Official Freewing Twin 70mm AL37 Airliner Thread

[Wild Man]

Wildman Thanks. I apparently missed that while digging through all 100 pages. I am 99% sure I'll be doing that same mod in the very near future.

Your welcome Sir. When I see mods like that I Have a note book I put it in I write down what it is and the post # and page I seen it on. saves a lot of time looking if I ever need it. It's like surfing the web and book marking things you may want to reference later

[salali]

What dual rates is everyone using for aileron, flaps, elevator and rudder? The manual is recommending the same high and low rate for aileron and elevator. Is this correct? I'm a little confused about the recommend flap setup. It appears there is only 1 setting for high and low rates for flaps. I can't find the recommended D/R for take off and landing flaps.

I would appreciate if someone is willing to share your setup.

[Wild Man]

The two Flap settings that are recommended starting points they have come up with during their testing of this plane. The Low rate is normally used as take off and the High rate is normally used for landings For your first flights. Then you can change them if you want more or less on both. Also they recommend mixing down elevator in with the flaps to keep it in level flight when the flaps are deployed. Here again this is just the recommended setting to start with. So I would start with their recommended throws. Then fine tune from there t for your own preference Every Pilot has their own settings and the planes will not all fly the same just to many variables evolved. Such as, your finale Aircraft weight, CG, Density altitude, elevation of flying site etc. You will love this plane I love flying mine, flies like a huge Trainer. So finish it and get out and have Fun

[GliderGuy]

I would appreciate if someone is willing to share your setup.

If you fly scale and no aerobatics, the dual rates are a non-requirement. Pretty sure you will find that no flap/elevator mix will be needed. I set a little mix for the maiden, and removed it prior to flight #2.

Have fun....consider adding the RF chokes for an added margin of safety.

If you will fly it a lot, consider reinforcing the top skin with carbon fiber inside the wing’s wiring channel as discussed in this forum. Avoid the top skin cracks like I got after a lot of flights. See photo below after 2,000 flights and aerobatics.

Search “ferrite”, “choke”, “RF choke” for info on these important items.

-GG

[salali]

Thanks Wild Man & GliderGuy for feedback and recommendations. I think i'm ready to go.

I have a question about the neutral flap position. I have aligned the inner and outer flap w/ the leading edge of the aileron. I noticed the alignment causes an inward curve towards the fuselage which is causing a bit of a gap. Trimming up the inner and outer flap causes a misalignment. I hope this make sense. I have uploaded a few pics. Does this look right?

[406PIlot]

Here is a picture that gives you and idea how my flaps line up.



All surfaces are neutral or in line with each other.

[salali]

Here is a picture that gives you and idea how my flaps line up.



All surfaces are neutral or in line with each other.

Thanks for posting a pic of your setup. I think I am good to go.

[GliderGuy]

Thanks for posting a pic of your setup. I think I am good to go.

I have built 3 AL37s...each is a little different on the amount of gaps. It depends upon how careful the person installing the flaps at the factory was.

Simply line up the trailing edges all the way from the tip to the root, and you should be fine. Any gap that happens to show up is not an aerodynamic issue that far back on the wing anyway.

-GG

[gentile]

Is it possible to remove the graphics from the model with the Motion RC graphics already applied and replace them with Callie graphics. It looks like the biggest challenge might be the tail. The base white isn’t available and I’m ready to go!

[MikeT]

Is it possible to remove the graphics from the model with the Motion RC graphics already applied and replace them with Callie graphics. It looks like the biggest challenge might be the tail. The base white isn’t available and I’m ready to go!

Trying to remove them will more than likely pull up that base coat. I had issues with the base coat coming up on my base white one when masking for paint. I used several different brands of tape but all netted the same result pulled up base coat.

Mike

[GliderGuy]

Is it possible to remove the graphics from the model with the Motion RC graphics already applied and replace them with Callie graphics. It looks like the biggest challenge might be the tail. The base white isn’t available and I’m ready to go!

Maybe not the best option, but here is the match to the base color....Home Depot

[ndrew3]

I finally worked up the courage to start painting mine, been sitting in the office for a good couple of months almost.

Decided there was no way I was gonna paint the whole thing white so just started on the engines and vertical stab with dark blue (Delta livery). Now just need to mask off the big blue belly on the fuselage, kind of a weird shape so will be interesting. Will definitely be getting some color match on each color as I'm sure there will be some weirdness once the tape comes up.

