Two Freewing F-16 Maiden Flights

[Addison]

I took my boy, Joshua (on the right) to the flying field today and we met his friend, Patrick (on the left) so they could both do the maiden flights on their F-16's today. It was a beautiful day here in Montana with the snow capped peaks of Glacier National Park in the background. They both had a great maiden flight and both birds flew 3 times today...what a great day for all of us at the field. Patrick's older brother also got a maiden flight and 2 additional flights on his T-45 Goshawk with greaser landings. Joshua's F-16 was programmed with flapperons, Patrick's F-16 was set up with standard ailerons. The big grins in the picture should give you an idea on how today was... This is a GREAT flying little EDF.

[OV10]

That is just awesome to see youngsters actually doing something that is constructive besides veggin in front of the tube. I can imagine that it won't be long before your boy can fly circles around the ol' man if he isn't already doing so.:p

[xviper]

If I may, I'd like to add my maiden to this thread. Excuse the poor video quality. It was taken by a friend on his Android phone and the original video was a bit choppy but YouTube fixed it to some extent. Of interest, is the vortex effect at the moment of lift off. This was a very plush grass runway and it took almost the whole length to get off the ground (which it almost didn't). Mine is the "high speed" inrunner version. Best to go to YouTube and watch in full screen.

[ColtPilot]

An attempt Saturday at maiden with my 90mm 8s FW Thunderbird in moderate grass and couldn't do it. Gotta find a better spot or cut the grass lower. Need pavement. ARG!!!

[xviper]

I'm surprised that it wouldn't go with 8s pushing it. I would think that if you can get it to enough speed to rotate, the thrust should be able to shove it into the air at high alpha. My 6s "high speed" version in the video just got off the ground before the tall grass. I could have rotated a bit sooner but wanted as much speed as possible before cranking it. I timed the yank on the stick just about right, maybe too close. My second flight, I started further back by about 50 feet but got off the ground about 150 feet before the tall grass.