Official Freewing B-2 Spirit Bomber 86" Twin 70mm EDF Jet

[xviper]

Since it's so new, I don't have experience with the E-52, but I've used the HobbyEagle and Lemon gyros for years. I think the "master gain" on the E-52 will be like the ones I'm accustomed to. That is, since the output for "gain" is there, if it's plugged into a channel that can be controlled by the rotary knob (or slider), it should work. I don't believe it has to be "turned on". (Unlike the Spektrum Safe select/AS3X units where you have to tell it that you want to use a variable gain and assign it to a rotary. Spektrum smart RXs appear to be able to use "ghost" channels for certain functions whereby even though the RX may not have more than 6 channels, they can still read channels 7, 8, 9.) Like the HobbyEagle A3S3 that also uses a programmer, since it has the output for "gain", hooking it up to any open channel that can be controlled by a rotary, will simply work, just as hooking up the "mode" to an open channel that can be controlled by a switch, simply works. You don't have to "turn on" anything to make it happen.

The recommended gain setting of 40 -50% is likely based on a brand new gyro that needs to be programmed. I don't think we can just assume that's what it has been set to in the B-2. Typically, fast jets utilize lower gains (<35%) but since this is not what I would call a fast jet, I suspect the gains could be a bit higher - how much higher, can't say. We won't know this until someone puts the programmer onto it and see what it reads.
I don't know about the basis for the 0% to 100% in terms of "us". All I can tell you is that when the rotary dial goes from 0% to 100%, that translates to a percentage of the gains already set in the device. Let's say for example, the gains for the plane is set at 40%. If the rotary is all the way to 0%, that's like turning the gyros OFF. If you go to 100%, then you have the full 40% gain. Let's say you choose 50% of the rotary travel. That becomes 50% of 40%, which is 20% gain. When you use the master gain on a rotary, you essentially have an ON/OFF switch.

[Compmitch]

Why do you think yours will be better than the stock gyro?

I got mine a couple of days ago and one of the elevons stopped moving and the rudders were on and off. That's why. Those control modules are not dependable. I'm waiting on Motion rc to respond to my email. I'm willing to try another module ultimately I'll most likely rewire the leads from the gyro directly to the receiver.

[mshagg]

I got mine a couple of days ago and one of the elevons stopped moving and the rudders were on and off. That's why. Those control modules are not dependable. I'm waiting on Motion rc to respond to my email. I'm willing to try another module ultimately I'll most likely rewire the leads from the gyro directly to the receiver.

You may need to rethink this. The control module is doing important mixing work, the gyro is not.

If you plan on recreating that mixing work yourself you would need to replace the ribbon cables, given these plug into the control board.

[Alastair67]

Has anyone operated off grass successfully yet? We have a well manicured strip that I can operate the following from: 90mm F-18, F-4, Venom, 80mm A-4, A-6, A-10, T-33, Gripen, 70mm ME-262, Yak-130, BAE Hawk + a plethora of FW prop types. I haven't bought anything yet that won't rotate - although the T-33 is a close call. I've already sized up the hangar spot for this great bird - I just don't want it to sit there gathering dust!

[kallend]

Question on the E52 in the B2.
I see I can add spare Chanel (Chanel 8) in my case to the gain input pin on the Ail2/elv2/gain pin set. In the manual under Gain Settings it talks about using it in flight to adjust and set. This what I’m use to.
questions are:
1 is this function active since this is preprogrammed unit for the B2?
2 they recommend 40%-50% starting point, is this where it’s preset at currently, if not what is it preset at?
3 is the 0%-100% range based off a 1000us - 2000us output signal?

I’d like to able to adjust the gain like my other FC’s just in case it becomes over active.

Thanks
Gravy

1. Easy enough to test if its active. Just connect it up to your Ch8 and see if it works. There's nothing in the E52 manual to say it needs to be activated, and the A3S3 has it always active.

