him that this is ridiculous, he started to get rude with me, so I just said forget it, after seeing gyro/ receiver, I wouldn’t trust it in a expensive, Jet very cheaply made, soil purchased the best receiver made the Spektrum AR636, Motions receiver/ gyro is not a true gyro, you have to adjust each control surface separately, the biggest problem with theirs is there is no way to set up priorities, what priorities is in a real gyro is as I move my stick away from center, the gyro reads it and the the further I move my stick, it starts to shut of gyro, that way if your trying to turn and burn you don’t have a stupid gyro fighting you in the other direction, plus if I know from experience, they don’t require me to send back anything, or fill out a stupid form, or even send a bunch of stupid pictures, because they actually trust and value customers like me, hell they even send me every year on my birthday a $10 credit voucher, so Motion you only really have one reason I will ever purchase anything from you, and that’s because you have a much larger selection of Jets, and internally Freewing is a better built Jet, but I have been seeing HH coming out with more and more Jets,

I do agree with everything mentioned above...

[HangarQueen]

Last week, a fellow club member crashed his L-39. While he was doing a steep diving turn, the model suddenly yawed violently into the ground. As he is a very good RC pilot, I doubt that it was pilot error, but there is no way to find the real cause of the crash, especially since there was no telemetry on board.
As he wanted to throw the crashed model into the bin, I bought the remains from him and I will restore it to flying condition; I like these sorts of restoration projects anyway.
After some post-crash inspection, the damage is more serious than I first thought:

• the fuselage is broken right in front of the engine intakes
• A serious crack could be seen in the right wing, close to the wing root.
• the nose is pretty beat up
• horizontal stab was destroyed on one side
• wing tips were broken
• wing saddle is broken, both on fuselage side and on wing side
• several steering arms were broken

I ordered a spare horizontal stab, as I don't want to take any risks on this critical flight control. Also ordered a spare plastic part of the front wing connection, and a complete set of steering arms.
As I will leave the wings on permanently, I will eliminate the Blue Box alltogether. This will not only eliminate a possible point of failure, but it will also eliminate the long delay on gear operation. I might still use it to switch the wing lights on/off, which I could also easily program on the radio.
I already straightened the nose with some hot water, and repaired the crack in the wing by drilling 3mm holes along the crack line. I then injected expanding PU glue into the crack via the drilled holes, and glued in a 4mm carbon strip perpendicular across the crack.
All servos seem to work just fine, I will test them some more, just to be sure. Rudder servo seems to make a bit more noise than the other servos (prime suspect of the crash so far)
I will install a Frsky RB-10 to provide dual power supply (adding a 10A SBEC and receiver battery) and current protection on all channels (I seem to have read that the retracts can draw considerable current when they are impeded in any way), a FAS-100 current sensor for battery consumption telemetry, and add a capacitor across the power supply input of the receiver.
That should take care of most electronic/power supply glitches.

[steven gubala]

Jacckall, try using a small hobby type steamer, and a hobby knife to remove the decals go slow and carefully

[xviper]

Hello! Noob Question :). How can i easy remove or modify position of stickers on this L-39 without foam damage? Thanks for answers

I believe they are water slide decals. They won't be easy to remove or move around. I suppose you could try to apply wet, warm cloth or towel and see if you can cause them to come loose and see if they will slide but I think you will tear and destroy them. Test it on a small decal that you won't mind too much if it's damaged or missing.

[GBLynden]

I love this jet!

[Jacckall]

Hello! Noob Question :). How can i easy remove or modify position of stickers on this L-39 without foam damage? Thanks for answers

[G8dget]

Here are a couple of videos of the L-39 flying around with FPV gear, some in close formation. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/dJau72OLXZQ

https://youtu.be/eibsCTJc49c

[xviper]

The wing lights are connected to the MCB-E (Blue Box) by the two ribbon cables, not much room for errors here.
At first, check the connection at the wing control boards. See attached picture. On each board, the light connectors are on the left, landing light at very left, then Nav light. Red wires have to be on top. If that looks OK on both connectors, unscrew the wing tanks and remove those carefully. Check the connectors at both ends for correct polarity and matching labels. I assume, the fault is here. When everything is properly connected here, add a piece of masking tape or heat shrink tube to keep the connectors together when pushing them into the wing again. Take your time at this step and mount the tanks again.

This is the correct solution. My answer was based on a Freewing plane where some or all of the lights are attached directly to the blue box. In this case, it's the wing connector that needs to be examined. I think somewhere in the manual there may also be a diagram of what plugs in the wing board does the job.

[Evan D]

Something is not wired right... I see much better answers are posted, late to the party.

