Official Freewing F/A-18C Hornet 90mm EDF Thread

[xviper]

In my opinion these planes aren't cheap. At the end of the day when you strip it all back we are paying hundreds for a bit of polystyrene. (I know theres more to it than that) But the fact remains that these models aren't cheap and so the components used and the manufacturer of those components should not be cheap. And when you sell a model as PNP. Plug and play. For me personally Yes I do expect to bolt it together and fly with no issues. Especially when it states things like no glue required, 3-4 hour assembly time. All these details imply that it is and should be a bolt together and go which is the very definition of plug n play.
Yes as a responsible pilot be it model or full size it is always wise to do pre flight checks. But it should be basically out of the box and into the air.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I'm wondering what your RC background is. Yes, today's foamies can be considered a goodly piece of money for what amounts to a flying beer cooler. However, if you come from a background of balsa kits, paper covering and painting, which morphed into heat shrink wrap coating and the countless hours of assembly and installation of your own hand picked components that, when finished, totaled many, many hundreds if not thousands of dollars, these foamies are "cheap". Additionally, I believe you put way too much into defining what "PNP" means. Through the progression of these terms, originating from "scratch built" to "kits", etc, PNP means that all it needs is a RX and a battery to go in it for it to fly. It doesn't define any degree of quality or readiness to fly. That seems be your definition, but for me and I'm sure the bulk of us, it isn't. The onus is still upon the end user to inspect, re-enforce, substitute where each person feels necessary and test and re-test to confirm the efficacy of every component of the product. You have most likely never purchased a PNP LX model or any of the Banana Hobby PNP BlitzRCWorks models. I don't believe this hobby is at the end stage yet, where you can take a PNP model out of the box, put it together and go fly. It's still in a state evolution, as is battery technology and radio technology. It's advanced a long way from the days of laying down a template and using a razor blade to cut out each wing spar, but it's not at the end game yet. Your expectations may be a decade or two ahead of the times.

[Alpha]

I hear you all, I do. We're all entitled to our opinions as to the value of any consumer product and what we individually feel is "worth" the money we're paying. That's all well and good discourse. I've heard feedback across out entire product price spectrum from $5 wheels to $500 airplanes as to what the customer expects for the price they paid. Some love it, some hate it, and they make their purchase decisions accordingly. As a fellow consumer, I do the same. That's all useful, valuable feedback, and I know I and all of us at Motion RC depend on that kind of feedback so let's all keep it coming.

But as regards the stereotype that factory workers make "a dollar an hour", I have to pause and raise my hand, as someone who works alongside these people in China every day, and civilly ask that we all retire the outdated stereotype of "a dollar an hour". Not just because it's false (try multiplying that by 6x-10x on average for the Shenzhen industrial region in 2019), but because it perpetuates the notion that this is simple, unskilled work, done without years of workforce training, dozens of integrated suppliers, specialized engineers, and millions of dollars of equipment. I'd encourage readers to check out my "How A Foam Aircraft is Made" article in this month's Model Aviation magazine for more information in this context, so as not to derail this F-18 Discussion thread entirely. I've visited over 140 factories and suppliers in China over the years, including almost every RC supplier we can think of, in addition to other tech industries such as Foxconn, DJI, Huawei, Bose, consumer laptops, various camera manufacturers, even a vacuum cleaner factory (random). No one is making a dollar an hour.

Yes, issues with RC PNPs will happen occasionally, and unfortunately No, money can't guarantee perfect consumer products for every single unit (just ask Samsung, Apple, DJI, Tesla, VW, Sony, GE, etc). But those companies, like ours, continue to diligently seek solutions with the resources available to preempt problems, improve consistency, and enhance user experience and the customer's assessment of the "value" of the product in question. There's no difference between those multi-billion dollar giants and the hobby industry supply chains, except a matter of scale.

I'm game for any criticism based on facts or feedback based on experience, so I'd ask that we please keep the focus on those in this thread. And, if at all possible, if we can return the conversation in this thread more specifically to the Freewing 90mm F-18. We can all explore the value proposition of general PNP hobby goods in a separate thread if someone wanted to create one. I'd actually welcome that discussion in good spirit.

