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

[Aros]

Congrats Hugh Wiedman ! What a beaut! Killer shots Airguardian!

[Airguardian]

Thanks Aros!
Here go a few more from the latest flight session!

[Hugh Wiedman]

Airguardian Outstanding photos, of course it takes just the right pilot to get the aircraft in those positions in the first place!

[Airguardian]

Thanks Hugh!
These are frames taken from my lastest flight videos... hopefully coming up sometime soon, so there's a teaser! ;)

[Airguardian]

Something I meant to upload earlier... my battery positioning and securing method with foam on the Hornet.

Packs are 6S 5Ah Panther Li-Pos (875g) pushed all the way back.

Notice the use of foam to block the pack in place against the tray velcro strip.

[Corsair nut]

Put 4 flights on the new gear and paint and i LOVE IT!!! took some tweaking to get the gear going up in air but once i sorted that..it flew awesome!!

[Aros]

Congrats! Wow Corsair nut I cannot get over how sweet your BA looks! I would swear it was composite!

[Hugh Wiedman]

Congrats! Wow Corsair nut I cannot get over how sweet your BA looks! I would swear it was composite!

Composite!! I was looking for the rest of the team to roll up along side in the photo it looks so real! I could swear I saw the pilot give the "Good to Go" Salute!

[Aros]

Composite!! I was looking for the rest of the team to roll up along side in the photo it looks so real! I could swear I saw the pilot give the "Good to Go" Salute!

You're right! That first shot you would be hard pressed not thinking it wasn't full scale! Wow thats a beaut! Major BA envy over here!

[Gvasiloff]

Put 4 flights on the new gear and paint and i LOVE IT!!! took some tweaking to get the gear going up in air but once i sorted that..it flew awesome!!

Corsair nut, did you program in the full span flaps, or just pose the aircraft like that for the photo? I programmed in full span flaps (half & full) on mine along with tailerons and rudders that toe-in (for half flaps only on takeoff) and it flies like a dream. Looks super scale and lands like a feather. No tip stalls with the setup either. It is actually more stable in the roll axis with the full span flaps. I added 100% differential on the ailerons at full flaps so that you only get up aileron with the flaperons and the tailerons augment the roll. I'm also running an A3 super3 dual aileron gyro though and it's rock solid.

[Airguardian]

That's actually surprising (that the plane flies so well with full span flaps).

Is that with gyro on?
And if so, have you tried the same with the gyro off?

May have to test it out myself!

[Gvasiloff]

That's actually surprising (that the plane flies so well with full span flaps).

Is that with gyro on?
And if so, have you tried the same with the gyro off?

May have to test it out myself!

If tried it with gyro on and off. Obviously it's going to be a little smoother with gyro on. My full flap position is based on full down aileron deflection. I simply programmed the flaps to be flush with the ailerons in that position. So with full span landing flaps, its going to require a considerable amount of nose up compensation which i have programed in to deploy with the flaps. I have the flaps deploy over 3 seconds. To make turns nice and coordinated, i have about 10% rudder mixed in with the ailerons, 100% aileron differential (very little up aileron only), and about a 25% taileron mix. This is very scale to the full size hornet. Their rudders on the full size jet move a lot with lateral stick inputs in the landing configuration to keep it in coordinated flight. I see F-18s land every day in my current job on the ship ;)

For takeoff flaps, I did the same thing but at about 60% of maximum down aileron deflection. Additionally, I have each rudder on a separate channel and mixed each one with the flaps (activated in takeoff flaps only) to toe-in at near maximum deflection. This is a scale feature that the full size hornet uses for takeoff only (activated by a computer when it senses weight on wheels with the flaps down) for extra authority to rotate the nose at slower speeds (such as a bolter on a carrier landing). It really looks cool on this model when you do it and the model with smoothly rotate on it's own in this configuration, just like the real jet. Knowing plenty of legacy hornet pilots and having flown the real simulator myself, the hornet actually requires no input form the pilot on takeoff to rotate. They simply hit a "takeoff trim" button, slam the throttles forward, and when the jet is ready, it rotates on its own. Pretty cool.

[Evan D]

I did full span on mine, along with crow, tailerons and rudder air brakes. I didn't put in the full span flaps to replicate the full scale, but more programed it all in to see what gave me a better flying experience. I never use the full span flaps as I found them unstable compared to using regular flaps or crow and rudder air brakes.

Gvasiloff, rating and ship?

[Gvasiloff]

I did full span on mine, along with crow, tailerons and rudder air brakes. I didn't put in the full span flaps to replicate the full scale, but more programed it all in to see what gave me a better flying experience. I never use the full span flaps as I found them unstable compared to using regular flaps or crow and rudder air brakes.

Gvasiloff, rating and ship?

CDR, Pilot, currently writing you from the USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70)...

USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) added a new photo. - USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) (facebook.com)

[Airguardian]

Thank you for the detailed reply, may test some of that out in due time.
I recently got the wing-PCB breakdown boards for the F-18 / MiG-29 so I can bypass the blue box entirely and control each servo individually.

Will see when I come around to install them though, but it's something I definitely want to try! :)

[Hugh Wiedman]

I recently got the wing-PCB breakdown boards for the F-18 / MiG-29 so I can bypass the blue box entirely and control each servo individually.
:)

What are the wing-PCB breakdown boards? I have each of my wing ailerons & flaps servos plugging directly into my RX on both of my Hornets, primarily because I experienced an issue with flaps on my first Hornet and couldn't get both to work in the air (worked fine on the ground) even with taking flap deployment to 0. I just removed the existing board on each wing and plug the wing servos directly into leads that go to the RX. Not as quick and easy as the stock setup, but have not had a problem since bypassing that main control board. By the way, I've had issues with several FW/FL planes with intermittent flap deployment (B-24/Avanti/F-18) that all have the circuit control board (as opposed to the actual blue box). Have yet to have a problem with any with the actual Blue Boxes. Just a thought.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Airguardian if there's a board out there that fits into the Hornet wing for the aileron and flaps, I'm all ears. Just didn't need the extra wires of a ribbon cable and needed to bypass the circuit board. Fortunately, there are no wing lights that need to go through it to reduce voltage on. I have a tendency to do things kind of "half a..sed" so anything that works better than what I've got I'm interested. This is my current "Rube Goldberg" (a distinctly American 60's/70's term that many of you may not get) set-up:

[Airguardian]

I mean the small little green PCBs that come on the wing side which have a ribbon cable input on one end and servo connectors on the other.

I think you can supposedly use those on the opposite side of the ribbon cable to put out individual servo leads again, so they don't get mixed up in the BB. Would have the benefit of still being able to connect the wing using a single connector which is convenient.

[Airguardian]

New video sporting the new livery... lovin' it!

[Aros]

Ya fly her like a champ!