Jury is still out for me. I put a bunch o stuff for sale on the other place so we'll see.... If it happens there WILL be a repaint.
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Official Freewing JAS 39 Gripen 80mm EDF Jet
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Originally posted by Colorc View Post
I have been flying the mirage hp version which comes in at about 78 ounces no battery. Looks like the gripen is going to be coming in at about 83 ounces without battery. The gripen should be a good performer being just a little heavier. I am basing that loosely on the ballistic performance of the mirage with a 4000 6s. The mirage will pull out of a slow high alpha, go vertical and accelerate to the moon. Thats with the first gen hp version with the slightly lower kv outrunner. The inrunner may put the gripen close to performance of the mirage.
The thrust vectoring on the su35 is the one side of performance the gripen probably wont out do in stock pnp form.
Mine has a different EDF, but yes, it's ballistic in the vertical - which I love and will high alpha with the best. Not a speed demon at ~124 mph avg., but really good on 6S. Still my favorite jet & it's performance is what got me into EDFs in the first place - went from warbirds to the Mirage and never looked back. I've never practiced enough to get really good at 3D, but the Mirage comes pretty close for me in some of the things it can do with my limited abilities. People see it and they're amazed given what they know of EDFs, they see them as "moderately fast circle planes". The Mirage changes minds, even without TV.
I think the Gripen will be too heavy to perform similarly in the vertical (at least stock), but should have more tricks up it's sleeve with the canards and lighter wing loading. I'm going to fly mine with the inrunner for a while, then see what I think. I haven't flown the new motor yet and want to try it out. I'm looking forward to comparing the two. I think the Gripen will be awesome, but different.
Still not selling my Mirage(s) no matter what. Unless they make a better one.
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"Approach with caution" is funny, Arcus4 , thanks for the laugh and for the support. For what it's worth, your pork and beans sacrifices are being put to use wisely because so far the high preorder volume indicates the Gripen is another homerun, so in hindsight you'll be glad you got in on the first shipment.
In the meantime, allow me to put others' nose gear concerns to bed. We covered this during yesterday evening's livestream on Discord and Twitch (links in my signature), so please consider joining the next one for live Q&A discussing details like this. It is a fun way to dive deeper into the Why behind our creative decisions, and I enjoy sharing these insights with our community and customer family:
In summary, nearly ALL our birds require deviations away from scale in several ways, landing gear among them. Would we all rather the past 8 years of models not have been produced, and that we scrap our plans for the next 20 years of airplanes, because they're not ever going to be 100% scale? I didn't think so. In the same breath, we're not cavalier about the decisions we're forced to make, either, and instead work very hard to make things work as closely to scale, where and when they can. I am grateful for the community's trust that we know what we're doing, we have their interest at heart, and if there's a way something can be done well, we do our best to do it. And if there isn't, then we find the next best solution for the majority. No one knows the concessions we've made to make the model a reality than I do. There are so many more than just nose gear position, but at least an RC Gripen now exists in the world, and I would proudly put it up against any foam electric delta in the world.
In the case of the Gripen's nose wheel, which a couple people have brought up, below is a cutaway shot of my CAD of our final production Gripen, as you'll all receive it. See that big white block behind the nose wheel's stowed position? That represents the battery's position range required to hit CG. In other words, that position cannot be changed, meaning that moving the nose retract a few inches aft to achieve "scale location" is physically impossible. I hope this picture puts to rest the notion that we made a hasty shortcut instead of a very thoughtful concession. I would rather have repositioned the landing gear forward to be able to have an RC Gripen exist at all, rather than ditch the model altogether and give up because its battery and scale nose position cannot physically exist in the same location at the same time.
As also mentioned, early prototypes with the nose strut in the 100% scale location made the aircraft very tippy on the ground during taxi, takeoff, and landing, which cost us a few torn wingtips and crushed vertical stabs, neither of which makes for happy customer pilots. Achieving that 100% scale nose position required the battery to be relocated far further aft, which required the EDF to be pushed further forward, which narrowed the intake ducting and steepened the transition to the fan, which reduced the fan's output efficiency while also consolidating the center of mass further, which degraded the model's stability in a straight line which could induce odd oscillations at certain AoA. Not to mention, the EDF couldn't be pushed too far forward as needed, because then the main struts couldn't fit in the fuselage (unless we let the main wheels hang out in the wind like the F-14)...