2. If not connected, the A3S3 defaults to 100% so I imagine this does too.

3. No doubt. Again, easy enough to test.

[Pete914]

Here's my maiden flight session. No cameraman but I tried to just edit to where you can watch the jet going through the paces. I lost my canopy on my second flight! It was my bad-I didn't puncture the tap with the latch....

My first flight impression is this thing is awesome. It flies really nicely. It's locked in on all axis and tracks very well. The drag rudders are very affective and forgiving.
The only issue I was having was getting it to settle on landing. My runway is geomat and it's bumpy. I found I did best when I really held the flair for as long as possible to land with minimum energy. Anything less and it would bounce on me but remained controllable. I really loved flying it! It's going to be a new favorite for sure. You guys are in for treat! I found 50-70% throttle is all you need. Back off your throttle and you will find the jet is really comfortable at slightly slower speeds. 4:30 flights times and I still had 50% charge on my 5000 mah 6s pack.

I'm using the recommended settings here: 45mm open drag brakes on neutral, 8mm up trim on elevator, 4mm uptrim on aileron (for reflex).

[SeeMeDo]

Here's my maiden flight session. No cameraman but I tried to just edit to where you can watch the jet going through the paces. I lost my canopy on my second flight! It was my bad-I didn't puncture the tap with the latch....

My first flight impression is this thing is awesome. It flies really nicely. It's locked in on all axis and tracks very well. The drag rudders are very affective and forgiving.
The only issue I was having was getting it to settle on landing. My runway is geomat and it's bumpy. I found I did best when I really held the flair for as long as possible to land with minimum energy. Anything less and it would bounce on me but remained controllable. I really loved flying it! It's going to be a new favorite for sure. You guys are in for treat! I found 50-70% throttle is all you need. Back off your throttle and you will find the jet is really comfortable at slightly slower speeds. 4:30 flights times and I still had 50% charge on my 5000 mah 6s pack.

I'm using the recommended settings here: 45mm open drag brakes on neutral, 8mm up trim on elevator, 4mm uptrim on aileron (for reflex).

Great flights and use of the camera,
:D Jeff in LA USA

[Evan D]

If one elevon stopped working the issue is from the control module out to the servo. Is said a few times the gyro is just a gyro and it's set up as a normal airplane configuration. All the conversion to elevons is done in the control box module. The signal path is receiver to the gyro to the control bow to the servos.

There is nothing magic about the gyro in this. There are many other gyros that can be set up to work as the E52 does. The magic happens in the control box but that said most modern radios can replicate most of the mixing it does. In most FW EDFs I bypass the control box or blue box for main controls (for theB-2 this would be elevons and drag brakes) and use the box just for retracts and lights. When I do this I do the mixing in my transmitter. But then the mixing is before the gyro and if you use a gyro you need to figure that out. Setting up twin rudders in your radio (so you can do fully open drag brakes to get air brakes), doing elevons at the gyro and just having retracts and lights through the control box would be an interesting set up to get some additional mixing features, most notably air brakes and mixing throttle to the drag brakes so they close a little as you increase throttle like the real B-2 does.

Another choice is to use a flight controller, such as quad copters use and do all the mixing and gyro setting in it.

I got mine a couple of days ago and one of the elevons stopped moving and the rudders were on and off. That's why. Those control modules are not dependable. I'm waiting on Motion rc to respond to my email. I'm willing to try another module ultimately I'll most likely rewire the leads from the gyro directly to the receiver.

[Pete914]

The more I think about my first session the more I realize how well built this jet is. It doesn't just fly, but flys WELL. It's efficient and predictable. I think I'll be getting 5 minutes on 5amp 6s packs.

I'm still having trouble with my flare on landing. I'm pretty rusty though. I haven't flown an EDF since last season and even then I wasn't flying much. I will work on my flare at landing and really let it slow down. Landing fast leads to Pilot induced oscillation (PIO) so be careful with that. The landing gear held up well to the abuse!

[davegee]

Here's my maiden flight session. No cameraman but I tried to just edit to where you can watch the jet going through the paces. I lost my canopy on my second flight! It was my bad-I didn't puncture the tap with the latch....

