Freewing 90mm F-22 Raptor - Official Thread

[TiredIronGRB]

I got the F-22 nozzle slats from Steve Hodges today and made up some linkage for thrust vectoring :)

[Evan D]

Interesting!

[purduephigam]

Looking forward to seeing flights on folks with thrust vectoring! Looking good TI

[xviper]

On the subject of thrust vectoring, I'm inclined to ask if anyone has determined if the stock 6s system has enough thrust for this plane to hover momentarily and then go straight up from there? Of course, to have enough control for safety, the vectors should work independently of each other (elevon action). Rudder vector would also be useful but not entirely necessary and not really possible due to the obstructions on the sides and center.

[adb2@suddenlink.net]

Jetgreaser, which trailing link nose gear is that? Is that from the Yak-130?

I'm having a heck of a time trying to put the Avanti nose gear in place of the Raptor nose gear. You obviously were able to do it. The shafts are not the same size. How did you do it? What changes? Thanks

[TRMRC]

I think I'm just gonna throw in a Castle 10 amp BEC and take out the OEM one. Not willing to lose a $550+ plane to a crappy BEC.

Originally I was going to go with a Gryphon quasar as I have a spare from a 700 Goblin Heli, But I think I’m going to go with the the new 10/14 amp castle V2 as I have a spare as well, it will save a little weight and it’s smaller, also pulled a Castle 160hv out of the Heli I’m going to use too.
Running on a JP 8s EDF should be a good setup.

[WAY BAD]

Here's Steve's (RCJetDude), he just fnished TV on his.

https://youtu.be/Pn7YuqLgYZ4?t=2

[Evan D]

Pretty cool. If he adds tailerons it improves it even more. And full span ailerons.

Nice to to see others getting more from their Raptor.

[WAY BAD]

Pretty cool. If he adds tailerons it improves it even more. And full span ailerons.

Nice to to see others getting more from their Raptor.

Do you have any videos of yours yet Evan? Really wanting to see yours in action.

[Evan D]

I don’t. I don’t do videos and there usually isn’t anyone at my field that does. If there was someone it would be a low quality video, surely nowhere as good as Steve’s or Urrls videos. There was a person that videoed one of my first flights and the plane wasn’t in the shot 90% of the time.

[downwindleg]

[QUOTE=TiredIronGRB;n169818]I got the F-22 nozzle slats from Steve Hodges today and made up some linkage for thrust vectoring :)
Outstanding and very helpful George. Now I understand how Steve connected the top and bottom parts of the vectoring nozzle. Very ingenious. I hope he can post those parts as well. Looking forward to more detail shots and some flight video.

[downwindleg]

This maiden flight looked too easy.

Awesome first flight...or even tenth flight for that matter. Did I see a green led in the headsup display?

[JETGREASER]

I'm having a heck of a time trying to put the Avanti nose gear in place of the Raptor nose gear. You obviously were able to do it. The shafts are not the same size. How did you do it? What changes? Thanks

For some reason mine was a direct fit ( Freewing Avanti 80mm Nose Strut ). Your Avanti nose gear might be for a 4.1mm connecting pin. You will have to drill it to 5.1.mm.
Another option is to also change the nose gear retract to one that has a 4.1mm connecting pin. Again mine was a direct replacement.

[Evan D]

I like how he has the plate that goes across to make the petal a bit stiffer. Mine is just an imbedded ball link.


[QUOTE=downwindleg;n169864]

I got the F-22 nozzle slats from Steve Hodges today and made up some linkage for thrust vectoring :)
Outstanding and very helpful George. Now I understand how Steve connected the top and bottom parts of the vectoring nozzle. Very ingenious. I hope he can post those parts as well. Looking forward to more detail shots and some flight video.

[adb2@suddenlink.net]

For some reason mine was a direct fit ( Freewing Avanti 80mm Nose Strut ). Your Avanti nose gear might be for a 4.1mm connecting pin. You will have to drill it to 5.1.mm.
Another option is to also change the nose gear retract to one that has a 4.1mm connecting pin. Again mine was a direct replacement.