[Hardway]

Yep!!! :Cool::Cool: Agreed. Thanks for all that you do and for actually caring.... Oh no, I just had a sensitive moment!!! :Scared:LOLLOL Really, blessings Bro!!! Carry on the great job!! Jerry

[EA-6B Geek]

.

Yes, issues with RC PNPs will happen occasionally, and unfortunately No, money can't guarantee perfect consumer products for every single unit (just ask Samsung, Apple, DJI, Tesla, VW, Sony, GE, etc).

You are correct Alpha.
Boeing?!

[Hardway]

BTW, I am ready to buy the next one whenever and whatever it may be, so get ready!!!!! :Cool:

[Hardway]

.

Yes, issues with RC PNPs will happen occasionally, and unfortunately No, money can't guarantee perfect consumer products for every single unit (just ask Samsung, Apple, DJI, Tesla, VW, Sony, GE, etc).

You are correct Alpha.
Boeing?!

Ouch!!!! But very true!!! Doing OK Bro???

[EA-6B Geek]

Ouch!!!! But very true!!! Doing OK Bro???

All is well HW!

[Hardway]

Glad!!!! Have a great afternoon!!! :)

[HellHathNoFury]

B/A Hornet looks a little light on the Rails so I loaded it up with a modded Missile off the F-5..

[janmb]

It's also very, very important for everyone to realize that the F-18 was produced simultaneously alongside several other aircraft, so the notion that only the F-18 got a bad batch of servos or MFCBs is misguided. The 17g elevator servos were pulled from the same boxes and installed in F-18s, F-22s, F-4s, F-16s, and a dozen other aircraft during the same period. Same situation with the MFCB.

One important thing to note on that particular point though: I'm pretty sure the FFS elevators on the F-18 impose a LOT more load on the servos than any of the other mentioned models. Simply because they have a lot of sweep and are therefore less aerodynamically balanced compared to the other layouts. While obviously hard to conclude or claim anything, I could certainly imagine this difference in load could explain a little higher failure rates on the F-18 compared to the other models in which the same servos are utilized.

[Aros]

Okay for the advancement of science and entertainment I decided to jimmy-rig my nose gear enough to keep it straight for a takeoff. It's really been eating at me since the mysterious crash on the maiden last week and I have tired of moving the sticks around a million times with everything looking in perfect order. So off to the school I went. Took off straight and climbed out nice and scale and flew her in the pattern (gear down) for a couple of minutes. Flew fine, no problems to be found. However - and I noticed this on the maiden - it lacks serious power. Full power felt like 25-30% power tops. I have seen the videos and I KNOW she is supposed to be much faster. I am flying a RT 5500 70C battery and I did calibrate the ESC. I think I heard someone else mention a lack of power. I don't understand what it could be? I did put a ticket into our CS team just for due diligence alone, to document the issues I have had with mine.

So the good news, is she flew without any sign of problems, but the lack of power is disturbing. :Thinking:

[thisguy65]

Not sure if these things fit the definition of "logic", but they must be able to throw some kind of circuit switch so it knows when to disable nose gear steering (like when the gear is up) and to know when to turn the landing light on/off. I consider these boards to be an evolution of the early circuit boards. Those were meant as circuit "collectors" where "Y's" could be eliminated and a limited number of grounds could be used, thus eliminating most of the grounds and some of the power leads. The problem (as I saw it) was that the grounding circuits were very poorly done and some leads didn't get a good ground and those servos worked strangely or not at all. Looking closely at some of those boards and their printed circuits under magnification, I could see that some adjacent solders migrated very closely to its neighbor and some pathways were almost touching another pathway, while some looked like they were actually touching. As these things evolved to do more and more, I wonder if the manufacture of the circuit boards have improved any or are they still being made in the same factory, using the same automated machines and bench workers.
Then comes the manual labor part of the assembly. Can you imagine sitting at a work station all day long, plugging in hundreds and maybe even thousands of servo plugs into wing boards and control boards and getting paid a buck an hour? I've seen plugs in the wrong positions on wing boards, wrong polarity or barely push on or push on with an offset and not having all 3 pins lined up. Also, plugs installed in the wrong positions on the control board and again, with wrong polarity, not fully seated. I've seen diagrams supplied with our planes of these boards and the diagram was WRONG. Imagine what that factory worker has to contend with. How many owners actually expose that wing board and take it apart to see what's on the back side? How many actually take the control board in hand and check all the plugs and compare with the diagram, which may or may not be correct? Do they put a servo tester on each plug to see if that is indeed the plug for the servo they think it should be for? I've seen on these forums that many owners don't even have a servo tester and some don't even know what one looks like or does. Or do they assume all that stuff is supposed to be "good to go", slap the plane together and send it up?

