Official Freewing Twin 70mm AL37 Airliner Thread

[Hugh Wiedman]

xviper so sorry to see such a beautifully modeled bird end up in the drink, and to think I had earlier said how nice your field looked with the water near by. Hope you get her back in service this winter, but I'll bet you start diagnosing what you need to replace sooner than that. I know from experience that it's tough to let it sit too long without itching to start repairs as soon as possible.

[Scale Freak]

Xviper, I'm sorry to hear about your mishap, its good you had a quad following you to locate the plane, although I got dizzy watching it go round and round. lol. I hope there was no real damage and I guess the
the positive of a foamie is that it floats nicely. Looking forward to seeing it up and flying again.

[xviper]

@uscanuck1xa Thanks.
Here is that video I promised. This was done by another member at the club I belong to. He used an FPV equipped quad to "chase" me. You can see the very nice first flight of that day and then the second flight that did the splashdown "into the Hudson". Thankfully, Capt. Sulley talked me down and nobody died.

[uscanuck1xa]

Flew the AL37 this morning. All went well till the second flight when I put in a used battery and the plane dropped into the lake. It's fixable but it won't quite look like this again. A friend took these terrific pictures of it for me. I'm glad he did. At least now I have a permanent record of just how nice it was. (I'll fix it over the winter. Too many planes to fly at the moment.) Someone also made a video using FPV chase quad. When he puts it up on YouTube, I'll post it here.

Too bad. Sorry to hear that.

I do really like your photos and choice of livery! Looks like the real deal!

[Wild Man]

To bad, sorry to hear that xviper that's like taking off with out fueling your plane

[xviper]

Flew the AL37 this morning. All went well till the second flight when I put in a used battery and the plane dropped into the lake. It's fixable but it won't quite look like this again. A friend took these terrific pictures of it for me. I'm glad he did. At least now I have a permanent record of just how nice it was. (I'll fix it over the winter. Too many planes to fly at the moment.) Someone also made a video using FPV chase quad. When he puts it up on YouTube, I'll post it here.

[Straightshooter]

Two admiral 5000 gave sluggish performance. sticking with one 6000.

[Aros]

Nice!

[Wild Man]

Wild Man looking good so far. I assume you had Callie do the graphics for you, no?

Nope. My Son in law has a graphics Business in Phoenix. He will make me any thing I want, and has done so on many of the planes I build for myself and others. One nice thing, they do not cost me anything. He enjoys doing them for me, He also does T's I have three he has done for me, they are bad ass LOL!!! here is one I had him do the other is a Corsair

[Hugh Wiedman]

Wild Man looking good so far. I assume you had Callie do the graphics for you, no?

[Wild Man]

I finally got a few planes built and assembled for a few others. Now I can spend the rest of the week on my AL-37. I have got the fuse together and started dome of the painting and installing Decals. I hope to have it done this week end if I do not have to go out on call. Looking good so far

[xviper]

xviper, you make some compelling arguments. I guess i'm thinking more about being easier on the batteries as they can share the load. This may not be as much of an issue as I think though. I'll have to see how things go with one for now anyway as I can't afford another two batteries at this time anyway.

I don't know how you fly your AL37 way up there in the north country, but I fly mine in a combination of maneuvers, from mild circuits to some rolls and loops and figure 8's, high speed level passes over the runway with steep climb out. I almost always take 2 batteries for each plane with me, so I fly each plane twice every morning I go, usually 3 to 4 planes. 6 to 8 flights over a 2 hr period works out just right for me ( with some socializing time in between). With the AL, the battery comes down warm, but I know if I didn't do any of the high throttle stuff, the battery would be cool and I could get quite a bit of time on each flight. I like flying shorter, but multiple flights on multiple planes during the same outing.

[Scale Freak]

xviper, you make some compelling arguments. I guess i'm thinking more about being easier on the batteries as they can share the load. This may not be as much of an issue as I think though. I'll have to see how things go with one for now anyway as I can't afford another two batteries at this time anyway.

[xviper]

Ok, on testing, with two batteries, they have to be 250mm back from the hatch opening. This puts the CG about 2mm ahead of where it was with one.
For this, I think i need to move the mount strap back. But my concern is the batteries are way beyond the plywood tray now, is that secure enough?
all up weight with 2 batteries is 4.96 kg or about 11 lbs
Is that withing this things capability?

1. Make yourself another plywood battery floor.
2. Glue it down onto the foam floor behind the existing wood floor.
3. Don't worry about installing another strap. Glue down some velcro and the matching velcro to the end of your batteries. The existing strap holds the front of the batteries and the velcro holds the rear of the batteries in place. Don't overdo it with the velcro or it'll be hard to separate the battery from the floor since it's so far back.
I've done this on other planes and it works quite well.

Insofar as flying for a much longer period of time, I feel that the time I get from just one 5000 battery is quite sufficient. This is not really an aerobatic airplane and flying around and around and around in circuits gets pretty boring. In that video, he got the time he got with two batteries by flying around at around 30% throttle. Do you really want to fly like that for that long? I did an experiment with my old Avanti S and one 5000 battery. By floating it around in circuits, I managed to get 10 minutes out of it. By the end of the flight, I was so bored, I wanted to hang myself. I have my timer set for 4 minutes on my AL. If I lugged the AL-37 around at minimal throttle, I bet I could get 7 or 8 minutes out of it but really, falling asleep from shear boredom is not very safe.

[Scale Freak]

Ok, on testing, with two batteries, they have to be 250mm back from the hatch opening. This puts the CG about 2mm ahead of where it was with one.
For this, I think i need to move the mount strap back. But my concern is the batteries are way beyond the plywood tray now, is that secure enough?
all up weight with 2 batteries is 4.96 kg or about 11 lbs
Is that withing this things capability?

[GliderGuy]

I know this has been talked about somewhere in here, but has anyone doubled up the batteries on this plane? If so, what has the weight increase done in terms of takeoff roll, handling, etc? I'm considering two batteries, added extra weight of 720g, or about 1.5 lbs.

Check this YouTube experiment....2 battery endurance test
-GG

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar78xnWJ4pM

[Scale Freak]

I know this has been talked about somewhere in here, but has anyone doubled up the batteries on this plane? If so, what has the weight increase done in terms of takeoff roll, handling, etc? I'm considering two batteries, added extra weight of 720g, or about 1.5 lbs.

[Wild Man]

Wild Man I am going to go ahead and nip this in the bud. We all know what the intimations were here and for all involved there's no place for politics in this forum. Let's keep it civil boys and talk airplanes. Thank you all in advance.

I hope you also nipped the two about what I picked for the graphics on my AL 37 end of story. Have a nice day Aros

[Aros]

Wild Man I am going to go ahead and nip this in the bud. We all know what the intimations were here and for all involved there's no place for politics in this forum. Let's keep it civil boys and talk airplanes. Thank you all in advance.

[Wild Man]

Too bad. Sorry to hear that.

Sorry, Sorry for what ? I liked to know. Same question for you xviper