Official Freewing Twin 70mm AL37 Airliner Thread

[Straightshooter]

[Mrdronenut]

After owning 2 WindRiders,and using the electronics and landing gear from this plane,I broke down and bought one.
What a perfectly designed aircraft . It looks so real. I.I'm almost afraid to fly it. Lol But,if ya ain't crashing, ya ain't flying. Lol
I'll maiden it next week, before going to "Nall in the Fall" See y'all there

[GliderGuy]

After owning 2 WindRiders,and using the electronics and landing gear from this plane,I broke down and bought one.
What a perfectly designed aircraft . It looks so real. I.I'm almost afraid to fly it. Lol But,if ya ain't crashing, ya ain't flying. Lol
I'll maiden it next week, before going to "Nall in the Fall" See y'all there

You’ll have a blast.

Might want to check out #2078 for many tips prior to the maiden learned from lots of flights.

A link to #2078 follows…..

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc...904#post324904

-GG

[Mrdronenut]

Thanks for the advice. Strange,but I didn't realize that they had a bad batch of "cream" colored planes. When mine came in,I was so excited to get it, that I just figured that all of them were "off-white".
and,I had already been thinking that I was going to have a problem painting them due to the strange base color.
Time to re-think my painting idea

[MeyerVW]

Sneek peek. I will start a new thread when done.

[MeyerVW]

Here we go.

[urrl]

Morning flight

[guapoman2000]

Our Bill at my RC Club finally had his maiden flight of his Freewing Al37 in the American Airlines scheme (Custom Paint and Calli Graphics).

We had a few assisting him and the model flew without the benefit of any Gyro or assist from the Stock Electronics as we visited all four (4) Youtube Videos while we were at the RC Club field and could NOT get his Gyro to work so, we flew it without and it performed very well.

However, the Instructor Pilot at the third (3rd) flight reported some very unnerving (unexpected) turns from the model (unsolicited) and he quickly landed without any further issues, thankfully.

The plan going forward is Bill will remove all STOCK Electronic Gear from his Jet and place his well known brand.
https://youtu.be/pmjR1m3xdnI

https://vimeo.com/631227808

[MeyerVW]

Its done. Here is a link. Kulula Airline flying 101
freewing AL37 Kulula Airlines flying 101 - Hobby Squawk RC Forum for Airplanes, Boats, Cars, Helicopters, Tanks, and Trucks

[MeyerVW]

Ran into an electrical issue on reassembly. Plugged in all the wiring to the blue box and to the circuit board of the wing. The only part completely taken apart was the small circuit board in the wings and a few wires to the nose. The rest stay put at the receiver and blue box. When I plugged it all in my ailerons and flaps did not work at all by my controller. They were twitching very bad especially the right aileron. I disconnect the right aileron servo from the wing circuit board and the rest of the wing works. ie left aileron and all four flaps. I plug the aileron back in and nothing works. I do have lights and gear and they work fine. I unplug the right aileron and it all works. So the common place is the blue box. But why does it take it all down if 1 component goes bad? This concerns me because if in flight 1 servo goes down the aircraft will be uncontrollable and crash when I should be able to counter a faulted servo with the other wing. I did test the servo in the receiver by itself and its dead. I replaced the servo with another I had and all is working fine at this point but it makes me nervous.

[xviper]

If you take one of these "control boxes" out and look at it under a magnifying glass or a dissecting microscope, you will see that many of the circuits share common ground circuits and some share power inputs from a common point. Furthermore, some circuit pathways run very close to other circuit paths and in some areas, you can see that there is some leaching of conductive material from one pathway to another. This ground and power leaching or bleeding from one path to another can and sometimes does create a problem. In most of my planes with these control boards, I've wired key control surfaces (ELE and AIL) directly, especially in my AL. If there is leaching, at least you've got "bank and yank" capability to get it back down. Unfortunately, you can't completely eliminate the box as some things like lights draw power from other things like retracts. Doing so would require you to get a light controller.
I've also had a problem with my 2 T-33's. The first one would lift off the ground and within 5 feet of the ground, go inverted all by itself and come down upside down. Fixed it and sold it. Thinking it was a fluke, I got a second one and the exact same thing happened on the maiden. I fixed it, removed the AIL from the control box and hooked them up directly to the RX. I've been flying it without further incident for 2 seasons now. These control boxes are a convenience feature but from time to time, one gets made very poorly. All in all, they can be a gamble. I do have a couple of planes where I've left everything in their control boxes and nothing bad has ever happened. I'm sure that's the majority of these planes sold with the boxes but if you are concerned, remove the box from the equation.