Thanks for your response. The lengths and shafts size are different, the size of the main body is different and the connectiong holes don't match. I guess they have changed some how. sure would be nice to have a direct fit. At our field there are gopher holes in the grass off the runway which plays havoc with the nose gear. I don't always get stopped on the runway.

[PaulZ]

Originally I was going to go with a Gryphon quasar as I have a spare from a 700 Goblin Heli, But I think I’m going to go with the the new 10/14 amp castle V2 as I have a spare as well, it will save a little weight and it’s smaller, also pulled a Castle 160hv out of the Heli I’m going to use too.
Running on a JP 8s EDF should be a good setup.

Wise choice to get rid of the Freewing/Hobbywing BECs! They are terrible. I just lost my 8s Yak-130 due to a BEC failure. What I don't understand is why Motion sells a 5A BEC with the 8s setup and an 8A BEC with the 6s setup on the same exact plane? The F-22 has less servos and lights than the Yak-130 but I would still replace the BECs. At least the ESCs seem to be holding up fine.

[RCjetdude]

[QUOTE=Evan D;n169877]I like how he has the plate that goes across to make the petal a bit stiffer. Mine is just an imbedded ball link.

The plate also sandwiches the hinges and control horn wire too. I did not have what I needed to hook mine up like yours so I turned to my 3D printer for assistance and the plates are what fell out. LOL

[tengarang]

Wise choice to get rid of the Freewing/Hobbywing BECs! They are terrible. I just lost my 8s Yak-130 due to a BEC failure. What I don't understand is why Motion sells a 5A BEC with the 8s setup and an 8A BEC with the 6s setup on the same exact plane? The F-22 has less servos and lights than the Yak-130 but I would still replace the BECs. At least the ESCs seem to be holding up fine.

i agree and and thats why i stress all the time before on RCgroups before i got banned from it.

see post 982 on this thread. I always use a second or even 3rd BEC with a seperate 2s source bypassed by 4000uf Cap

[tengarang]

Love this Raptor! Have about 12 flights on it. Had either a BEC, ESC or Receiver failure in flight. All previous flights before installing the Admiral gyro was with the Spektrum 8 channel receiver. I’m leaning toward a BEC failure.

Here’s a video of the test flight. https://youtu.be/R-i8kLLWEJI

Not to badly damaged.

If you look at the video at 1:09 as the gear and flaps are coming up, it lost power for a second or two. You can hear me saying “oh no, what was that?”. But it was fine until the approach landing when it lost all control and no power. It took us around 30 minutes to recover the Raptor which was still on but wet. My friend got to it first and he unplugged it, so don’t know if any beeps or lights that could explain the cause.

The battery is a Thunder Power Rampage 5000mAh 80C and still had 42% remaining and all cells were almost equal. I have nearly a dozen flawless flights with the same sets of batteries. However, this flight was the first flight with the newly installed Admiral Receiver with gyro. You can hear when I was turning on the gyro and testing it. All wiring was intact noting came lose. In fact, after thoroughly drying, I tried to reproduce the failure on the ground and it all works fine.

I should have landed the first sign of an issue. Broke my rule of landing immediately when any signs of an issue.

I will be installing an Opti Gaurd backup battery to protect against any future or possible BEC issues.

So what do you all think the failure was?

Looks like the ZTW 5A is the culprit, i lost one of my 3 b17s this way when using this bec, also see post 982 on this thread.

I have had ZERO bec failures with setups that pass range test.

[downwindleg]

[QUOTE=RCjetdude;n169898]

I like how he has the plate that goes across to make the petal a bit stiffer. Mine is just an imbedded ball link.




The plate also sandwiches the hinges and control horn wire too. I did not have what I needed to hook mine up like yours so I turned to my 3D printer for assistance and the plates are what fell out. LOL

Like I said in response to George's post, very ingenious Steve. Credit goes to EvanD for coming up with it in the first place but your set up is a huge improvement and probably more durable to boot. I'm guessing you have to do a little back beveling at top and bottom of petals to allow clearance for the swing of the petals. Hope you can post those files. I won't have my F-22 'til tommorrow or friday but compiling quite a list of mods for this baby. Good thing it's the building season!:Cool: