The Most Detailed Fly Fly T45 Build

[ddsjoseph]

Its very satisfying to unbox a Freewing model from MotionRC and fly your edf jet within a short period of time. But it wasn't long ago when he had to build our on jets from KITs and place the electronics of our own choosing. Building a jet from scratch also has its own rewards. I own just about every 80 and 90mm jet that Motion RC carries, including the T45. I like the Freewing T45 with its super scale attributes and superb electronics, however , in my opinion, the jet is too heavy and you always have to come in hot for landings, otherwise it will stall. The Fly Fly BAe Hawk can easily be converted to T45 and although not as scale,it is much bigger and flies much lighter. The Fly Fly model has great flight characteristics and can be flown with ease by novice and expert pilots alike. For this reason I ended up building 4 of them last year for me and some of my friends. Mine was a 6S version with a Camo Paint job and is now for sale and hanging at Robin's Hobby . This time I decided to build two more T45s, one with 8S and the other ^S set up for a friend of mine.
Here are some of the photos of the build and I will try to include all the details of the builds and point out some of the mistakes that I made and in the past

[Patrnflyr]

Do you think this plane is more reasonable wingloading-wise for a turbine?

[ddsjoseph]

Yes , for a small turbine the wing loading will be adequate only if a wing spar is added as I have. In later posts, I will show some photos of the added spar. The plane is made of very stiff EPS and is thick enough to handle high G forces. It is a very versatile air frame. Your only challenge will be finding the sweet spot to install your fuel tank for proper CG.

[ddsjoseph]

Here is a sneak peak at what the Jet looks like before it it completed.

[ddsjoseph]

This KIT is sold by General Hobby in the US and just raised the price from $115 to $150. The only thing from this KIT worthy of keeping is the airframe. All other parts including the stock landing gear and accessories are pure garbage and should not be used for the build. The standard of parts supplied with the KIT are from 10 years ago and serve no purpose in today's high tech and high quality era of Freeewing and HSD foam jets.
Here is a list of all the parts that I used to upgrade this jet to modern standards. Almost all the parts are available at MotionRC. As we all know, MotionRC is second to none, when it comes to customer service and parts supply. So that makes this build a whole lot easier to deal with. It is not a difficult build and can be done by just about anyone.

1. 90MM EDF/motor and ESC (130Amp +) of your choice
2. Freewing F4 Landing Gears (Main and Nose gear)---
3. Freewing F4 Landing Gear mounting blocks
4. Freewing A10 twin 80mm Control Board Set (complete with wires)
5. 6 17g meal gear Freewing servos (Elevators, Flaps, and Ailerons)
6. 2 9g Servos, metal gear Freewing ( Rudder and Steering)
7. A4 Skyhawk 80mm---Plastic Flaps (set C)
8. Freewing T45---Tail Hook (plastic parts)
9. Freewing T45 --Decal Sheet
10. Freewing F16 90mm --Elevator Mounting Pieces ($9.99)
11. Freewing Control Horns (Type E)
12. Dubro Standard and Small Nylon hinges
13. Freewing A10 80mm ---Pushrod set

[ddsjoseph]

The Hinges on the stock model are taped up with packing tape, which is liable to come off during flight and cause a crash. I pealed the tape out and replaced them with Dubro Nylon hinges. The Fly Fly Kit does not come with a functioning rudder and you will have to cut out the rudder and place the hinges yourself. The elevators come with an L shaped rod that is supposed to be glued on the under side of the elevator. I think it is a stupid design and will come unglued under high G forces during flight. To fix that problem I inlayed the plastic hinge parts from Freewing F16 90mm..

[ddsjoseph]

The Landing Gear Mounts are from The Freewing F4 Phantom. The main Gear mounts can be placed in the same spot as the stock gears. The foam has to be slightly carved to accommodate the proper fit. The Nose gear is a bit more cumbersome to place. You'd have to use minimum amount of hot glue to stabilize the plastic mount in the proper position, then work around it to provide strength and rigidity. I used a card board cut out to make the template for the balsa wood used in reinforcing the Nose Gear Mount.

