Official Freewing T-33 Shooting Star 80mm EDF Thread

[reixx]

Sorry I am new to posting things. But here is a T-33 that started out as a camo version. After a crash I did all repairs and put this scheme on it. It is almost finished and ready to fly again.

[reixx]

[John Bergsmith]

Would really like to see the 80mm T-33 done up in USAF Thunderbirds colors!!!

They really do need to release some new color schemes.

[Ron1950]

ive had my camo t33 for a few years now flying off grass when it would get up to flying speed which was very few times.. was using older 40c 6s batteres from motion.. the other day i ordered a couple hrb 6s 60c (i think it was 60c anyway) darn plane shot out of the hole and never looked back lol speed was up immediately.. guess it was my own fault lol

[Elbee]

Envious of your day. Beautiful pair, Sir. Happy New Year. Best, LB

[F22trainer]

Rare day off found me at the field at sunrise. Now that the AR 630 is using the AS3X it has been a dialed in jewel to fly and land.

[Alex Fletcher]

Has anyone out there completed the Big Boy RC T33 turbine conversion? I’m installing an Xicoy X45 and have the kit from the guys in Singapore which is great. I can’t however see any details online of the conversion or videos. There’s no instructions included so just seeing if anyone had any? Cheers!

[Ham870]

Would really like to see the 80mm T-33 done up in USAF Thunderbirds colors!!!

[Cape Jets]

Cape weather looks promising on Tues so we will see if she gets some air time....

[Cape Jets]

xviper : Insofar as upgrading the elevator servos, that's entirely up to you as we all have different philosophies about such things. Both of my T-33's have been flying with the stock servos and never has there been a problem. The elevators on this plane are relatively small and the forces acting upon them are also relatively small compared to other Freewing jets with much bigger elevator surface areas and using the same servos. PLUS, there are 2 servos, one for each elevator side.

Well completed the build or should I say put all the screws in the plane. And eliminated the dreaded blue box and went right to the receiver for all connections. Per xviper suggestion I will not update the elevator servos and he mentioned alot less force on them vs my full stab elevators on my other jets. Went together great and after 4 coats of MinWax Gloss she really shines. Looking forward to her maiden hopefully soon.

[xviper]

I update all my jets elevator servos with Hitec's and never an issue. I will be eliminating the blue box as I do on all my Freewing jets. Not that I have had any issues with the box, yet I have never given it a chance to fail since I bypass on every jet.... just not good history on the forums about it so not taking a chance.

Eliminating the blue box from the equation is a good precaution. My first T-33 on maiden, went inverted upon lift off and crashed on it's back. I fixed the damage, removed the critical control surfaces from the blue box and flew it many more times without incident. I then wanted the other livery, so I sold the first one. Not learning from my first T-33 and leaving the blue box in place, it did the exact same thing - went inverted on take off and crashed. Fixed it, removed the blue box from the equation and I've been flying it for several seasons now without incident. (No gyros were ever used for this plane.)
Insofar as upgrading the elevator servos, that's entirely up to you as we all have different philosophies about such things. Both of my T-33's have been flying with the stock servos and never has there been a problem. The elevators on this plane are relatively small and the forces acting upon them are also relatively small compared to other Freewing jets with much bigger elevator surface areas and using the same servos. PLUS, there are 2 servos, one for each elevator side.

[Cape Jets]

Been looking at this jet since I started flying 2 years ago when it was first released. I must admit though the flashier models took most of my attention and dollars till now. I fly mostly jets like the:
E-Flite Viper 70mm, E-Flite F-4 Fatom (retired) Arrows F-15(great jet by the way), Freewing F-16 70mm, Freewing F-18 Blue Angel 90mm, Freewing F-15 90mm(8S) and the pride of the hangar Freewing F-16 Thunderbird 90mm(8S). Also my beat the snot out of plane a E-Flite HABU 70mm (6S) yes the 4S EDF is gone and with a 6S EDF it screams.....
So I finally ordered the T-33 Shooting Star / ARF version. Will power her with a X-Fly Galaxy 80mm 2200kv 6S EDF a 130amp ESC with a Spektrum AR8020T receiver. Will prob upgrade the elevator servos with Hitec's for safety reasons. I update all my jets elevator servos with Hitec's and never an issue. I will be eliminating the blue box as I do on all my Freewing jets. Not that I have had any issues with the box, yet I have never given it a chance to fail since I bypass on every jet.... just not good history on the forums about it so not taking a chance. Of course I always coat the plane with the MinWax Poly to get a great finish and protects the plane as well. Should see her by the weekend and hope the weather gets less windy here on the Cape and fly her soon....