I know this isn't pointed at me.
I honestly do check everything that I can after mishap of a plane my Mom bought me as birthday present. I test it as much as I can. My nose LG failed after 4th time of cycling at that time. Earlier that day and days landing up to it, I had to cycle the gear atleast 10-115 times. I'm having odd issues with the BB that are not always present, it's like they come and go. I'm replacing the elevator servos but have to replace the nose gear, I have a ticket in with MRC.

[HellHathNoFury]

Okay for the advancement of science and entertainment I decided to jimmy-rig my nose gear enough to keep it straight for a takeoff. It's really been eating at me since the mysterious crash on the maiden last week and I have tired of moving the sticks around a million times with everything looking in perfect order. So off to the school I went. Took off straight and climbed out nice and scale and flew her in the pattern (gear down) for a couple of minutes. Flew fine, no problems to be found. However - and I noticed this on the maiden - it lacks serious power. Full power felt like 25-30% power tops. I have seen the videos and I KNOW she is supposed to be much faster. I am flying a RT 5500 70C battery and I did calibrate the ESC. I think I heard someone else mention a lack of power. I don't understand what it could be? I did put a ticket into our CS team just for due diligence alone, to document the issues I have had with mine.

So the good news, is she flew without any sign of problems, but the lack of power is disturbing. :Thinking:

Try putting power system on a Wattmeter & Check the result .. Could be a faulty esc??

[thisguy65]

Check the motor?

[HellHathNoFury]

Check the motor?

Or that assuming battery is good..Stock fan should produce 2000 odd watts of power @ 100 odd Amps..

[Alpha]

One important thing to note on that particular point though: I'm pretty sure the FFS elevators on the F-18 impose a LOT more load on the servos than any of the other mentioned models. Simply because they have a lot of sweep and are therefore less aerodynamically balanced compared to the other layouts. While obviously hard to conclude or claim anything, I could certainly imagine this difference in load could explain a little higher failure rates on the F-18 compared to the other models in which the same servos are utilized.

Except that the F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-22 all have FFS elevators, same as the F-18, and all use the same servo as the F-18. The F-18 is the lightest of the bunch. In terms of sweep, one of the reasons we relocated the F-18's servo inside with such a short arm was to eliminate any buckling that could occur if the control arm was longer, such as the heavier F-14 (with similar stab sweep, yet even so hasn't had any reported stab authority issues).

I'll take a look at the stab balance rigs later today at the factory that we use for all the FFS models. In the meantime, keep the ideas coming! 'Happy to test anything.

[Alpha]

B/A Hornet looks a little light on the Rails so I loaded it up with a modded Missile off the F-5..

Nice, HellHath. The AIM-9 is such a "beautiful" munition, in my opinion. It makes anything look better!

[HellHathNoFury]

Nice, HellHath. The AIM-9 is such a "beautiful" munition, in my opinion. It makes anything look better!