My first flight impression is this thing is awesome. It flies really nicely. It's locked in on all axis and tracks very well. The drag rudders are very affective and forgiving.
The only issue I was having was getting it to settle on landing. My runway is geomat and it's bumpy. I found I did best when I really held the flair for as long as possible to land with minimum energy. Anything less and it would bounce on me but remained controllable. I really loved flying it! It's going to be a new favorite for sure. You guys are in for treat! I found 50-70% throttle is all you need. Back off your throttle and you will find the jet is really comfortable at slightly slower speeds. 4:30 flights times and I still had 50% charge on my 5000 mah 6s pack.

I'm using the recommended settings here: 45mm open drag brakes on neutral, 8mm up trim on elevator, 4mm uptrim on aileron (for reflex).

Thanks for the video and flight report, Pete. I plan on maidening my plane using the recommended settings from Jeremy Solt, and apparently what you used for your successful flights. It looks like a fun plane to fly.

I'll have to wait a little longer, being that we live in the upper northwest corner of Wyoming. I think we had Spring for awhile, but I guess that was "FALSE SPRING." Getting a bunch of snow and winds the next couple days. But eventually it will be REAL SPRING, that occurs just before ROAD REPAIR and TOURIST seasons! It's All good!

[ridgerunner]

In many of the (non-Jeremy) launch vids I've watched, the moment of transition from on the ground to in the air is somewhat abrupt. This and the reports of the B-2 being difficult or unable to get off the ground from grass fields leads me to wonder if this plane might benefit from a slightly higher AOA when sitting on its landing gear. i.e. I think lengthening the nose wheel gear somehow to raise the nose a smidge may turn out to be a worthwhile mod. Maybe shim the whole nose gear mechanism's attachment to the foam by a mm or three? Or maybe slightly larger diameter nose wheels? (If there's room that is.)

[Evan D]

Could be or we may find the CG needs adjusting, many FW ones do.

[davegee]

Davegee, I also plan to use the Admiral 6000 AND the 4 / 8 mm setup. After all, Jeremy has flown it, and I haven’t.

Seems like a reasonable course of action.

-GG

It does seem reasonable. I have 5000mAh batteries so they are a little lighter than your 6000s, but based on Pete's videos of his flights above also using 5000mAh batteries, I think I'm content at this point to use Jeremy's set up with the elevator/ailerons 8mm/4mm up. Battery all the way forward. That should make for a safe maiden, with hopefully no surprises. I plan on flying this plane as a cruiser, no aerobatics, just nice flyby's and hopefully nice scale takeoffs and landings. That's all I expect out of it. It does its part looking awesome in the air as it flies by.

davegee

[Gravythe clown]

On the gyro gain adjust, what I’m worried about is that there are presets that will be wiped out. The ail gain Sean’s to be set way higher than the elv gain. Berry little movement (self adj) with the elevators, but much bigger movements on the Ail (self adj). Also the Rudders make some pretty good movements too.
so I’m assuming that if I take control of the gain, what ever they have programmed in will be gone. Not sure they are written and stored in eprom or not.
Also assuming that the new controlled gain will be equal for all inputs.
This is why I’m wondering if it’s active and if I connect and start driving it if I’ll fubar it.
kind of hope Alpha or James will answer before I go connecting to it to test it out.

Gravy

[xviper]

On the gyro gain adjust, what I’m worried about is that there are presets that will be wiped out. The ail gain Sean’s to be set way higher than the elv gain. Berry little movement (self adj) with the elevators, but much bigger movements on the Ail (self adj). Also the Rudders make some pretty good movements too.
so I’m assuming that if I take control of the gain, what ever they have programmed in will be gone. Not sure they are written and stored in eprom or not.
Also assuming that the new controlled gain will be equal for all inputs.
This is why I’m wondering if it’s active and if I connect and start driving it if I’ll fubar it.
kind of hope Alpha or James will answer before I go connecting to it to test it out.