[MeyerVW]

I think moving the aileron from the box will be a smart idea since I know what can happen when a servo fails. I think I have a channel for the flaps too and that is all I am worried about at the moment. I dont need the entire wing seize up if one issue arises. Very glad it happened on the ground and its something that should be looked at by owners, and maybe it is. Thank you for the help.

[urrl]

I notice on MRC website it says "This version also now includes two 2952-2100Kv inrunner motors and 12-blade fans for added power and efficiency."
Does anyone have these fans in a flight video? I would be interested to hear the sound of these fans as well as their performance over the previous outrunners, which I have.

[MeyerVW]

Yes but you cannot hear. They sound nice but all I hear is wind. I get about 3.5 min on a 6s 5000mah 100c battery. Not sure of the percent when landed but the 100c battery is a good idea. My 60c battery is screaming hot when landing and the battery goes dead at 4.5 min.

[MeyerVW]

Its freaking fast. Faster than scale for sure if you fly full throttle.

[xviper]

I notice on MRC website it says "This version also now includes two 2952-2100Kv inrunner motors and 12-blade fans for added power and efficiency."
Does anyone have these fans in a flight video? I would be interested to hear the sound of these fans as well as their performance over the previous outrunners, which I have.

Yes, I put these in when I dropped my 37 into an alkaline lake. It gives this plane some real get up and go. As for the sound, I think it sounds much better but that's very subjective.

[Straightshooter]

[MeyerVW]

If you take one of these "control boxes" out and look at it under a magnifying glass or a dissecting microscope, you will see that many of the circuits share common ground circuits and some share power inputs from a common point. Furthermore, some circuit pathways run very close to other circuit paths and in some areas, you can see that there is some leaching of conductive material from one pathway to another. This ground and power leaching or bleeding from one path to another can and sometimes does create a problem. In most of my planes with these control boards, I've wired key control surfaces (ELE and AIL) directly, especially in my AL. If there is leaching, at least you've got "bank and yank" capability to get it back down. Unfortunately, you can't completely eliminate the box as some things like lights draw power from other things like retracts. Doing so would require you to get a light controller.
I've also had a problem with my 2 T-33's. The first one would lift off the ground and within 5 feet of the ground, go inverted all by itself and come down upside down. Fixed it and sold it. Thinking it was a fluke, I got a second one and the exact same thing happened on the maiden. I fixed it, removed the AIL from the control box and hooked them up directly to the RX. I've been flying it without further incident for 2 seasons now. These control boxes are a convenience feature but from time to time, one gets made very poorly. All in all, they can be a gamble. I do have a couple of planes where I've left everything in their control boxes and nothing bad has ever happened. I'm sure that's the majority of these planes sold with the boxes but if you are concerned, remove the box from the equation.

I have left the box as it does do some useful things I like. I have removed the ailerons and the the flaps from it and plugged them directly to the receiver since 1 failure equaled to 6 servos going down.

[Mrdronenut]

I'm still waiting for good weather to maiden mine. But,seeing the problems with the "blue box",and also the Admiral rx w/gyro,gives me pause.
I'm using a Lemon rx w/gyro,which the Admiral is a rebranded copy of(pretty much).
I've also got an 8000mah,60c China Hobby Lines Black battery, hoping for longer flight times.
But,I'm staying "tuned-in" to this,and RCG,to see if there are any more glitches with the blue-box.

[xviper]

I'm still waiting for good weather to maiden mine. But,seeing the problems with the "blue box",and also the Admiral rx w/gyro,gives me pause.
I'm using a Lemon rx w/gyro,which the Admiral is a rebranded copy of(pretty much).
I've also got an 8000mah,60c China Hobby Lines Black battery, hoping for longer flight times.
But,I'm staying "tuned-in" to this,and RCG,to see if there are any more glitches with the blue-box.

The Admiral isn't just a "re-branded" Lemon. It's also had additional features programmed into it. The Lemon product should NOT be any problem so long as you don't skip any steps in the set up. My only concern with either the Admiral and the Lemon (w/gyro) is the range so do a thorough range test. Having only those twin "diversity" type antennas and NO satellites makes me nervous. Any major problems with the "box" can easily be averted by wiring the ELE and AIL directly to the RX.