All-New Freewing PJ50 Twin 70mm EDF Jet - Official Thread

[skygeezer]

Hi guys… just finishing mine up and am having a bugger of a time with the correct placement of the various blade antennas. The manual isn’t that helpful to me in this regard and the slots provided in the fuse are a help but I’s sure appreciate it if someone could post a few photos of where they go.

Thanks!
Curt

[avanti127]

PJ50 an J65 in rear, cleared for take off.

[GliderGuy]

I’ve come full circle on the PJ-50. First impressions were “great”.

Then as I flew it more in a variety of conditions, I found it to be a REAL challenge to handle the wing rock/Dutch roll on approach in much more than 5 knots of wind. I was exasperated….frustrated!!!

Then, as I mentioned in a prior post, someone suggested I install a gyro. MAGIC FOLLOWED!!!!

So…..to modify my prior posts / This month I have flown 3 occasions with wind day #1 12 knots steady, wind day #2 15 knots G 20 and today (wind day #3) 11 knots G 17.

I have not had any landing control issues on these 3 days. Today, I made 17 landings and EVERY ONE was smooth and no bounce. Not a tribute to any piloting skill but totally attributable to this bird’s design with a gyro added.

She has proven herself several times and has now become my “go to bird” for windy days. That’s a 180 degree switch from when I was exasperated.

I am using the Eagle A3-L V2 with the gain turned up to about 25% to 30% from zero gain. I also turned each aileron’s ball link two full turns out so each aileron is about 3 mm reflex to help forestall the tip stall (effectively reduces the angle of attack of the wing section ahead of the aileron….adding more washout, so to speak).

Honest bird, now. Frustration is vanquished.

-GG

[jasmith41]

That is a nice scheme. I'm slowly working on mine, had to set it aside for other projects.

Just added a couple of badly painted pilots. Oh well, at least the coast guard is on duty now.

my buddy had a Bob Ross bobblehead so he took the bobblehead portion of Bob off and swapped out the figurine EFL put in the Cherokee and it worked perfectly - fkn hillarious...
i'll put up the pic if i can find it...

[Gilatrout]

That is a nice scheme. I'm slowly working on mine, had to set it aside for other projects.

Just added a couple of badly painted pilots. Oh well, at least the coast guard is on duty now.

[jasmith41]

Finally completed.

looks great - well done.

[Ron1950]

very nice.. that all white with a strip stock job is very hard to see in my opinion....

[avanti127]

Finally completed.

[Evan D]

Very nice. Not to take away from others but that is the best scheme I've seen done.

[Teegat]

I went with the 5 window Gulfstream G400 scheme. It still needs some painting touch up and clear coating but I wanted to fly it last weekend at NEFI

[RRHandy]

Landing with thrust reverse at 1:31. Thanks Xviper

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

Only problem with the video is, it's looped.

[GliderGuy]

With the huge Pacific low sucking in wind, the chance of a light wind weekend was zero. This gave me the opportunity to see just how well the PJ50 handles in windy conditions now with the added gyro.

Winds were lightest early morning Sunday the 8th but still 10 knots at sunrise….forecast to be 20 knots by 0900 CDT. After flight #2, the wind was a measured 12 knots steady. After a few more, the wind was measured 13 knts and gusting to 15 knts. During the last flight, I felt some even stronger gusts lifting the cap off my head!

Before the gyro was installed, flying the PJ50 successfully in these conditions would have been VERY challenging….if not almost impossible.

I did set to high rates to help ensure quick response, but in 10 flights….every landing was fine. Fairly certain this would not have been the case without the gyro.

Summarazing:
1) My personal max wind “fun” limit has increased at least 2X for the PJ50 with the gyro installed.
2) The landing characteristics in stronger wind conditions are vastly improved.
3) She’s fun to fly in wind, now.***

-GG

***Pilot experience depending.

[avanti127]

That looks awesome!

Thanks Evan.

[jasmith41]

Sweet! Want to do mine...?🤣🤣🤣

[Evan D]

That looks awesome!