Gravy

Could you be over-thinking this a bit too much? I'm not nearly as smart, so these kinds of things don't concern me so much. In a typical normal wing/tail model plane, AIL usually gets the lowest gain, ELE can be a bit higher and RUD can be the highest (just prior to onset oscillation). For the "normal" type of plane, let's say AIL rate gain is 35%, ELE gain is 40% and RUD gain is 45%. If the master gain knob is set to 50%, then AIL gain becomes 17.5%, ELE gain becomes 20% and RUD gain becomes 22.5%. Not sure what the gains are for the B-2 but it'll be a proportion of whatever the master gain is set at. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "presets being wiped out". Nothing should "get wiped out" completely until you set the master to ZERO and that's just gyro response. Stick response should remain the same in terms of throw. Similarly, I don't understand what you mean by "movements" - gyro response movement? ............... well of course. Lower gain, less gyro response. Control surface response to stick movement? .................. That shouldn't change much, if at all.
Maybe I'm just not seeing the issue the same way you are. Enough people have this plane now that if they wanted to, they could easily test out all of these things. Perhaps they just don't see the importance of it and can't be bothered. So far, with the exception of that one case where they may have been a slight bit of oscillation, where there was NO pilot inexperience, nobody has gotten hurt, nobody has died (same can be said of the plane). And in the case of that slight oscillation, turning the master gain down a hair should resolve that instantly.
When I get mine, I'll just hook up the master gain and it'll be real quick to see how things work. Either there's a big problem or there will be none. Very easy to find out before the plane leaves the ground.

BTW ................... If for whatever reason you want MORE gain, then the rotary won't help as it will only give you 100% of what's already in there. THEN, you need to go into the programming to INCREASE the gains before the rotary can give you a percentage of the set gains. In many of my master gain controlled gyros, I crank up the gains to over 50% and use the rotary to dial it down.

[Evan D]

The presets will still be there, the master using a pot on the radio adjusts all of the set presets up or down. The issue will be, in my opinion that the plane may be sensitive in one axis, say pitch, and when you adjust the sensitivity down it'll also be for roll and yaw. I'm sure as people get this plane, and remember this B-2 is not like any other Free Wing EDF, we will see people adjustments that make the plane more enjoyable to fly.

[Pete914]

In many of the (non-Jeremy) launch vids I've watched, the moment of transition from on the ground to in the air is somewhat abrupt. This and the reports of the B-2 being difficult or unable to get off the ground from grass fields leads me to wonder if this plane might benefit from a slightly higher AOA when sitting on its landing gear. i.e. I think lengthening the nose wheel gear somehow to raise the nose a smidge may turn out to be a worthwhile mod. Maybe shim the whole nose gear mechanism's attachment to the foam by a mm or three? Or maybe slightly larger diameter nose wheels? (If there's room that is.)

This is a keen observation. I will say that if you don't touch the elevator it will just lift off. On most of my take off's I was giving back elevator input (trying to get it to lift off before passing the camera) which really makes it "pop" off the runway. I want that slow and steady rise...probably pilot technique.

I did try moving the battery slightly forward to bump up against the pilots and I also moved it aft until it was centered on the wood mount; I didn't notice too much difference in flight characteristics so don't worry too much about exact positioning. However, I had the battery up tight against the pilot's backrest for maiden.

I didn't even try any other gyro presets (attitude lock,trainer). The stock setting is really awesome. I would recommend you fly it there, then consider tinkering...

Good luck everyone! Post up those maiden vids...

[MeyerVW]

Im guessing but when the gyro is initialized it is done on it landing gear. If you change the gear height then you would also change its flying angle, yes?

[Evan D]

I would assume that you would want the aircraft in a "level" position if you intend to use either the trainer or auto level modes, you may be able to set that with gear retracted but I would say it's easier gear extended.

[xviper]

Im guessing but when the gyro is initialized it is done on it landing gear. If you change the gear height then you would also change its flying angle, yes?

In basic gyro mode, no. Auto-level / trainer needs to know what level is when initialized.