I brought my new F9F Panther airplane to do the maiden this morning. I flew my "weather ship" E Flite Beech 18 and the air was pretty rough but got several flights in. The wind continued to increase to a direct crosswind so I decided to just do some ground tests for today, and then hopefully fly it tomorrow. It handles the rough runway pretty well, and is very responsive for taxiing. Range checked, full power static test, and ready for tomorrow, (weather permitting.)
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Maiden flight of the Freewing 70mm F9F Panther went great! Used some shorter struts on the main gear (Eflite 64mm A-10 main gear) and raked the nose gear a bit forward to get the correct stance on the ground. I will be planning for full gear doors and painted struts in the future (Tom's nose gear doors have been printed). 2 flights completed successfully with good characteristics noted on landing, which I had worried about with the modded stance. I used a 6S 4000 right on the stock CG marking. Based on what you all have found, I'll probably move it a bit more aft on the next flight. The flight time was also great! After the 4 min maiden flight, I still had 70% left, so I did a 2nd 5 minute flight afterwords. I was cruising at pretty low and slow power settings, so your mileage way vary.
On a side note, I was also able to take photos of my 500 size Sikorsky HO3S-1 performing a rescue mission of a pilot from a ditched F9F Panther. This recreates a scene in the the beginning of the movie "The Bridges at Toko-Ri". To get everything in place for the shots, I converted a beat up RC Lander F9F Panther to a boat so that it could be steered into position on the lake (over 6 lbs of ballast was required to make it float at a reasonable displacement). Pilot and crew chief figures were 3D printed.Comment
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I am up to 6-7 flights on mine and I like everything about it….:)Comment
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I had extensive damage to my Panther on my last flight last week where I lost control of the aircraft control inputs shortly after takeoff. The ailerons were basically locked out, a little elevator and rudder control, but not enough to save the airplane. Ruined a 6S 5000 battery in the bargain, too. So, I bought another airframe and was still able to use many parts from the original model like the entire tail section, a wing and tank, gear, etc.
I took a couple airplanes up the other day just to be sure the problem didn't lie with the transmitter. They flew great. My Spektrum 8 channel receiver I've had for a long time, and it has been through a few crashes over the past several years. I had another Lemon 7 channel receiver around, brand new, and I plan to fly the Panther next week, weather and winds permitting. Hopefully I won't have a repeat of the last Panther flight I had. First time in almost 25 years of RC flying that has happened to me. I think the old Spektrum receiver was at least partially to blame. Onward and Upward!
Below is my latest detail addition to the Panther. I got a period accurate jet pilot from the Korean war era from Chris Wolfe, and painted him up. Also, I printed up a Mk 8 gunsight for the plane. I had files of this and other detail parts for the cockpit for the Flightline 1.6m Corsair, and made adjustments to the printer to scale it down to 72 percent of the size for the Corsair so that it would be the proper size for the Panther. Worked like a charm,learned yet another thing about 3D printing, for an old 3D printing nugget!
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After taking it up for a couple of flights the other day, I brought the Panther back into the shop for a few days to do some add-ons (bling) to make it look a little more realistic, despite its small size.
These are the things I added lately:
1) more scale gunsight for cockpit
2)new pilot from Chris Wolfe to better reflect the 1950s Korean War period
3) printed and installed new nose gear doors that use a spring to keep them open or pull them shut when the gear retracts
4) Alhhough not scale, a better looking cover for the main gear doors. Looks better, although the real ones had inboard gear doors that cycled open and closed. This is good enough for this little bird, for me
5) Did a semi-scale tube and tail hook that comes out of it. It could eventually be made to cycle up and down if I decide to do that down the road. I did do one of these for an F6F Hellcat that worked ok and was a similar design, being a Grumman aircraft, too.
6) A two-position printed tail skid that can be mounted open or closed for display or flying
7)repainted the wheel hubs and struts in Navy Blue paint to follow the paint schemes of the era.
Not much else to do on it now, although other things might come up down the road. Really a great and easy flyer.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!!!
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So went to maiden mine this afternoon and this happened Wing mounting post snapped off .Now what ? Sorry for dust but was waiting for a nice dayComment
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I've had my Panther for a few months now and it is one of my best flying EDFs!