[Jlanda]

As I said the pin and wheel are the same and another said the strut is slightly longer.

thanks EvanD, as you and the other person gently said, the pin and wheel are the same and struts a little bit longer, but just want to be sure the complete piece included servo, gear axle and steering arm fits well. But thank you very much to confirm my question.

[Evan D]

As I said the pin and wheel are the same and another said the strut is slightly longer.

[Jlanda]

Hello everyone, somebody knows if the complete spare nose gear of the L-39 (servo, gear struts, connecting pin..etc) can be used on the t-33, since one on the t-33 is out of stock…thanks

[F22trainer]

As I may have said before, had I not already purchased the wing the tail feathers would have become wall art memorabilia. But, they instead are going back in service. Everything that came out of the salvage was checked out before going back in. Likely it was a loose connection from the UBEC. It ‘blinked’ a few times during the initial power up as I was moving some of the wiring to get them organized. Needed re-soldering and some heat shrink insulation and the switch was possibly in a non-position between the detent.
Everything looks like a go for the next available flying day.

[radfordc]

[QUOTE=RobWetterholtJr;n346620

P.S. - Any and all ideas welcome at this point. I suspect the ESC/BEC gave up the ghost but who knows. [/QUOTE]

My gut says that it's highly unlikely three different jets had identical component failures! Think about what was "common" to all three crashes and look there for the answer.

BTW, there is an extremely easy way to protect against BEC power failure (either total failure or partial "brown-out"). All that is needed is to put a small 4.8v NiCd battery in parallel with the BEC. I've been doing this for several years and have had no problems.

[radfordc]

Rob, I too had several unexplained loss of control crashes last year with both Freewing and Eflite jets. I bought a new transmitter and no more crashes.

[Dwalkerp47]

HangarQueen,

Thanks for the response.

I know the BlueBoxes have come under scrutiny in different FreeWing aircraft threads and so I decided to bypass it in both my T-33s. I've read numerous reports of people having no problems either way.

Of particular interest is the fact that the BlueBoxes don't seem to serve to reduce voltage (the voltage reduction down to 5.5 Volts occurs in the ESC/BEC unit) but instead acts as a sort of fancy Y-harness so these models can be flown on a six-channel radio, if desired. With that in mind I decided to go straight in to the receiver and not risk faulty trace lines...and in more than 20 years of flying I've never done anything but wire everything directly in to the receiver, with no problems.

I'm confident the servos, receiver, transmitter and battery were not the cause here. The transmitter was declared fully functional by Futaba. The battery, receiver and servos were brand-spankin' new. In post-crash analysis on the batteries I haven't been able to produce any sort of cell imbalance after putting them through charge/discharge cycles.

Color me STUMPED!

The only thing that remains suspect to me would be the ESC/BEC unit. I don't know how to test these units on the bench and since I don't run telemetry receivers I'm not well-versed enough on how to detect any sort of irregular operation.

Rob, I'm sure sorry that you lost your T-33. Trying to determine what caused the crash can be pretty tough sometimes. It sounds like you're doing everything you can to try and determine what caused the crash.

There are few things that you can do that you may want to consider...you may already be addressing these points that I've listed below.

1. Try to run your receiver antenna so that the Battery is not blocking the RF signal coming from your Transmitter. That should be pretty easy to accomplish since the battery on the T-33 goes up inside the nose of the fuselage.
2. You may want to consider running a remote receiver on all of your EDF's.
3. The BEC's come with a Ferrite Choke on most of the Freewing ESC's. I install additional Ferrite Chokes on the wires coming out of your ESC that goes to your battery. These Chokes are inexpensive, and are easy to clamp on to the ESC wires. You can buy a small box of these chokes from Amazon. They can help trap any interfering signals that might affect your receiver. I learned this from Glider Guy who is a Hobby Squawk member.

Even though I run Spektrum, your Futaba is a solid radio.

One other test equipment that you may want to consider purchasing is a Watt Meter. Its going to let you know how much power you are using as well as the amperage load that you are putting on your ESC. Motion has a good one for around $25.

I hope some of this info helps.

[jasmith41]

That's about what my Viper 90 looked like after I crashed her a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about your loss as well.