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

[janmb]

But yeah my biggest hate is expo. Flew a mates plane once and he had loads of expo and my god it was like stirring a thick soup with the sticks. Just horrible. Could never get on with expo on any model. Again just my personal preference.

Expo is an awesome feature, but just like everything else, it is awesome when done right.

Too little/no expo means cheating yourself for a sweet combination of comfort, control and enough throws when needed.
Too much means exactly what you wrote - a hopelessly mushy feeling that makes you feel completely disconnected. Not pleasant at all. Also means the sensitivity kicks in super hard toward the extremes of the stick.


On this particular topic, there is one thing to consider though:

This model (and quite a few others) have a pretty significant builtin negative expo coming from the servo arm / rudder horn geometry. On the F-18, both the elevator servo horn and elevator horn are perpendicular when the surface is neutral. The further out from neutral you are, the less perpendicular both the servo and rudder horn becomes. The effect is a simple cosine of the angle, so 1:1 near neutral and less and less as the surface deflects. So in fact, even if what you are seeking is a totally linear stick to surface relationship, you should probably add quite a bit of positive expo (or negative in the case of silly futaba lol) to achieve that.

In short, the default is not linear, it is negative.

[janmb]

Good choice. I love my Avanti. Love how well my minion pilots suit it too lol

It definitely is.

I have a student who has flown one for a little while now as his first EDF, working his way up to turbines, so I've had the pleasure of playing around with that model a bit.

One thing I really like that freewing has been doing for the last year or so is the trend into more simple, lightweight setups. The Avanti and F-22 are great examples of that. There was a period where the trend was to add more and more features, to the point of killing flight characteristics completely. The Goshawk being a prime example of that. Really prefer the way things are heading these days.

[Carlbrainiac]

Expo is an awesome feature, but just like everything else, it is awesome when done right.

Too little/no expo means cheating yourself for a sweet combination of comfort, control and enough throws when needed.
Too much means exactly what you wrote - a hopelessly mushy feeling that makes you feel completely disconnected. Not pleasant at all. Also means the sensitivity kicks in super hard toward the extremes of the stick.


On this particular topic, there is one thing to consider though:

This model (and quite a few others) have a pretty significant builtin negative expo coming from the servo arm / rudder horn geometry. On the F-18, both the elevator servo horn and elevator horn are perpendicular when the surface is neutral. The further out from neutral you are, the less perpendicular both the servo and rudder horn becomes. The effect is a simple cosine of the angle, so 1:1 near neutral and less and less as the surface deflects. So in fact, even if what you are seeking is a totally linear stick to surface relationship, you should probably add quite a bit of positive expo (or negative in the case of silly futaba lol) to achieve that.

In short, the default is not linear, it is negative.

Interesting. And yeah I fly and love Futaba but have never understood why it's always backwards lol. Always have to reverse my throttle channel for every esc.

[Evan D]

Good post Jan. I assume that’s your first name??

[janmb]

Interesting. And yeah I fly and love Futaba but have never understood why it's always backwards lol. Always have to reverse my throttle channel for every esc.

Yeah, Futaba has a lot of quirks lol

The reversed throttle, reversed expo, and insisting on calling flaps "camber" comes to mind. Fair enough, they are strictly right, but they are also insisting on speaking a language the vast majority will struggle with.

[janmb]

Good post Jan. I assume that’s your first name??

Yep. .

[fredmdbud]

Just because something apparently works "ok" doesn't mean there aren't objectively better ways.

Personally, I think it's a pity that Freewing releases these great, FF birds with a totally non-scale, non-ideal setup as standard, when doing it right would be relatively easy.

You have your opinion, i have mine. Each can draw their own conclusions. Whatever.

You have your setup that works for you, I have mine, no matter what’s a given. Everyone is happy, it’s all opinion and advice, everyone has one. ‘Nough said.

[DCORSAIR]

Interesting. And yeah I fly and love Futaba but have never understood why it's always backwards lol. Always have to reverse my throttle channel for every esc.

Been with Futaba 36 yrs and it's not backwards, all the others are backwards to me and I'm a thumb flyer with no expo or dual rates......:):) Just poking fun guys, don't get a brand war started please.

I now have 25 flights on the Hornet, got it dialed in nicely and it can be landed a lot slower than you think, I slow her down on the downwind leg with full flaps in but I keep my base leg and turn to final kind of fast, then I pull power almost all the way off, it will get slow really quick so be careful, then I add the power back in and set up a nice AOA and it just mushes right on in, keep the nose up and bring in the power as needed to a nice flare, very short roll out, got it figured out once I got my flaps setting right and the up elevator mixed in with the full flaps....:Cool: Have to admit though, I hated this jet at first with all the little gremlins I had, but it was worth the work and rewiring some things, seems all good now, might have to do a gray one soon, already ordered my Callie graphics for one...........LOL

[Phantom]

Awesome !! Now all you need are a few little things like Functional LEFlaps and a Functional Airbrake to bring your Scale AeroModel a little bit get closer to that 'Real Thing' you are referring to. Cheers !!