... In other words, we believed that all these constituted FAR too many downsides in exchange for achieving a scale nose strut location. If someone wants to reverse the nose gear so it juts out nearer the scale location (despite now retracting in the non-scale direction), give it a try. You'll notice poorer ground handling, and it still won't be strictly scale. If someone wants to rebuild all the guts' layout as described above, that's your prerogative, but I feel obliged to kindly warn you that doing so will also cause the model to exhibit all the bad habits as described above. And you'll still need to add nose weight to counteract the fact that you can't move the EDF forward enough to obtain CG.
Production RC model engineering is about balancing competing objectives while making innovative decisions while constrained by hard boundaries. A battery sitting where the nose strut would be is the latter. Also, spoiler alert, many of the airplanes in the Wishlist thread will require similar deviations from scale. I've already checked.
I hope we're all flying something we enjoy this weekend! Keep the conversations flowing and thanks again for everyone's support and feedback of our products.
Live Q&A every Tuesday and Friday at 9pm EST on my Twitch Livestream
Live chat with me and other RC Nuts on my Discord
Camp my Instagram @Alpha.Makes
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Live Q&A every Tuesday and Friday at 9pm EST on my Twitch Livestream
Live chat with me and other RC Nuts on my Discord
Camp my Instagram @Alpha.Makes
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Originally posted by Mizer67 View Post
My Mirage (I've had 4, 1 flying, 1 in my closet in the box still) weighs ~2260 grams or ~79-80 ounces with battery (@ 663 grams). They've all been ~1600 grams w/o battery, all kitted up with receivers, etc.
im with you, mirage stays no matter what.
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Originally posted by Alpha View Post
My modelling skills are primitive. I tried my hand re-finishing my Mig-21. At best it's a 10 ft. job. I might have to give it another shot, just to re-create this scheme.
I need figure out how not to get the stock paint to pull up while masking off; don't want to add too much weight with WBPU/sand/WBPU/sand. Even with using the painter's tape/cotton shirt tip, I pulled some off of the Mig-21. Those sharp lines need even finer work than what I was trying to do with the Mig.
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Originally posted by Flyboy21 View Post
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Originally posted by Colorc View PostI have been flying the mirage hp version which comes in at about 78 ounces without battery. Looks like the gripen is going to be coming in at about 83 ounces without battery. The gripen should be a good performer being just a little heavier. I am basing that loosely on the ballistic performance of the mirage with a 4000 6s. The mirage will pull out of a slow high alpha, go vertical and accelerate to the moon. Thats with the first gen hp version with the slightly lower kv outrunner. The inrunner may put the gripen close to performance of the mirage.
The thrust vectoring on the su35 is the one side of performance the gripen probably wont out do in stock pnp form.
Not just the TV... Don't expect a stock Gripen to do flatspins. Su-35 can do these easily with TV off. Both jets are pretty different in terms of aerodynamics.
I expect the Gripen to handle better in moderate high alpha and to be easy to make look scale (as in, drag arse around on loaded rolls, etc). That, it should do better than the Su-35, and it should also outperform the Flanker in T/W and speed.
The rest, it won't be able to compete... at least until it gets the TV nozzle and even then... I have my doubts!
Originally posted by Alpha View Post
For the time being I'm keeping it stock though!
And if I repaint... there's a couple other great choices for the Gripen to condsider! :D
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James or Alpha, can I get a measurement of the wing launch rail, and the distance from the back of the rail to the back of the Attachment Slot?
I've hit my purchasing limit for the year so no Gripen for me (yet), but I'm going to model the IRIS-T for those that want give it some teeth.
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Originally posted by Alpha View PostAlso, would someone please refinish their Gripen in this livery? I love it. Thanks
So it won't be me doing that super nice Gripen E - scheme, but of course there will be a makeover to a Swedish scheme, having the chance to be patriotic for once.
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