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

[The43rdHammer]

Oh no 🤦♂️

Go ARF+ and salvage rest for spares 👍

That’s some great countryside where you are BTW (that probably wasn’t what you wanted to hear right now was it?)

[Elbee]

[QUOTE=Aros;n304416]Sigh...This one was ALL on me./QUOTE]

OMG. So sorree, no glee for thee, is this 3, mon ami? Best, LB

[Aros]

lol thanks fellas...Stings every time. EPO foam has a very distinct sound when it impacts terra firma. A sound unfortunately I've grown accustomed to hearing more and more in recent years. DOH!

ARF+ here we come. Onward!

[Gary S.]

Been down that road before. Sorry...

[Rc4me21976]

Hey guys quick question. When ordering from calli graphics for this plane do you order 1/11 or 1/12 scale?

[Elbee]

Hey guys quick question. When ordering from calli graphics for this plane do you order 1/11 or 1/12 scale?

R4, She will know if you tell her it's for the Freewing F-18C. Shoot her an email. Best, LB

[steven gubala]

She was flying so great too, sorry

[Hugh Wiedman]

Sigh.

This one was ALL on me. Perfect flight conditions, no wind, good time of day to fly. Placed the RunCam2 on the bottom side facing forward to switch up the view. Took off, everything was going great. Nice and smooth flight and just as I was starting to think about setting up in the pattern to land (according to my timer I had another 90 seconds or so, plenty of time) I noticed a MAJOR power drain.

Uh oh. I was pretty far out at the time so I rushed to get her back into the pattern and by the down wind, I knew I was out of time and it was either ditch in a drainage area behind a fence or try to cut the downwind in half and get her down inside the track PRONTO. Unfortunately when I banked her on a premature base leg she stalled out and all I could do was watch her ogre in helplessly.

The flight itself was under 2 minutes and 20 seconds. My average flight times are over 3 minutes with mAh to spare in the Admiral 6000's I use. The only thing I can think of is I grabbed the wrong battery...One that wasn't freshly charged like I thought it was.

A sobering reminder to ALWAYS use a cell checker on your batteries before flying. And I just got her all dialed in too! Dang it all. So it's either a new fuse or ARF+ for me.

Condolences on the loss a loved one. Unfortunately that's a fact of this "business" that we all get hit with at one time or another. Several years ago I mistakenly put a battery in my Beast Bi-Plane that I had flown with earlier, and after 2 minutes, dead stick. But gliding to a no power landing with that thing is not as big a problem as with a foam EDF. Ever since then, I put a small green round sticker on any battery that I fully charge, and then remove it after a flight. Haven't installed a drained battery since but still check every battery after every flight and before installing a new one. I know that sounds like a solution for the "brain dead", but then that's my world.

[Airguardian]

Sorry Aros... sad to see her go like that. :'(

I loved the music you used for the video though :')

[Mizer67]

Anyone have a fix for the nose gear stalling out and not retracting the nose gear doors?

I tried switching out the retract without success.

Rolling or pulling to inverted works, but I'd rather it work without it.

[Aros]

Condolences on the loss a loved one. Unfortunately that's a fact of this "business" that we all get hit with at one time or another. Several years ago I mistakenly put a battery in my Beast Bi-Plane that I had flown with earlier, and after 2 minutes, dead stick. But gliding to a no power landing with that thing is not as big a problem as with a foam EDF. Ever since then, I put a small green round sticker on any battery that I fully charge, and then remove it after a flight. Haven't installed a drained battery since but still check every battery after every flight and before installing a new one. I know that sounds like a solution for the "brain dead", but then that's my world.

Good advice Hugh Wiedman...Could have used that green sticker idea yesterday, lol. The battery as I have since discovered was technically "charged" but had not been flown since charging in weeks if not months. I grabbed it thinking it was the freshly charged one sitting next to it. Whoops. A very expensive lesson I won't ever repeat.

I guess it's good I decided to hold off giving her coats of mini wax poly gloss last weekend!

[Hugh Wiedman]

Good advice Hugh Wiedman...Could have used that green sticker idea yesterday, lol. The battery as I have since discovered was technically "charged" but had not been flown since charging in weeks if not months. I grabbed it thinking it was the freshly charged one sitting next to it. Whoops. A very expensive lesson I won't ever repeat.

I guess it's good I decided to hold off giving her coats of mini wax poly gloss last weekend!

Hey Aros, another thought. I used to leave some batteries fully charged for weeks, then learned they needed to be discharged and had to hook them up on the bench to a model and run it to discharge if I ever came back from the field without using everything. Then RudyD54 suggested the ISDT 200W Smart Discharger. Got one for something like $70 bucks and discharges a fully charged 8000 mah to storage charge in 10 minutes and keeps them in good condition. This thing has saved me a lot of time as it would take like 4 hours to discharge a single battery on my chargers. Use it at the field as I'm packing up or in the car on the way home and I really like it. Just a thought.

[Manuel Escauriza]

Hey The43rdHammer just saw your Super bee, quite interesting. I just picked up a grey F-18 after watching Air Guardians outstanding videos, which led me to this forum. Are those decals, and if so where did you get them? I'm looking to jazz it up a bit but don't want to try a major project yet and using decals would be nice. Already have a F-15, A-10 and F-16, all mostly grey so looking for a change. Thanks.