Bobaroo,

Absolutely love your work! Its inspirational!

[fredmdbud]

Today's flights, tweaking an Eagle Tree Guardian II for landings

[Aros]

Look, stock set up works otherwise we wouldn't recommend it. Now for you hard core scale aficionados a scale mix is absolutely wonderful (like Steve has going) but is it necessary to fly this model successfully? Not hardly. I have flown this model with the stock set up and it's great. But myself being the fan I am of this jet I want more so I fully plan on stealing, er, borrowing Steve's SPM file to get this model flying closer to scale in all her configurations. Not because it's necessary but because it's FUN!

[fredmdbud]

Exactly :Cool:

[Jetman64]

When that Carbon Z gets slow you will like those high aileron settings...

I’ll let you know after I take her out in Tuesday, it’ll be her maiden (I’m only calling it a maiden, because it’s her first flight). I never fear flying any of these types of birds for the first time, there just so easy to fly.

[davegee]

Always trying to learn. My earlier mixes had some issues with the trims and so after the maiden flight up at NEFI I just went to the stock configuration. Flew great that way but I still wanted to have FS flaps so with assistance from davegees friend Shaquille who set his bird up mine is once again ready to try but this time there are no crazy trim issues. Shaquille flies a gorgeous SkyMaster F-18 Super Hornet and really seems to know his stuff. I greatly appreciate his help and patience walking me through this.

Glad you got the setup ok, Steve. Shaq and I flew my plane this evening, three flights which makes a total of 8 to date. I flew the last two tonight. Went very well, the only thing that alarmed me a bit was when I added full flaps on downwind leg the plane pitched down appreciably, but was easy to recover. When we flew it slower on downwind leg for landing and extended the full span flaps, we didn’t get that big momentary down pitch. I’m happy with it so far. We are going to next experiment with tow- in on the rudders when flaps are down.

[Aros]

Nothing fancy, just a decent flight on my repaired F-18. Even after the crash and repairs she still flies wonderfully.

[fredmdbud]

Had this setup on a LX F/A-18F Super Hornet back in March of 2018 - Taranis transmitter and 8CH receiver plus sBus channel extension

[Visva11]

Had this setup on a LX F/A-18F Super Hornet back in March of 2018 - Taranis transmitter and 8CH receiver plus sBus channel extension

Hi friend, would like to ask you if this lx f18 is any good? How would u rate it? Some reviews if possible...
theres one local hobby shop that is giving a sale price and I'm still not convinced to pick it up after hearing a lot of issues...

What's your advice? It's of epp foam right if not mistaken? Does the landing gear hold on?

Thanks in advance. By the way I have already have my freewing f18c BA ordered and waiting for shipping.

[fredmdbud]

Hi friend, would like to ask you if this lx f18 is any good? How would u rate it? Some reviews if possible...
theres one local hobby shop that is giving a sale price and I'm still not convinced to pick it up after hearing a lot of issues...

What's your advice? It's of epp foam right if not mistaken? Does the landing gear hold on?

Thanks in advance. By the way I have already have my freewing f18c BA ordered and waiting for shipping.

We can take this to PM, since this particular model is off-topic to this thread.

[HellHathNoFury]

Nothing fancy, just a decent flight on my repaired F-18. Even after the crash and repairs she still flies wonderfully.

Did you figure out the Thrust problem??

[janmb]

Been with Futaba 36 yrs and it's not backwards, all the others are backwards to me and I'm a thumb flyer with no expo or dual rates......:):) Just poking fun guys, don't get a brand war started please.

I now have 25 flights on the Hornet, got it dialed in nicely and it can be landed a lot slower than you think, I slow her down on the downwind leg and the base leg and turn to final are kind of fast then I pull power almost all the way off, it will get slow really quick so be careful, then I add the power back in and set up a nice AOA and it just mushes right on in, keep the nose up and bring in the power as needed to a nice flare, very short roll out, got it figured out once I got my flaps setting right and the up elevator mixed in with the full flaps....:Cool: Have to admit though, I hated this jet at first with all the little gremlins I had, but it was worth the work and rewiring some things, seems all good now, might have to do a gray one soon, already ordered my Callie graphics for one...........LOL

Sounds like textbook landing technique to me - well done!