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

[Elbee]

Finally almost finished with the F-18 Corona Hornet Canadian Demo livery. (I'll post some photos when that's completed). Yes, I know a demonstration team doesn't carry ordinance, but the missiles are just too cool to leave off, so no snide remarks.

++=+

Hugh, Awe-inspiring, stunning, and gorgeous. Tamms said it is prettier than the one I'm doing and I agree, so there ya have it. Bravo Zulu, Sir. Best, LB

[Evan D]

My Blue Angel F-4 has F-18's in the shield... Don't care. :)

[Hugh Wiedman]

uscanuck1xa with your keen eye, surprised you missed the biggest deviation from scale. If you look at the photo from the top, look at the large maple leaf. The white stem should not go all the way to the top through the last top leaf. The graphics for that come in 2 pieces, split down the middle. We got them lined up well when putting them on, but it still showed a small break line along the top going over the areas that are lifted for the antennae, so my CO and Chief Designer decided it would look better to run the white stem all the way, and she outranks me significantly. Without her help, the graphics would have looked like they were applied by a drunk so couldn't argue.

[uscanuck1xa]

That's interesting though about the roundels, just used what Callie sent me. Printed tons of photos of the jet off the internet to help me set it up and I never noticed the difference on those. Amazing that uscanuck1xa picked that up. You Canucks are sharp eyed dudes, EH? I actually feel better knowing I'm not exactly scale, I like being different and it would give the true scale modelers a black eye having me in their group. And I have to fly this thing after all that work, besides, I originally ordered 2 sets of graphics from Callie "just in case".

Just to be clear - I'm not trying to be disparaging at all - it is a beautiful piece of work!! And I'm no scale policeman by a far stretch!! I have twenty-two "Canadianized" RC planes at last count from several eras and Callie has supplied the custom graphics for each of them. Sometimes it is a bit of back and forth of sending various photos to get them quite right but she does an excellent job! I try to get the models as close as possible to the actual plane although I make trade-offs on all of them on getting it scale versus the effort involved to do so. I'm not much of a modder so about the best I can do is try to get the decals as close as I can! I have learned much about the history and evolution of RCAF markings through my various projects and I find researching and learning about each of the subjects to be rewarding in its own right. It has been 40 years since I was an Air Cadet in Nova Scotia when I first gained my interest in this area.

Looking forward to seeing some flight reports!

[Waconut]

I finished up the rivets today and I have sprayed 2 coats of Polycrylic to give a good smooth surface to apply the graphics to.
Good thing I stocked up on liquor before the shutdown. I am going to sit back and relax with a nice tall Long Island.

Hopefully the graphics go on well tomorrow.
Later!!
Anthony

[uscanuck1xa]

uscanuck1xa with your keen eye, surprised you missed the biggest deviation from scale. If you look at the photo from the top, look at the large maple leaf. The white stem should not go all the way to the top through the last top leaf. The graphics for that come in 2 pieces, split down the middle. We got them lined up well when putting them on, but it still showed a small break line along the top going over the areas that are lifted for the antennae, so my CO and Chief Designer decided it would look better to run the white stem all the way, and she outranks me significantly. Without her help, the graphics would have looked like they were applied by a drunk so couldn't argue.

Hahaha - you are right - I didn't notice that at all! Also the serial number should be 188734 rather than the 761 and 188967 that Callie includes in her set. It does look like she has the gray under wing roundels correct but I haven't seen a photo of them applied on any model yet.

My base gray Freewing F-18 is still in the box and I had intentions of making this version but still am not sure if I want to take it on with all it's complexities. The 2019 CF-18 demo had only tail art and I suspect there may not be a 2020 demo given the COVID-19 crisis so still not sure yet what I will do as a Canadian scheme.

I did get the E-flite F-18 set up as a CF-188b but even that had its issues with trying to get close shades of low-viz roundel markings. Below is my F-18 and few of my completed RCAF projects - currently working on the Avios Spitfire as flown by Buzz Beurling in Malta.

[Hugh Wiedman]

uscanuck1xa Don't worry, I didn't take anything you said in a disparaging way. BTW, nice squadron you have there. If you've seen any of my other "customization's", you'll find that I am the furthest from a "scale modeler" you can get. I use various paint schemes and constantly mix Callie's graphics from different liveries and even different planes on whatever I am creating. I usually search through her inventory, and then have to send her a shopping list of only specific graphics from a bunch of different liveries. When I repainted the Stinger, I even sent her a bunch of images I wanted and she created custom graphics for that. This F-18 is about as close to scale as I would ever get (only because it is so different visually than anything I could come up with) and I also did the F-4 in the Blue Angels, without making up anything new. Everything else I have looks like Jimmy Hendrix designed them. If you've seen my F-16, I actually did 4 different liveries (none to scale) by doing 4 different tails and 6 different nose cones so I can have a "different" one each time I take it out.