Overall though I feel like it's going super well, Painters 2X has gone on really nicely it seems and their normal dark blue is so close to Delta's that I didn't even have to worry about matching.

[Topshot19]

Bought one of the models that was yellow and repainted to the delta scheme. Anyone have experience putting the delta logo on the belly of the plane? How do you do it with the vent port.

[Topshot19]

Hello AL37 fans just a quick mention on mine now that I finished my build.

This is really a wonderful plane with very few if any issues so far since it's release. Let me say a few things I learned along the way. If you add two short servo extensions to the nose gear steering and retract you can move the blue box under the battery tray and get more ribbon cable running out to the wings for easier access to installing and removing it. When installing the main wings take caution with the pre-installed small rear wing spar as I poked the fuselage a few times with it while trying to slide in the wing. Also when applying the decals, watch the posted video and be careful and I had almost no trouble at all with paint lifting.

With that said I would personally not attempt to use any masking tape on this beauty for painting lines. Freehand is the best (what I did) but there are other techniques that could be used. I even heard cheap (brown) wet paper towels was one of them but have never tried it. On the wing tip winglets some small file work on them goes a long way to help making them slide on and off better. The rear horizontal stabilizers need to be installed at a slightly upward angle. I struggled at first trying to put them in even wondered if they fit correctly and then when I changed the angle slid in without a problem. In closing this was a fun build and have yet to fly it but feel very confident she is more then air worthy based on the hundreds of other flights other pilots have performed on it with no trouble or CG issues. I have also posted a build on here as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

How did you put the delta sticker on the belly? I’m having a hard time with the esc vent.

[ndrew3]

How did you put the delta sticker on the belly? I’m having a hard time with the esc vent.

Funny that you say this as I'm literally in the same boat with the same livery. Is it OK to paint over the ESC vent and the ESC's? I was thinking of masking over it and hand-painting the vents as I wasn't sure if it'd be smart to paint the actual ESCs. The delta logo itself on the belly is right smack dab on that vent too as you note so was kind of thinking of trying to hand-paint that somehow.

[Topshot19]

Funny that you say this as I'm literally in the same boat with the same livery. Is it OK to paint over the ESC vent and the ESC's? I was thinking of masking over it and hand-painting the vents as I wasn't sure if it'd be smart to paint the actual ESCs. The delta logo itself on the belly is right smack dab on that vent too as you note so was kind of thinking of trying to hand-paint that somehow.

A couple screws to get the vent off to paint. I just pulled it off and painted it so I didn’t have to deal with overspray on the esc’s.

[xviper]

Remove the vent. Apply decal over the place where it goes (over the hole). Take sharp razor and cut the decal away where the vent hole is. Re-apply the cut off decal onto it's backing paper so you can possibly apply it over the vent itself and cut slits where it needs it and push the decal parts down into each individual slot.

[ndrew3]

Remove the vent. Apply decal over the place where it goes (over the hole). Take sharp razor and cut the decal away where the vent hole is. Re-apply the cut off decal onto it's backing paper so you can possibly apply it over the vent itself and cut slits where it needs it and push the decal parts down into each individual slot.

Makes sense, thanks! Also duh, should have thought of just removing the vent to paint. Hoping to get the whole belly painted up tonight.

Thinking I'll remove the grate and paint that, then fully tape up the esc's and paint the hole around them a bit to get some decent coverage below the grate. Will definitely be a bit of a surgical process trying to get the delta logo to be flush with the grate but think you guys have given good direction on that.

[ndrew3]

Certainly not perfect but I'm very happy with my progress, got a ton done yesterday:



One setup question for you guys that I didn't see explained in the manual: Coming from the blue box there are 6 wires for the 6 channels, then one wire with just red and black in the same bundle, I guess for the BEC? Can I just use a Y-harness to hook that cable in to one of the other channels or do I need a 7th channel on my receiver, or how should I handle that? Can I hook that in to the "Batt" channel on my receiver?

[xviper]

One setup question for you guys that I didn't see explained in the manual: Coming from the blue box there are 6 wires for the 6 channels, then one wire with just red and black in the same bundle, I guess for the BEC? Can I just use a Y-harness to hook that cable in to one of the other channels or do I need a 7th channel on my receiver, or how should I handle that? Can I hook that in to the "Batt" channel on my receiver?

The power lead (2 wire) from the external BEC can be "Y'd" to any channel on the RX, OR you can plug it into any channel (except throttle) just for the binding process. Once bound, you can plug it into the "bind/batt" port.