Official Freewing Twin 70mm AL37 Airliner Thread

[aljoma]

Bueno después de mucho sudor, cinta y botes de pintura el Boeing ha quedado espectacular
Os dejo unas fotos

[hcew]

Hello
Friday was maidenflight. Weather good, gras cut and up in the air.
Flies very good and looks awesome.
Thanks to CallieGraphics for the decals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_azRRGOFHjA

[starcop]

The ESCs on this plane are "opto" and thus, have no power going thru the red wire and as such, an extension will also have no power going thru the red wire.

Butt, you have to admit. That picture above your post is a beautiful fish! "IF" you can read between the lines...

[starcop]

Jeremy has come a long way with his flying ability and, social media skills. Awesome to see the growth of fellow pilots throughout the years. I remember replacing servos for him! Ha.

[xviper]

I would add an extension to the ESC lead, then cut the red wire on the extension.

The ESCs on this plane are "opto" and thus, have no power going thru the red wire and as such, an extension will also have no power going thru the red wire.

[Straightshooter]

This last week end, we took the Nok Air out for a spin. The skies were clear and blue. Dan Metz of the Coachella Valley RC Club flew the plan while Bob Husar, builder/owner, recorded the flight. We had an RC truck with a 4k runcam 2 to capture the low passes. We call it a mobile "buzz cam". Here's a shot where Dan took it down to about 12 inches (or lower?).

[Straightshooter]

I would add an extension to the ESC lead, then cut the red wire on the extension.

[xviper]

Gotcha, thanks man! I have it Y'd to one of the aux channels, but had heard some stuff about having to cut the red wire from the ESC, so didn't want to mess anything up first time I plugged it in.

You only cut the red wire on ONE ESC throttle lead IF your plane uses dual non-opto ESCs, so you don't two possibly competing power sources. Planes like the AL-37 uses opto ESCs (no internal BECs) and thus, a single external BEC is used to power the RX. If you have ANY unused channels on the RX, the BEC can be plugged into one of them, no need to "Y" it to anything. I use a 10-ch. RX for this plane and the upper ports aren't used for anything.
On Dynam twins, they don't cut any red wires. They just use both power leads in parallel.

[ndrew3]

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.

Gotcha, thanks man! I have it Y'd to one of the aux channels, but had heard some stuff about having to cut the red wire from the ESC, so didn't want to mess anything up first time I plugged it in.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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