I've wanted to do something in a "Canada" motif for a while and when I saw this, I was hooked. Got my love for flying in Canada, as we had a fly-in cabin NE of Lake of the Woods in Ontario for almost 35 years. Got to fly with some great Bush pilots all over Ontario, Manitoba and even up north of the tree line in a Twin Beach or a Beaver on floats and became good friends with the pilots so they would occasionally let me fly (but of course never land or take-off, they ain't stupid).

[Waconut]

I just finished up applying all the graphics to my F/A-18. The fins were a PITA as I thought they would be. It took me 8 hours to apply the graphics. It has been raining here for several hours, looks like it is getting ready to stop, when it does I will get some pictures and post.
Later!!
Anthony

[Waconut]

Well the rain will not be letting up today or tomorrow. Here is one pic I took. I will get some better pics when the weather clears up.

[Pogo]

Hugh, your Bug is just gorgeous, and being a Canadian I'll freely admit to being biased! 6 years ago I spent a great many hours trying to turn a Haoye Hornet (44 " ws) into an 8s viable flier and it turned out ok in the end, but never again. This demo scheme was from 2004 or thereabouts, celebrating the squadrons 60th anniversary- I liked the livery and it was my 60th too so it seemed fitting, and of course Callie did the vinyl.
All this to say that I'm glad Canada does one of our Hornet's each year in such cool schemes, and that non-Canucks (i.e. you, Hugh!) appreciate and painstakingly re-create them!
Tom

[Elbee]

Pogo, Hugh Wiedman Great looking Hornets. What a pair, eh!!. Again, Bravo Zulu to both of you. Best, LB

[Elbee]

Legacy Lovers, NG Doors functioning finally, neither simple nor elegant, but done. Best, LB

[Aros]

Great looking birds gents, and whopper of a job there LB!

[Alpha]

Waconut Pogo Superb bugs, gents!
Elbee "neither simple nor elegant, but done" --that's my middle name.

[Waconut]

Hi guys,
Well it did quit raining. I was able to get some shots outside. The colors look much better in natural light. Tomorrow I will work on hooking up all the control surfaces and installing the afterburners.
later!!
Anthony

[Hugh Wiedman]

Waconut outstanding looking bird, hope you get it out soon. We're still in lockdown so all I can do is sit and dream about it.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hugh, your Bug is just gorgeous, and being a Canadian I'll freely admit to being biased! 6 years ago I spent a great many hours trying to turn a Haoye Hornet (44 " ws) into an 8s viable flier and it turned out ok in the end, but never again. This demo scheme was from 2004 or thereabouts, celebrating the squadrons 60th anniversary- I liked the livery and it was my 60th too so it seemed fitting, and of course Callie did the vinyl.
All this to say that I'm glad Canada does one of our Hornet's each year in such cool schemes, and that non-Canucks (i.e. you, Hugh!) appreciate and painstakingly re-create them!
Tom

Another outstanding Canadian scheme, wish we could fly them together. I'm not completely a "non-Canuck", had a fly-in cabin for 35 years in western Ontario, east of Lake of the Woods (and used to spend 2-3 months there in Spring and Fall, kind of like the Canadian snowbirds do down here in winter), so I'm maybe 1/3 Canuck, which was the main reason I wanted to do a Canadian livery.

[Waconut]

Waconut outstanding looking bird, hope you get it out soon. We're still in lockdown so all I can do is sit and dream about it.

Thanks Hugh,
I have been flying R/C for 30 years but I have not flown any the last four years. I switched jobs and then developed major back issues. Anyhow I decided to get back to flying and discovered these Freewing jets and have built 4 in the past 3 months. I need to get some flying in on some prop planes to get my thumbs loosened up before I try flying one of my jets.
I need to decide which jet gets flown first between the A-10 and the F-86.
Later!!
Anthony

[Hugh Wiedman]

OK, it's official, this turned out to be one heavy bird. With the extra weight of the 3D cockpit and my "Arnold" size pilot, the paint, gloss urethane, graphics and afterburner, she weighed in at 3,203 grams (w/o battery). The cockpit alone added an extra 150 grams. The stock F-18 is 2,640 grams, so that's almost 20 ounces heavier (1.25 pounds)!!! I should have just climbed aboard myself instead of putting a plastic pilot in it! Be interesting to see if she get's her rear end in the air. The stock F-4 is only 2,640 grams (and has the same stock outrunner) and my "heavy" F-16 is 3,381 grams, but the F-16 has the 12 blade 4068-1835Kv inrunner to push her at a good clip. Definitely need to maiden this on asphalt instead of grass. I may have to install the same inrunner as the F-16, but it's currently out of stock.

Fortunately, I was able to move the blue board back about 10 mm (which allowed me to move the battery back even further) and the ESC back about the same, so instead of having to add almost 3 1/2 ounces of lead to the tail to get it to balance at 88 mm, I was able to cut it down to 1.5 ounces that I put in the elevator servo bays. Now I can push it to 92 mm if need be, but that's it. I located the receiver on a platform above the battery from a picture that I think was posted by xviper of what he did, thanks, would have never thought of that and can't imagine any other way to mount the receiver since I have to put the battery so far back.

[Evan D]

Putting the receiver or antennae near the battery is usually a big no-no...