[ddsjoseph]

This Fly Fly KIT does not come with flaps, therefore to add flaps, I used Freewing A4 hidden flaps. The wings have a skin that covers the underside. Before covering the wings,, I placed balsa wood inside the wing for the flap mounts . You will see the wood mounts in the photos. The flaps will be glued in place after the completion of the build.

[ddsjoseph]

This model does not come with a wing spar. To add a wing spar, I used a belt sander to sharpen the tip at 45 degrees. This allowed the spar to be used as a drill bit at the same time. It is not necessary to have a one piece wing spar that joins the two halves of the wing. The two halves are joined together with stock wood pieces on the top side of the wing. The wings are made of very thick and rigid EPS foam. The outer 1/2 of the wing still has some flex without the carbon wing spar. The center foam is very thick and therefore it is not critical to have a one piece carbon spar. One piece spar would be very difficult to install without warping the wings as they are joined together.
I used Gorilla Glue to place the Carbon spar since the foaming action helps with retention and grip with the foam.

[ddsjoseph]

[ddsjoseph]

Freewing A10 twin 80mm Control Board Set (complete with wires) was used to make the wings easy to connect to the fuselage. There are two small circuit boards that the Flap and aileron servo wires attach to. Those Sub Panels (for lack of a better word) were left inside the wings. From those Sub Panels the wire harnesses were routed out .

[Alpha]

I'm following this thread, thanks for posting, ddsjoseph. I owned all the Fly Fly models at one point. The Hunter and F-100 were my favorite, but the Mirage and Hawk were fun, too! I didn't have good luck with the MB-339, however.

[ddsjoseph]

The fuselage comes in four pieces. The front part has left and right pieces and the rear section has a right and left pieces as well . To assemble the fuselage, I glued the front sections together then the right side of the rear fuselage to it. Once the glue is set, then assemble the Motor (with Mylar tube attached ) and ESC. The stock ESC is designed to go under the belly of the jet. It is not a practical area to run all the electrical wires.. I mounted the ESC in the upper part of the fuselage right behind the canopy . I created vent holes from the intake area so the ESC can be cooled.. If you zoom in the photo, you will see the cooling holes placed in the foam where the ESC is to be mounted.The servo wires from the Rudder and elevators run through the ESC space and into the fuselage.

[ddsjoseph]

Once the fuselage is all glued together, the motor and ESC assembly can not be removed without any foam surgery. The assembled fuselage needed to be painted so it could look like a T45, however, this is EPS foam and regular spray paints from Home Depot would melt the foam. The propellant in the acrylic spray paints is acetone based and melts the foam on contact. The spray paint needed to be water based. In my past builds I used to use Home Depot Bear Paint mixed with 20% Isopropyl Alcohol. The paint was placed in a spray gun attached to a compressor. ThIs paint added another pound to the entire build It was too heavy and I looked for an alternative..
I decided to use a water based spray paint called LIQUITEX Titanium white. It costs $6 a can and I used 3 cans per jet. The red paint was color matched at Home Depot and since it didn't cover much of the plane, weight was not a big concern. The plastic A4 flaps were painted as well but kept the red underside to match the color scheme of the plane.

[ddsjoseph]

The Jet is finished assembly and need to hook up my gyro and RX. If the weather permits it will Maiden this Saturday

[ddsjoseph]

Hey Alpha,
I agree that Fly Fly models can be fun. I have them all including the Mirage which I built over a year ago . It is a fantastic jet.. Here's the link to my build.

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc...tart-to-finish

I recently finished rebuilding an old F100 8S but was quick to find out how nose heavy and under powered it was. I ended up selling it off to a guy who planned on placing a turbine in it

I have two brand new F100s in a box and that will be my next build. I have both EPO and EPS versions. I plan on building the EPS version and will most likely post it here.

[Patrnflyr]

It’s such a shame that the FW T-45 has such a high wing loading. I wish they’d come out with a V2 that has all the added stuff like leading edge slats, airbrake etc gone

[ddsjoseph]

Here is what the finished Jet looks like. I used a Freewing 8S F4 Phantom motor with RC Geek after burner. Hope this build inspires some of you to build one just like it. The performance of this jet won't disappoint you.