Finally repaired my F-18! :DDD
About three years ago, I badly crashed my Freewing 6S F-18 Hornet scale fighter jet. Last thursday, the EF-18A took off to the skies once more!
The main reason it took me so long to get her back from the ashes is because I wasn't satisfied with the performance of the glues I had tested out on EPO so far. Consider that I had put 2 weeks worth of work in the paint job, so I didn't want to rush the repairs until I felt confident enough that the results would be good. When I repaired my split-in-two Eurofighter from a different crash earlier this year, I learnt that foam safe cyano actually works wonders on EPO, and it helps fix parts very fast when using an activator spray, so that gave me the confidence to get the work started... but then I was out of cyano for a while, because I didn't want to pay for the shipping costs to order just a few glue bottles from Motion... so I waited until I had to buy something more from them to make out the threshold for free shipping!
That happened just this month, so I finally got my cyanoacrylate glue and quickly got the repair job started. It still took me 4 full evenings to pull the whole jet back together. The nose was bent from compressed foam and I also had to use a heat gun on strategic pinpoint locations to get the model straightened out. The nose gear was ripped off and its pin shorn off. One of the main retracts was totally destroyed from the impact, one taileron had the ball link broken and the other had detached entirely from the airframe. Many cosmetic pieces were torn off... So you see, it was quite a lot of work, but I managed to pull it off, And now I'm so hyped to have my gorgeous F-18 back!!! :DDDD
Now that the jet flies again, I'll fix the paint and may consider upgrading to Jeti gear. ^^
The crash was a result of pilot error. First, the EDF was affected by FOD so I lacked thrust on take off, which made me accelerate too slow and I run straight into the sun. As I noticed what was happening I panicked and tried to turn away from it only to stall the jet and have it point back AT the sun. The second attempt to turn left was carried out while completely blinded by the sun, and the outcome was the exact same as the first attempt, except now I couldn't control the exit due to lack of direct line of sight so the stall developed into a spin and the jet turned around 180º and dived straight at the ground.
I said she'd fly again, and now that promise has been fulfilled, even if it took me quite a while to get there! :p
About three years ago, I badly crashed my Freewing 6S F-18 Hornet scale fighter jet. Last thursday, the EF-18A took off to the skies once more!
The main reason it took me so long to get her back from the ashes is because I wasn't satisfied with the performance of the glues I had tested out on EPO so far. Consider that I had put 2 weeks worth of work in the paint job, so I didn't want to rush the repairs until I felt confident enough that the results would be good. When I repaired my split-in-two Eurofighter from a different crash earlier this year, I learnt that foam safe cyano actually works wonders on EPO, and it helps fix parts very fast when using an activator spray, so that gave me the confidence to get the work started... but then I was out of cyano for a while, because I didn't want to pay for the shipping costs to order just a few glue bottles from Motion... so I waited until I had to buy something more from them to make out the threshold for free shipping!
That happened just this month, so I finally got my cyanoacrylate glue and quickly got the repair job started. It still took me 4 full evenings to pull the whole jet back together. The nose was bent from compressed foam and I also had to use a heat gun on strategic pinpoint locations to get the model straightened out. The nose gear was ripped off and its pin shorn off. One of the main retracts was totally destroyed from the impact, one taileron had the ball link broken and the other had detached entirely from the airframe. Many cosmetic pieces were torn off... So you see, it was quite a lot of work, but I managed to pull it off, And now I'm so hyped to have my gorgeous F-18 back!!! :DDDD
Now that the jet flies again, I'll fix the paint and may consider upgrading to Jeti gear. ^^
The crash was a result of pilot error. First, the EDF was affected by FOD so I lacked thrust on take off, which made me accelerate too slow and I run straight into the sun. As I noticed what was happening I panicked and tried to turn away from it only to stall the jet and have it point back AT the sun. The second attempt to turn left was carried out while completely blinded by the sun, and the outcome was the exact same as the first attempt, except now I couldn't control the exit due to lack of direct line of sight so the stall developed into a spin and the jet turned around 180º and dived straight at the ground.
I said she'd fly again, and now that promise has been fulfilled, even if it took me quite a while to get there! :p
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