[avanti127]

Finally got my Corporate scheme completed. Just need to fix the N# on the tail. I set it on before I reattached the tail to the plane and it was angled. Time to order a new set from Callie to do the fix but overall it cam out great. Real windows installed as well.

She also forgot to get me the two rear window window trims and the cabin door on the other side.

Photo of FS attached.

[GliderGuy]

Was wondering if you made them corrections and if so did they help.. Im dealing with that same flex in the wings.. Thought i would ask before i made the corrections or Mods..Thanks.

Regarding wing flex….Side story first…The AL37 has a lot of flex which eventually leads to foam cell boundary separation and surface cracking. I bought another and added internal carbon bracing glued to the top wing skin inside the wiring channel….problem solved! I also added internal fuselage joint bracing on bird #2 because the joint separated on bird #1 after a hard landing….problem solved again!

Now to the PJ50…With a similar wing, I was concerned about the cracks showing up. But, I decided not to add extra carbon internal bracing. It turns out that no added bracing is needed (so far). I have logged over 200 flights with the PJ50 and done a lot of high speed and aerobatic flying. I am not seeing a single crack developing in the wing.

For the PJ50, it is safe to say….well designed wing. Don’t worry about the slight flexing.

As far as CG, mine is balanced close to the CG marks and this requires the slight up elevator trim per the manual recommendation. She flies fine for me. But experimenting with a more aft CG is possible, of course. Suit yourself.

I did not add any additional internal fuselage joint reinforcement either. I have had several VERY hard near crashes (more below), and have not seen any of these near crashes cause a fuselage separation. The fuselage joint design is robust…don’t worry about it. For this post, I am defining a “crash” as a pile of foam.

The best thing you can do is INSTALL A GYRO! She gets hard to land in over 5 mph. Gets to rocking wings and Dutch rolling and can be a real challenge to land. I installed a 3-axis Hobby Eagle, and it made all the difference. She’s now fun to land.

#1 Near disaster = test of strength / Wing rocking on approach before installing a gyro. Narrow runway. Got a wing down into grass and she headed off at 90 degrees right into an embankment. BAM! Nose straight into the dirt, bounced back onto the road. Severe stress to the airframe. Damage was a crushed nose and some fuselage paint wrinkles. I was able to reshape the nose and added carbon to the nose and got her going again. The fuselage joint is STRONG!

#2 Near disaster = Landed short of pavement on “grass” after a rain. Oops….not grass but MUD! Both main gear sheared off and she pancaked on the belly on the pavement. A few more fuselage paint wrinkles. The fuselage joint is STRONG!

#3 Near disaster = Landing towards me. Good landing. As she went by, being lazy rather than turn my body around 180 degrees to follow her, I just turned my head around. I got mixed up on the rudder direction and drove her into a pipe fence. The pipe hit right at the wing root. Result = A few more fuselage paint wrinkles to fix and a challenging wing repair. But, got her done and test flew her yesterday. All good again. No trim adjustments were needed either. Woo Hoo!

Don’t be concerned about her structure. SHE IS ONE TOUGH BIRD! I don’t recommend anyone test her strength like I have…UGH! Amazingly, she still looks good albeit not shiny and new. I ask that you don’t look too close at my cosmetic repairs. LOL

-GG

PS. INSTALL A GYRO!!!!!!! You will be glad you did.

[wstimax]

Was wondering if you made them corrections and if so did they help.. Im dealing with that same flex in the wings.. Thought i would ask before i made the corrections or Mods..Thanks.

[wstimax]

I've noticed a couple of potential issues in the videos. The first is that James seems to be carrying a ton of up trim on his elevators indicating that his CG and possibly the book CG is way too forward. The second issue is that in one of the slo-mo landings, it looks like there is some fuselage flex in the aft section.

Both are easy to solve. For the flexing issue, I'm going to add additional carbon fiber slats internally along the tail and up the fuselage to stiffen the area where the two pieces meet. As to the CG, Ill figure out if I need to do more than move the battery after I add the stiffeners.

March is soo far away....

[xviper]

Landing with thrust reverse at 1:31. Thanks Xviper

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