Official Freewing 80mm EDF L-39 Albatros Thread

[crxmanpat]

Where are the files available? Can’t seem to find them!? Thanks!

They are attached to this post:

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/jets-and-edfs/149827-official-freewing-80mm-edf-l-39-albatros-thread?p=153900#post153900

[urrl]

[JazzmanB]

Looking better and better dude!! The color is amazing on the galaxy's and like how stable it is

[Rcfiddy1]

Testing the strength of the gear. Well wasnt really trying I just got a little cocky and low. Only damage was a broken main gear door.

[urrl]

Morning flight

[seaviper]

Testing the strength of the gear. Well wasnt really trying I just got a little cocky and low. Only damage was a broken main gear door.

I got slow in the wind while landing in a formation last week. I hit on the nosewheel and right main. The nose retract was functional but busted up. The right main came unglued and was dangling behind the bird on a wire. I powered out, sucked up the gear, and made an emergency gear up landing while towing my main gear. That main gear put several gouges and gashes in the rear fuselage. I had to replace both retracts and do quire a bit of body work and painting to get her back to flying status, sans gear doors.

[T-CAT]

Great repair job :Cool:.

[seaviper]

Thanks. This is one reason I prefer foam to fiberglass. The foam birds absorb more impact before breaking. Bodywork is easier with foam. Painting, however, is not. But an airbrush and some water soluble paints make the process at least doable.

So when more or less do we get spare parts?

[Quickstop]

Thanks. This is one reason I prefer foam to fiberglass. The foam birds absorb more impact before breaking. Bodywork is easier with foam. Painting, however, is not. But an airbrush and some water soluble paints make the process at least doable.

So when more or less do we get spare parts?

You should try looking at the website more often, been there since last week!

[seaviper]

You should try looking at the website more often, been there since last week!

Plastic parts A,B,C,D and E don't have any info on what's in them. Unfortunately, I am looking for one of those.
I assume these are placeholders.

[t01ga]

I have just put in a pre-order with MRC EU. I have been undecided on the livery and whether to wait for the next paint scheme which I really suspect is a high probability. The more I looked at the plane and the more videos I watched the current livery really grew on me. I am now really looking forward to have something marginally different in my hangar.

[urrl]

[bill34207]

It knife edges great. I started doing them on my 2nd flight with this one. Watch the 1st minute of this clip

https://youtu.be/i6xveltINRc

[T-CAT]

I forgot to post this on HobbyS when I posted it on another forum.

Just for fun, I added some lighting additions to the plane, even though you can’t see many of the new ones well enough in daylight. LOL

I added a landing light on the nose gear, as well as a belly strobe and top fuse beacon light. After searching many of the photos of the full scale, lighting location and type varies greatly from one L-39 to the next. Some do not have much lighting under or on top of the fuse, while others have one on bottom and not on top, or have one on top and not on the bottom, or have both. Along with that, some have the beacon on top but are red, while others have white illumination, and can be either located several feet behind the rear canopy or just forward of the leading portion of the vertical stabilizer. There are lots of different options, so it makes it fun to pick a location of preference for the model.

The light under the fuse is a white strobe light from the Freewing A-10 80mm EDF Jet, the nose gear light is also from the A-10 nose gear but disassembled to make it much smaller, and the top red beacon is an older and less bright light from a Freewing F-18 90mm EDF Jet. The nose gear light (forgot to take a picture of it LOL) has to be placed high enough to not interfere with the nose door mechanism. These were all incredibly easy to install and required just small cutting in the right place and size to fit the LED’s. The nose light was simply glued on with foam tac ensuring the wires are tucked away and secured with just enough slack to not pull when the gear is extended or retracted. Unfortunately, the placement of the nose light being a tad higher does inhibit seeing it a bit in comparison to if it were lower, but that’s okay.

On a side note, I’m not sure if it’s easily implemented or not in the future with a multibox, but having a slow pulsating light option would be cool for a beacon light to somewhat simulate a rotating beacon as it could gradually intensify the light followed by weakened illumination. This multibox is fantastic for lighting mods like this. Talk about ease of install!

https://youtu.be/iis4qFfh4wo

[mattmanraptor]

L-39 ThunderBird

[T-CAT]

Awesome job :Cool:.

[Wiz1]

I forgot to post this on HobbyS when I posted it on another forum.

Just for fun, I added some lighting additions to the plane, even though you can’t see many of the new ones well enough in daylight. LOL

I added a landing light on the nose gear, as well as a belly strobe and top fuse beacon light. After searching many of the photos of the full scale, lighting location and type varies greatly from one L-39 to the next. Some do not have much lighting under or on top of the fuse, while others have one on bottom and not on top, or have one on top and not on the bottom, or have both. Along with that, some have the beacon on top but are red, while others have white illumination, and can be either located several feet behind the rear canopy or just forward of the leading portion of the vertical stabilizer. There are lots of different options, so it makes it fun to pick a location of preference for the model.

The light under the fuse is a white strobe light from the Freewing A-10 80mm EDF Jet, the nose gear light is also from the A-10 nose gear but disassembled to make it much smaller, and the top red beacon is an older and less bright light from a Freewing F-18 90mm EDF Jet. The nose gear light (forgot to take a picture of it LOL) has to be placed high enough to not interfere with the nose door mechanism. These were all incredibly easy to install and required just small cutting in the right place and size to fit the LED’s. The nose light was simply glued on with foam tac ensuring the wires are tucked away and secured with just enough slack to not pull when the gear is extended or retracted. Unfortunately, the placement of the nose light being a tad higher does inhibit seeing it a bit in comparison to if it were lower, but that’s okay.

On a side note, I’m not sure if it’s easily implemented or not in the future with a multibox, but having a slow pulsating light option would be cool for a beacon light to somewhat simulate a rotating beacon as it could gradually intensify the light followed by weakened illumination. This multibox is fantastic for lighting mods like this. Talk about ease of install!

https://youtu.be/iis4qFfh4wo

Thanks T-CAT, that is exactly what I was pondering and I also wanted to add some lights to my L39.

[T-CAT]

Thanks T-CAT, that is exactly what I was pondering and I also wanted to add some lights to my L39.

It’ is as easy as it gets! The bottom fuse light especially because if you cut it in the right place, the hole is right into the foam just to the rear of the battery tray, so nothing is being inhibited and the wiring is obviously extremely easy to reach and connect right into the box. I only used a hobby knife and was very careful to cut less rather than more since you don’t want a hole that’s larger than the light you are adding. You can always remove more foam if needed, but it’s more of a pain to fill something in if you overcut.

[seaviper]

I used some left over lights from the GT Power lighting system (also the HK Aircraft Navigation Lighting System). The little led snap rings will work in the foam if you drill out the hole slightly smaller than the ring. And, as T-Cat said, L-39's are all pretty much different when it comes to lighting. I chose to do a white strobe in the tail and a red beacon on the bottom to aid in evening flying.

I plugged the tail led into the "double flash" port. The red beacon is plugged into the "strobe" port.

[T-CAT]

That looks great!

[seaviper]

I have an AD ("airworthiness directive") for you guys. After 2+ hours of flight time on the Albatros, I noticed a gear not fully retracting in flight. Further investigation revealed that the screw holding the suspension spring in place was nearly all the way out. And on both gear! Apparently there was no loc-tite applied to these screws. So, I highly recommend that you check your main struts.