Thanks Alpha.. I took notes from your awesome paint scheme especially the AIM-9 missiles.. The F-5 missiles all painted & ready to go needed a little modding for the attachments but nothing that can’t be done with Foam.. Took a lot longer to figure out the mod than actually doing it LOL

[Carlbrainiac]

You are entitled to your opinion, but I'm wondering what your RC background is. Yes, today's foamies can be considered a goodly piece of money for what amounts to a flying beer cooler. However, if you come from a background of balsa kits, paper covering and painting, which morphed into heat shrink wrap coating and the countless hours of assembly and installation of your own hand picked components that, when finished, totaled many, many hundreds if not thousands of dollars, these foamies are "cheap". Additionally, I believe you put way too much into defining what "PNP" means. Through the progression of these terms, originating from "scratch built" to "kits", etc, PNP means that all it needs is a RX and a battery to go in it for it to fly. It doesn't define any degree of quality or readiness to fly. That seems be your definition, but for me and I'm sure the bulk of us, it isn't. The onus is still upon the end user to inspect, re-enforce, substitute where each person feels necessary and test and re-test to confirm the efficacy of every component of the product. You have most likely never purchased a PNP LX model or any of the Banana Hobby PNP BlitzRCWorks models. I don't believe this hobby is at the end stage yet, where you can take a PNP model out of the box, put it together and go fly. It's still in a state evolution, as is battery technology and radio technology. It's advanced a long way from the days of laying down a template and using a razor blade to cut out each wing spar, but it's not at the end game yet. Your expectations may be a decade or two ahead of the times.

I've been flying model aircraft for over 20 years and model cars, boats and trains prior to that. So not a total novice.
and not sure where you've been buying your balsa from but if it cost you hundreds of dollars they seriously over charged you lol.
Anyways I wasnt looking to get into a forum argument. Was simply stating my opinion. I dont expect everyone to agree.
Just sometimes when doing these high value foamies & by the time you have all the kit in them and a stock of house brick batteries and high output chargers and power supplies I begin to ask myself why I didnt save for a bit longer & get a gas turbine model lol.

[DCORSAIR]

Okay for the advancement of science and entertainment I decided to jimmy-rig my nose gear enough to keep it straight for a takeoff. It's really been eating at me since the mysterious crash on the maiden last week and I have tired of moving the sticks around a million times with everything looking in perfect order. So off to the school I went. Took off straight and climbed out nice and scale and flew her in the pattern (gear down) for a couple of minutes. Flew fine, no problems to be found. However - and I noticed this on the maiden - it lacks serious power. Full power felt like 25-30% power tops. I have seen the videos and I KNOW she is supposed to be much faster. I am flying a RT 5500 70C battery and I did calibrate the ESC. I think I heard someone else mention a lack of power. I don't understand what it could be? I did put a ticket into our CS team just for due diligence alone, to document the issues I have had with mine.

So the good news, is she flew without any sign of problems, but the lack of power is disturbing. :Thinking:

Yeah, that is kind of strange on the lack of power, my buddy maidened his today and it has the stock setup and he said he flew around most of the time at 40% throttle, sounds like you do have an issue. I have the 1835kv unit in mine, it has almost unlimited vertical, so I can't say anything bad about the 9 blade.

I got 10 more flights this morning, added more flaps and it flew kind of weird, it acted as if it didn't like those big flaps hanging down, at one point I was doing a pass to check out those big flaps hanging down with gear down, almost lost it again, not sure if I just got to slow or what, it looked plenty fast, it rolled left and started to spiral down, I actually had time to think and said to myself, this is it, it's going in, about 10ft from impact I was able to put in right aileron and a little rudder to straighten it out in time to hit the flaps up switch, pulled out of it and landed with no flaps, it actually landed nicely and held a wheelie for a little bit, very impressed with that. I didn't fly it again, but I did go back to the stock flap setting at 43mm as per the book, not sure what happened on that one, just to make sure I took the same radio that has my F-104 programmed on it with the same kind of RX and it flew fine, so after bypassing the BB with only the gear and lights plugged in I still had some strange issues a couple of times, one time the flaps didn't go down all the way, so I tried to get them to do it again once on the ground and they worked fine, so for kicks I think I will program my other radio which is the same, just to make sure it's not that, well anyway it flew good, not great but still need to get my settings right for what I like to fly with. Happy flying guys and just in case anyone is wondering what brand I fly with. (Futaba for 36yrs). :Cool: