Official Freewing 80mm EDF L-39 Albatros Thread

[xviper]

But why have it at all? If you setup the recommended mix of down elevator there is no tendency to pitch up/down or balloon when the flaps are deployed at full speed, so what is the point in using the delay feature? If you increase the delay to a really long period you can see visually the flaps sorta stepping rather than moving slowly and smoothly. Try it for yourself and see. I can't say for sure that it was the cause of my stuck flap yesterday, but I certainly will not be taking the chance.

If you do insist on using the delay keep your flap finger ready to re-deploy quickly if you encounter any issue!

There are reasons why and I've covered this in the past. Yes, I have tried. Stop and analyze the situation and you'll see why also. I won't bore everyone with it again.

[Gremlin]

Decreased the delay to 2 sec :Whew:LOL

But why have it at all? If you setup the recommended mix of down elevator there is no tendency to pitch up/down or balloon when the flaps are deployed at full speed, so what is the point in using the delay feature? If you increase the delay to a really long period you can see visually the flaps sorta stepping rather than moving slowly and smoothly. Try it for yourself and see. I can't say for sure that it was the cause of my stuck flap yesterday, but I certainly will not be taking the chance.

If you do insist on using the delay keep your flap finger ready to re-deploy quickly if you encounter any issue!

[Petronio]

Decreased the delay to 2 sec :Whew:LOL

[adb2@suddenlink.net]

I dont think the delay should have anything to do with the servo getting stuck..but I get scared reading about it.. I am just finishing mine today and it will be maidened in the coming days. I had added a 4 sec delay..quite like it for realism and functionality but now I dont know whether toI leave it or not. I have a delay on my A4 and flown it quite a lot with no problems at all so I dont think the delay is the issue...maybe just random. Oh well fingers crossed!

Why take a chance?

[xviper]

I dont think the delay should have anything to do with the servo getting stuck..but I get scared reading about it.. I am just finishing mine today and it will be maidened in the coming days. I had added a 4 sec delay..quite like it for realism and functionality but now I dont know whether toI leave it or not. I have a delay on my A4 and flown it quite a lot with no problems at all so I dont think the delay is the issue...maybe just random. Oh well fingers crossed!

A delay on the flaps alters the pulse signal to the servo and some servos may not like signals being fed to it that way. Like any electronic part, a servo is just a few circuits on a tiny board, with limiters and micro controllers. Even within the same batch, I think you can get variations of quality from one servo to another. Remember, it's usually just one, NOT both, servo that gets stuck and it's not even on all these planes. I would suggest that if you have it on a long delay, keep your finger on the flap switch and be prepared to deploy it again and be on the aileron stick to counter what a stuck flap will do.

[Petronio]

I dont think the delay should have anything to do with the servo getting stuck..but I get scared reading about it.. I am just finishing mine today and it will be maidened in the coming days. I had added a 4 sec delay..quite like it for realism and functionality but now I dont know whether toI leave it or not. I have a delay on my A4 and flown it quite a lot with no problems at all so I dont think the delay is the issue...maybe just random. Oh well fingers crossed!

[xviper]

It's a mystery. Maybe a change to a different kind of servo for the flaps might resolve this.

[DCORSAIR]

This only seems to happen if the flaps are deployed and pulled back in during flight. If you don't use them for take off or try a slow and low pass with flaps (1/2 or full) and then suck them up, you may not see this. If you only use flaps for landing and then suck them back up on the ground or on the bench, they don't seem to exhibit this problem. I've cycled mine many times on the bench and rolling around on the ground and they've never stuck. Weird.

That is what I was doing, a slow pass with full flaps and gear down, as I went by I pulled the gear up and watched them go up then pulled the flaps up which are on a dial, with the roll of your finger they go right up or I can slow them down, but just maybe I rolled them to slow and one didn't go up as if I was using a delay, maybe?

[xviper]

This only seems to happen if the flaps are deployed and pulled back in during flight. If you don't use them for take off or try a slow and low pass with flaps (1/2 or full) and then suck them up, you may not see this. If you only use flaps for landing and then suck them back up on the ground or on the bench, they don't seem to exhibit this problem. I've cycled mine many times on the bench and rolling around on the ground and they've never stuck. Weird.

[Gremlin]

I only had mine on a 1 second delay. The delay may be a red herring. However I can say that when I took the delay off I had no further issue. Deploying the flaps without a delay using the recommended elevator mix did not cause any pitch change, so I dont see any reason to use the delay. I'm gonna test the hell out of this as my poor heart could not take another incident like that.

[DCORSAIR]

Three of us maidened our L-39's this morning. 1st maiden went a dream. I was up next. Took off with no problems, I came around downwind and raised the flaps and bam! All hell broke loose. It seems, one of my flaps stuck down and it rolled over and went into a spiral. I yanked hard and it pulled under in a loop. As I was climbing again, I managed to get some semblence of control back. I think the stuck flap went up as I was able to bring it around the circuit. My more experienced buddy was beside me and I was so shaken I handed it to him to land. Thankfully he did with no further problems. I am one lucky guy. My lovely L-39 almost died a horrible death after 30 seconds. Guess what? I had the the flaps on slowed/delayed deployment. Whats worse, I read earlier in this thread about a guy who had exactly the same problem. I noted it at the time, but had forgotten this when my L-39 arrived from MRC EU. So I thought I better post and strongly advise do not use delayed/slowed deployment on the flaps or you risk a stuck flap and horrible consequences. For later flights this morning, I turned off the delayed flap deployment and had had a few more flights which went sweet as a nut. In fact, its a real *****cat to fly with no real vices. It looks stunning in the air. Our third maiden went without incident.

The strange and slightly worrying thing about the suspected slowed flap issue, is that it doesn't seem to happen on the ground. I'm thinking that the air pressure pushing against the flaps is maybe a prerequisite to replicating it. I will try to see if somehow I can replicate this on the ground.

Thankfully, I'm sitting here remembering a good day's flying but it could have so easily been a completely different story.

Mine did the exact same thing and I don't use a delay on the flaps, mine turned over on it's back right after I raised the flaps so I guess like yours, it stuck, I was able to roll it upright and climb a little but almost lost it several times until my brain said to cycle the flap switch and I did, it must have worked because it started flying normal with no issues, landed no problem, never did find the problem and went ahead and bypassed the board, it now has many flights with no issues...........:Sweating:LOL

[PhantomNut]

I've got mine on a 4 second delay and haven't had a problem. I haven't used flaps for take off though. Maybe I'll take the flap delay off just in case.

[Chilly Bear]

Mine have always been set to 4 seconds and I haven't had a problem so far. I have always used flaps taking off. I'm adding this as I didn't see the issue was after taking off with flaps for some. I'm using an AR660T.

[xviper]

My flaps did the same thing. At 4 second deployment, one flap stayed deployed after take off. I immediately lowered the flaps again to stabilize the plane. Flew it one circuit and landed. Changed to 3 seconds, same thing. Then changed to 2 seconds and it didn't do it. I've even hooked the flaps directly to the RX before any of this happened. I'll keep them at 2 seconds until it acts up again.

[Gremlin]

Three of us maidened our L-39's this morning. 1st maiden went a dream. I was up next. Took off with no problems, I came around downwind and raised the flaps and bam! All hell broke loose. It seems, one of my flaps stuck down and it rolled over and went into a spiral. I yanked hard and it pulled under in a loop. As I was climbing again, I managed to get some semblence of control back. I think the stuck flap went up as I was able to bring it around the circuit. My more experienced buddy was beside me and I was so shaken I handed it to him to land. Thankfully he did with no further problems. I am one lucky guy. My lovely L-39 almost died a horrible death after 30 seconds. Guess what? I had the the flaps on slowed/delayed deployment. Whats worse, I read earlier in this thread about a guy who had exactly the same problem. I noted it at the time, but had forgotten this when my L-39 arrived from MRC EU. So I thought I better post and strongly advise do not use delayed/slowed deployment on the flaps or you risk a stuck flap and horrible consequences. For later flights this morning, I turned off the delayed flap deployment and had had a few more flights which went sweet as a nut. In fact, its a real *****cat to fly with no real vices. It looks stunning in the air. Our third maiden went without incident.

The strange and slightly worrying thing about the suspected slowed flap issue, is that it doesn't seem to happen on the ground. I'm thinking that the air pressure pushing against the flaps is maybe a prerequisite to replicating it. I will try to see if somehow I can replicate this on the ground.

Thankfully, I'm sitting here remembering a good day's flying but it could have so easily been a completely different story.

[PhantomNut]

I assembled mine yesterday. It was really fun and everything fits perfect.
Unfortunately the left Elevator servo has an issue, it works not smooth. It “jumps” step by step to the positions. Verified without the board by a direct connection to a servo tester.
I already opened a case for this, hopefully they solve it as fast as they solved my ticket for the missing gun pod ...

My rudder servo did the same thing. Replaced with a hitec and all is good.

[BlueQ]

Hello guys, can anybody tell me, where the eagle a3 gyro may be positioned? Has it to sit just in the roll axis or may it sit aside ? The manual says nothing about that and i'm not sure. How far may it be in front of the cg ? I've surching a picture here for your solutions but no luck. Thanks a lot for answering,
regards,
Rudi

[adb2@suddenlink.net]

Even after following the oft reposted procedure for re-syncing the gear sequence, I have still not been able to make mine work properly. So I have carried out some experiments using a stabilised power supply, and have discovered that the box only works correctly (i.e. nose gear steering only works with the gear down) when the input voltage is 4.7 to 5.0 volts. As soon as the voltage goes above 5.0, strange things start to happen with the nose gear steering and rudder outputs. I have 2 of the boxes, and was able to replicate these results on both. The effects of higher voltage input are different in each box, but both will only work correctly with 5.0 volts input. To me, this means that something in the box is very voltage sensitive when perhaps it shouldn’t be?
I have used a y lead on the rudder output to bypass the box, so for me, this is not a major issue, but hopefully my experiments may help to identify the source of the problem.
Would anybody else who has had this problem like to try my experiment for themselves, and see if it works for them?

regards,
Dave

I had this same problem which I solved by changing receivers.

[ChriKri]

I assembled mine yesterday. It was really fun and everything fits perfect.
Unfortunately the left Elevator servo has an issue, it works not smooth. It “jumps” step by step to the positions. Verified without the board by a direct connection to a servo tester.
I already opened a case for this, hopefully they solve it as fast as they solved my ticket for the missing gun pod ...

[Marksj100]

Ordered one from Motion EU to go with my Avanti;-)