I have only one problem with it and it is landing gear deployment. Most of the time, it is flawless but 4 times now (including this last weekend) some of the gear does not deploy. I've had left main and nose gear deploy but not right main. I've had both mains deploy and no nose gear. But the gear always go up no matter which configuration is not working. When in flight, I have cycled the gear many times and never get three down when this problem happens.Now I thought this was just my bad luck with this specific set of electronics until a buddy of mine at the field bought a brand new one and I helped him maiden it....guess what...the gear wouldn't deploy at all! He brought it to the field the next week and it was working fine. He said that he did nothing to it.
Both of these models are bone stock. Any ideas?
I'm thinking about wiring the gear straight to my receiver instead of that relay box???
Russ (RGS2010 on RCGroups)Comment
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I just finished my new A10 thunderbolt, no radio yet, but how do I lower the landing gear, with just a 5000 battery? Also the same for my Super Scorpion V2, landing gear, I need it down, what's the secret?Comment
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Please someone there, can you tell me how to get the landing gear down, no transmitter yet, thankyou, Stuart Miller, I just ordered the new SR 71 Blackbird from you guys, thanks again....Comment
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You’ll need a servo tester, and 4.8V battery or BEC to lower the gear without a radio.Originally posted by STUART MILLER View PostComment
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Maidened mine today and it went very well. No trim needed on any axis. Takeoff roll was pretty short into 7 MPH breeze.
After takeoff, just cruised at about 50% power. It flies quite solid at that setting. Since I was using a Spektrum 3200 mAh
100C battery, I landed after 2.5 minutes. I selected full flaps and carried a little power to touch down. Landing was firm,
but no bounce or porpoising. I needn’t have worried about the 3200 battery as it measured 80% remaining. I really like
this jet.Comment
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I just got the F9 and put it together. I have a had a lot of trouble getting it to function properly with a variety of Spektrum receivers. For instance, I bind with an AR620 and give input to the aileron, say to the right, the right aileron goes up and the left flap goes down. I give aileron input to the left and the opposite occurs. This is also true with other receivers. There's only one way to insert the plugs from the wings. Anybody have this problem?Comment
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It seems to me you've got the aileron and flap on each side hook up to the aileron and flap of the other side.Originally posted by Wingman1945 View Post
IE, you've got the right aileron and the left flap Y'd together and the left aileron and right flap Y'd together via the control box. Are they plugged into the correct pins? I don't have this plane so is there a control box or does it use "Y's"?
Have you declared the correct model type in the TX? IE, 1 AIL, 1 FLAP.Comment
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This is the 70mm F9 Panther. Most of the wiring is already plugged in when you get the model. The only thing the "user" runs are elevator and rudder lines that plug into a board at the rear of the fuselage when you mount the tail. The wings each have a single wire that plugs into the fuselage where you mount the wings. This single lead carries control for both flaps and aileron. This plug only fits one way. The socket wire is run into the centre and pre-plugged into a box with all the other leads already plugged in. From that are labeled leads that go to the receiver. Again, all rigged by the manufacturer.Comment
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It may be true that the manufacturer has "rigged" all the wiring, however, the person on the production line could have wired it incorrectly. He/she is only human. I've seen this on a couple of my planes where wiring is plugged into the wrong pins. It is up to the user to check the factory's work. Look upstream of the wiring that comes from each wing. Look behind this:
to make sure those AIL and FLAP are plugged into the correct pins. Use a servo tester to confirm that the AIL is in fact the aileron, the flap is in fact the flap. Check both sides. Don't assume that the user "only" has to do certain things.Comment
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Xviper, good to have you back!Comment
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Thanks. Yeah, went in and found they had plugged the right flap into the right aileron port. Switched them around and checked all good on the ground! Whew! Did not want to start digging into the wings or deal with a return.
Still wouldn't bind to a Lemon DX 7 channel I got for it, which is supposed to be compatible with my DX-8e. So I swapped in a AR8020T from another plane that didn't really need 8 ch and all good.Comment
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where do you fit in the Freewing Gyro? The battery location looks to be pretty much filled in with the 6s lipoComment
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That depends on the size of your 6s LiPo. If your battery takes up all the available space, then you'll need to improvise. Move existing stuff around to make room for a gyro OR build yourself a thin, plywood shelf that spans across the width of the plane in a convenient location and secure the gyro to that shelf. I don't have this plane but I have many planes where space is very limited and a shelf is the way to go. The easiest way to have a gyro is to get a gyro stabilized receiver, as shown in some of the Motion videos for this plane (eg. Lemon stab RX).Comment
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