[Aros]

Hey Aros, another thought. I used to leave some batteries fully charged for weeks, then learned they needed to be discharged and had to hook them up on the bench to a model and run it to discharge if I ever came back from the field without using everything. Then RudyD54 suggested the ISDT 200W Smart Discharger. Got one for something like $70 bucks and discharges a fully charged 8000 mah to storage charge in 10 minutes and keeps them in good condition. This thing has saved me a lot of time as it would take like 4 hours to discharge a single battery on my chargers. Use it at the field as I'm packing up or in the car on the way home and I really like it. Just a thought.

Very good to know, I will look into that thank you!

Ordered #7 today...Lucky Number 7 on St. Patty's Day...Gotta bring me good luck, right?!?!?

[Hugh Wiedman]

Very good to know, I will look into that thank you!

Ordered #7 today...Lucky Number 7 on St. Patty's Day...Gotta bring me good luck, right?!?!?

Definitely, you've certainly got your allotted mishaps outta the way for a good long time, kind of like getting called in for Jury Duty! You served, now your done with that for at least 10 years (obviously you can tell I just got called in, hey don't they know there's a pandemic out there? Besides, my attitude is hang 'em all so I'd make a great juror!!)

[Elbee]

Hey The43rdHammer.

ME, Welcome to Hobby Squawk. Glad to have you here, Sir. Looking forward to watching your build, so please post pictures as you progress. Best, LB

[fredmdbud]

Sigh.

This one was ALL on me. Perfect flight conditions, no wind, good time of day to fly. Placed the RunCam2 on the bottom side facing forward to switch up the view. Took off, everything was going great. Nice and smooth flight and just as I was starting to think about setting up in the pattern to land (according to my timer I had another 90 seconds or so, plenty of time) I noticed a MAJOR power drain.

Uh oh. I was pretty far out at the time so I rushed to get her back into the pattern and by the down wind, I knew I was out of time and it was either ditch in a drainage area behind a fence or try to cut the downwind in half and get her down inside the track PRONTO. Unfortunately when I banked her on a premature base leg she stalled out and all I could do was watch her ogre in helplessly.

The flight itself was under 2 minutes and 20 seconds. My average flight times are over 3 minutes with mAh to spare in the Admiral 6000's I use. The only thing I can think of is I grabbed the wrong battery...One that wasn't freshly charged like I thought it was.

A sobering reminder to ALWAYS use a cell checker on your batteries before flying. And I just got her all dialed in too! Dang it all. So it's either a new fuse or ARF+ for me.

And if your radio setup also supports battery voltage telemetry, use it.

If your nosegear and mount aren't messed up, a new fuse (and nosecone) is the way to go, but can't go wrong with ARF+ with extras.

[Polyphren]

Hi together
at the moment I‘m trying to install a redundant power supply. Does anybody know the limit of the servos? Can I directly connect a 2s-LiPo of do I need a BEC between the LiPo and the receiver?
Best,
Eric

[fredmdbud]

Hi together
at the moment I‘m trying to install a redundant power supply. Does anybody know the limit of the servos? Can I directly connect a 2s-LiPo of do I need a BEC between the LiPo and the receiver?
Best,
Eric

Check your receiver specs for minimum/maximum power supply voltage. Spectrum receivers are 3.5V minimum, but for voltage sag under load 4.8V or higher is recommended. Be aware that this is also the voltage that will be supplied to the servos and retracts by the receiver (common power bus, + and GND) - some retracts don't like anything above 5V (a 2S battery at storage voltage is about 7.6V). If you are referring to the stock digital servos, they can handle 6V per spec.

If you just want to power the motor and the electronics separately, yes, you can connect a 2S battery to a BEC and plug that into an available channel slot in the receiver. Just make sure you disconnect the red wire on the servo cable from the ESC (bypass the built-in one).

[The43rdHammer]

Hey The43rdHammer just saw your Super bee, quite interesting. .... I'm looking to jazz it up a bit but don't want to try a major project yet and using decals would be nice.

Hi Manuel Escauriza thank you, I guess I should post the pictures on here but didn't want to bombard the forum with them, I'll post them shortly.

They are Callie Graphics, but my strong advice to you would be to only choose these if you're up for a major project. I started out on this scheme as I bought the F-18 at around about the same time my wife qualified a Bee Keeper and she got her first hive (Elbee 😊) Anyway, the F-18 came out beautifully in the end but it really pushed my painting skills to the absolute limit and fitting very large vinyl decals is extremely difficult (at least for me it was). My advice for something quick would be to paint the tails and go for one of the standard fleet schemes (Fist of the Fleet or similar). That being said, Callie did a truely amazing job with the decals and I was honoured that she recognised my labours by adding my Year One Super Bee to her website:

Callie Year One Super Bee

Hey The43rdHammer ... after watching Air Guardians outstanding videos...

Yeah Airguardian has that effect, we all try to kid ourselves that we can fly as well as he does 😁