[Radar-Guy]

Left side landing light wont turn on at all and nav light only turns on when gear is up. Right side landing light is on all the time but gets dimmer when gear is up. If I disconnect the left side then the right side works as intended. Please help!!!

The wing lights are connected to the MCB-E (Blue Box) by the two ribbon cables, not much room for errors here.
At first, check the connection at the wing control boards. See attached picture. On each board, the light connectors are on the left, landing light at very left, then Nav light. Red wires have to be on top. If that looks OK on both connectors, unscrew the wing tanks and remove those carefully. Check the connectors at both ends for correct polarity and matching labels. I assume, the fault is here. When everything is properly connected here, add a piece of masking tape or heat shrink tube to keep the connectors together when pushing them into the wing again. Take your time at this step and mount the tanks again.

[xviper]

Left side landing light wont turn on at all and nav light only turns on when gear is up. Right side landing light is on all the time but gets dimmer when gear is up. If I disconnect the left side then the right side works as intended. Please help!!!

With your manual, you should have also received a sheet with diagrams of all the different kinds of control boxes that Freewing planes can come with. Find the one that is the same as the one in your plane. Check the labeling for the light pins. Move them around till you get the lights to work the way you want them to. Note polarity. I'll bet they were plugged into the wrong pins when factory assembled.

Edit: On this plane, the more specific answer has to do with the wing connector boxes.

[steven gubala]

cashmoneybrother, check wiring make sure all colors are matching from both ends, then if that is correct check blue box, and make sure wiring is correct

[cashmoneybrother]

Left side landing light wont turn on at all and nav light only turns on when gear is up. Right side landing light is on all the time but gets dimmer when gear is up. If I disconnect the left side then the right side works as intended. Please help!!!

[400driver]

Just flown my first flight with the L39 on some 7 year old packs with a humble 25C rating. Its time to bump up to 45C or higher but it seems most of Hobbyking is out of good batteries.
The Graphene 6S 5000mah one are available but like the Admiral carbons are around 900 grams each, is that still OK for this jet? I'm hoping to get the Mig 29 so that battery seems a good fit. The Admirals are quite a bit more money here in Europe than in the States.
Any thoughts greatfully received.
Mark

[xviper]

Thanks. I'm leery of any system that relies on this FW nose retract hitting resistance and still closing reliably, but may still give it a shot.

You are right. Mechanisms of this nature can misalign over time or become hard to push and cause a gear jam. I just finished putting in a new nose retract on my FMS Tigercat thinking the old one was too weak. Had to wait nearly 3 months for the part to arrive. Nobody in N. America had stock. After some time and effort to put it in, the problem still exists. The problem being that the retract simply does not have sufficient strength to push on the door mechanism to fully close the door and the strut hangs down a bit. I've given up and will just fly the plane as is since it doesn't seem to affect the retract's ability to open and close, just not its full close limit. As it turns out, this is a common problem with most FMS 7F7's. RC Informer did an extensive modification of the mechanism so make it work better. I think it still has limitations. The Flightline F7F has a much better mechanism.
Having said that, I must admit that the one of the L-39 has never been a problem. However, the L-39 has a much shorter strut than the F7F and I believe that this type of mechanism is not well suited to retracts with long struts. The leverage (mechanical advantage) is simply not there. They require very strong retracts, ones meant for a much larger plane with larger gear.

[Mizer67]

Putting "nose retract" into this thread's search gives you this:

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/rc-military-jets/149827-official-freewing-80mm-edf-l-39-albatros-thread?p=221161#post221161

It's a mechanical system. The gear strut pushes down on a bar, which is connected to the door via a push rod. The bar is held by a spring, which pulls up on the bar, allowing the door to open when the strut no longer pushes on it.

Thanks. I'm leery of any system that relies on this FW nose retract hitting resistance and still closing reliably, but may still give it a shot.

[xviper]

Putting "nose retract" into this thread's search gives you this:

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/rc-military-jets/149827-official-freewing-80mm-edf-l-39-albatros-thread?p=221161#post221161

It's a mechanical system. The gear strut pushes down on a bar, which is connected to the door via a push rod. The bar is held by a spring, which pulls up on the bar, allowing the door to open when the strut no longer pushes on it.

[Mizer67]

Does anyone have a shot of how the spring-loaded nose gear door works?

Wanting to know if it's something I can retrofit into another plane.

[DCORSAIR]

Jlamb, nice pics, and I see that inverted pic made it on the MRC page....

[JeremySean]

Cockpit view, this thing does well over 100mph...Very gusty day!! 2:30 seconds in the video is the speed run!!!