Official Freewing Twin 70mm AL37 Airliner Thread

[Spinny Testaverde]

Nice informative post. I wish I could fly mine that much. If my math is right, that is about 10 flights per day, 5 days per week. At 1200 flights averaging 5 minutes per flight with an average speed of 60 miles per hour you would have 100 flight hours totaling 6000 miles in distance. Enough to fly from New York to Ecuador and back with reserve for an alternate airport.

I haven't flown mine nearly as much, not even close, but also can attest to the durability of the plane. She's a beast.

😮

[James]

Very impressive walkerm45! I like that livery a lot with the tail graphic. Spices up an otherwise "boring" (for lack of a better term) big gray plane. With the endless liveries that can be done on this aircraft, While its awesome to see the KC-135's and Poseidons etc, I love a little color on this big bird and this is a great mix. Well done

[walkerm45]

I think that the channel that was created for wiring was large enough to accept an extra set of wires, this was the key, as the engineering performed by Freewing allowed the airframe to carry the extra weight. The rest was lining up the geometry, and removing the foam, with emphasis on minimum removal. As you might note, the 4 motor airframe is a lot faster.....The 2 extra motors are covering the weight of the wire, battery, and esc only, but a big OUCH on wing loading.

I wish more thought would have gone into the landing gear, but that's another topic .......Mike

[Slowflight]

Alpha I have to say this conversions are most impressive and give testament of a great original design , I too thought the extra turbines would weakened the wing. Perhaps this fellows can post step by step details of their modifications, actually I think it deserves and entire new thread.Amazing work guys.!!!!!!!!

[Alpha]

I agree with AceMigKiller what an impressive KC-135R conversion. I designed this darn AL37 and still can't figure out how you and Solt and the others are bolting on an extra pair of go-pods to my bird without folding the wings! But I love seeing the results and am not a small bit envious.

Your son flew them, and Boomer (another member here) was a boomer on them. I remember walking the flight line gawking at the 203rd's birds at Hickam. Small world!

[AceMigKiller]

That's really cool man!
I grew up in Arizona and saw the Copperheads flying around all the time.
Now, as an Airline Pilot, it's neat to drop in to Sky Harbor and see that Arizona tail hanging around the flight line. Nice work!

[walkerm45]

Here are a few pics of my project to create The 'Spirit of Arizona'. My son has flown Kc-135R's for 20 years. I built this plane for him......

[The Sheriff]

Averaging about 200 flights per month. This is not intended to be a brag, but to let you know that 1,200+ flights are on the bird

Nice informative post. I wish I could fly mine that much. If my math is right, that is about 10 flights per day, 5 days per week. At 1200 flights averaging 5 minutes per flight with an average speed of 60 miles per hour you would have 100 flight hours totaling 6000 miles in distance. Enough to fly from New York to Ecuador and back with reserve for an alternate airport.

I haven't flown mine nearly as much, not even close, but also can attest to the durability of the plane. She's a beast.

[GliderGuy]

Thought you might be interested in reading about some of the REAL WORLD reliability aspects of an AL37 with lots of flights on it. I have flexible work hours, to some degree, so when the weather is nice (which it often is), I am able to take advantage of it. Here's the scoop...

• Pre-ordered and got the bird in late December 2019, and was up and flying within a few days
• Averaging about 200 flights per month. This is not intended to be a brag, but to let you know that 1,200+ flights are on the bird
  • I am able to leave it assembled...transport it in the bed of my pick-up...not connecting/disconnecting things every trip to the field
• Summary of failures follow. Pretty amazing performance, I'd say!
  • one engine bearing began screeching loudly after about 400 flights. This must have been a fluke because the other engine has performed flawlessly since day one
  • two main gear servos have been replaced over 6 months and at least 2400 gear cycles
    • Hint: Land gear up when one fails in the gear-up position. I learned the hard way that attempting to land with the nose wheel and one main down is a disaster waiting to happen.
      • The nacelle on the gear-up side hooked into the turf and the turf tore it off. Took some carbon fiber work to fix it, but I did fix it...rather than order a new nacelle
        • Suggesting landing gear up on a hard surface...not turf. Shaves off some foam, but at least you won't tear off a nacelle
  • Nose gear mounting box came loose and also the nose gear steering servo came loose (two different flights..not on the same flight) Fixed both of these issues with epoxy
  • Winglet pin broke on one winglet...replaced the piece of plastic into which the hold-down pins are molded as part of
  • Replaced the nose wheel tires twice, but the rubber on the mains has held up nicely. I fly off concrete exclusively except when I decided a grass turf landing might be best when the main didn't extend.
    • I am about to change the main's rubber, soon.

That's it. Again...pretty amazing reliability. None of the control servo motors has began to chatter and no control servo failures have been experienced. The top of the wing foam has a few slight wrinkles/creases from the spins, loops, snap rolls and pull-ups to vertical climbs i do at times. All around...a well designed aircraft and well worth the money!
-GG.

[Angryflyer]

BEC wiring issue:

After about 5 fights I noticed that connection from the main battery would disconnect intermittently... on the ground, thankfully. Turns out that the solder connect at the main battery to the BEC is damaged from pulling and twisting my tight EC3 connectors.
Be careful and check your wiring.

My solution is simply using a small (700-1100mah) flight pack. Doesn't seem to affect flight characteristics, but it is another battery to charge.

[Slowflight]

She sure flies nice, it was a pleasure seeing you fly it and you did a great job with it. Is so big that even with the grey paint scheme, it still showed well. I stayed a while after you left but the torrential rains and winds came so I had to abandon any more flights as well. See you soon, especially if there is some chili and kielbasa to be had.

Hugh now that you’re part of the crazy gang you best be careful or you’ll put on 20lbs by the end of the year, as you’ll see is a Friday thing I think this next time is black beans and what ever else LOL , see ya at the field buddy

[Hugh Wiedman]

Finally had a good day for a maiden, not a perfect day but good enough, my last attempt was cancelled due to high winds. Today I got there early since I knew that wind would pick up. Flight was uneventful , winds 10-12 MPH right down the runway, I advanced throttle flaps at take off setting, after a roll of about 100 ft she rotated and up she went, gear up flaps up and she settled into a gentle left turn, no trims of any control surfaced needed, I was amazed. She flies great at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle, on a calm day 1/2 is all thats needed. After a few passes and about 4 min I lowered flaps on the down wind flowed by the gear. Since Im used to much larger warbird my flap setting were much less than recommended, is my experience that model plane do not need as much flaps as the full size counterpart, too much flap and you’ll just adding unneeded drag. So once lined up with the runway I reduced power into a glide slope, with the head wind she floated a bit on the flare till mains touched down. This is one fun plane and very realistic in the air, the lack of gyro made it wiggle a bit on cross wind but other than that it was a great maiden. My only complaint ....the paint scheme, the gray is hard to see, I had to ask my spotter to remove my sunglasses cause I had a hard time seeing it with clouds in the background. Great job Freewing.

She sure flies nice, it was a pleasure seeing you fly it and you did a great job with it. Is so big that even with the grey paint scheme, it still showed well. I stayed a while after you left but the torrential rains and winds came so I had to abandon any more flights as well. See you soon, especially if there is some chili and kielbasa to be had.

[xviper]

the tail characters, the snow man beach side and lettering. Everything is airbrush work.

A true artiste.

[Straightshooter]

the tail characters, the snow man beach side and lettering. Everything is airbrush work.

[xviper]

Maiden next week. Second plane. You be straight forward.

Oh my! That is sooooo nice! How much of that is stick on graphics?

[Straightshooter]

It should be straight...

[Straightshooter]

Maiden next week. Second plane. You be straight forward.

[Angryflyer]

Didn't know about a field in Hobart. Is it decent enough for the jets and the AL37"

Hobart, yes.
Flaming Geyser is a 30acre flying area and a little tight landing left to right. Runway is more than adequate for takeoff.
For me, it's comfortable because I learned to fly there but to some it might seem small.

[vduniec]

That looks fantastic V! Please share some screen recording if you can of a flight once you do it. Would love to see how you land it FPV in the high alpha position

Here ya go James.

https://youtu.be/7XGAO-7gZmY

Sorry about the video quality. It's from the built in recorder in my goggles. I have some RunCam Splits now and will start using them so I can get HD quality videos.

The cause was due to my use of underrated battery connectors. The good news is, is that the failure occurred over the airfield and I was able to retrieve all components. A few seconds earlier, it was over an active garbage dump and I might not have been able to get access to it.

Replacement parts are have already arrived. I stretched the fuselage on this one out to a Max 10 and did it in United Airlines livery. It looked nice but I was indifferent about the scheme wh it was completed. I’ll do the next one either as a Max 8(stock) or as a -800 version. Leaning towards the old American Airlines silver bird scheme.

[LowandSlow]

Come fly with us! No dues, just a park pass ($30/year) if you didn't already know.
do you fly at Hobart?

Didn't know about a field in Hobart. Is it decent enough for the jets and the AL37"