Official Freewing Twin 70mm SR-71 Blackbird with Gyro EDF Jet Thread

[EDF-Jetpilot]

I would, except the temperature outside is -14 Celsius. That's minus 14.

Oh... it's just 4:30 pm and around plus 14°Celsius. Best Regards from Switzerland.

[DCORSAIR]

Oh you poor guys, it's only 70° here in Ca., very nice flying weather...

[Aros]

I also want to add my thoughts that if you are waiting to see how well it flies on grass, it might be a long wait. This model is definitely not meant for grass unless it's a completely manicured golf green-type of grass which most grass fields are not.

[Aros]

Oh you poor guys, it's only 70° here in Ca., very nice flying weather...

Lucky! It's windy, cold and rainy here in Astoria, OR.

[Evan D]

We had our 5th snow of the year here today, will be 60 on monday...

[Shaun Evans]

.

[Shaun Evans]

Sarcasm? Not sure you will get this airborne on one fan...

Single TURBINE

[DCORSAIR]

Mine is flying good, 12 flights so far and set up per the instructions, no changes other than reduced control throws. The chute works flawless and looks awesome when deployed at the right time on landing...

[F106DeltaDart]

Completed my maiden flight, plus Tom flying 2 more on it with me behind the camera. I put an AS3X+ receiver in and removed the stock gyro. RC geek Centerburners were also installed, and I ran a 6S 7000 as far back as I could get it in the forward bay. I had to remove and relocate the wooden bracket holding the ribbon cable to get it out of the way so that the battery could be pushed all the way back to the plastic. That put me around 3mm aft of the CG marks.

I really enjoyed it, and the model handles well. Slight roll oscillation as noted, but I may just need to dial up the roll gains a tad. Hardest part is orientation. As long as you stay focused and concentrate, it’s ok, but don’t take your eye off it! Approach is pretty easy and as others have noted it sticks immediately when the nose comes down. Speed chute worked great as well!

[Aros]

Completed my maiden flight, plus Tom flying 2 more on it with me behind the camera. I put an AS3X+ receiver in and removed the stock gyro. RC geek Centerburners were also installed, and I ran a 6S 7000 as far back as I could get it in the forward bay. I had to remove and relocate the wooden bracket holding the ribbon cable to get it out of the way so that the battery could be pushed all the way back to the plastic. That put me around 3mm aft of the CG marks.

I really enjoyed it, and the model handles well. Slight roll oscillation as noted, but I may just need to dial up the roll gains a tad. Hardest part is orientation. As long as you stay focused and concentrate, it’s ok, but don’t take your eye off it! Approach is pretty easy and as others have noted it sticks immediately when the nose comes down. Speed chute worked great as well!

As I mentioned on RCG, nice report and fabulous photos! I so appreciate quality shots of these gorgeous models in the air. Well done.

For my maiden I plan on flying her out of the box stock. I hear FW gyros get a bad rap by some. Have you found that to be true? Employee or not, I feel pretty confident that Freewing knows what they are doing in relation to the models they produce and wouldn’t put some junk gyro in such a higher end model like this.

Are folks like you (in your opinion) just ripping out the stock gyro and adding an AS3X receiver without giving the stock gyro a fair shake early on simply due to experience and familiarity with the AS3X product?

I am actually quite curious about that because I have had success with both FW and AS3X gyros but there definitely appears to be some of those out there with very strong opinions on the matter.

[GliderGuy]

Made 4 more flights this morning.
STOCK gyro does fine. New “discoveries”:

1) 5-7 mph direct cross wind = she did well
2) Gotta REALLY keep in your head what you are doing. I was yacking to a bystander and turned downwind. I lost orientation due to the distraction. Only experience saved it. IF YOUR ARE DOING SOMETIHING TO CORRECT THE SIGHT PICTURE AND THINGS GET WORSE….DO THE OPPOSITE FAST!

Doing the opposite fixed my sight picture as the plane leveled out. A novice would have plowed her into the ground. It happened so fast.

Don’t let yourself get distracted. This bird demands focus. Even to the point of talking to yourself like,”Going right, so left will shallow!”

3) She flies well at 1/2 throttle. Will allow for a bit more extended flights.

Loving this bird!

-GG

[F106DeltaDart]

As I mentioned on RCG, nice report and fabulous photos! I so appreciate quality shots of these gorgeous models in the air. Well done.

For my maiden I plan on flying her out of the box stock. I hear FW gyros get a bad rap by some. Have you found that to be true? Employee or not, I feel pretty confident that Freewing knows what they are doing in relation to the models they produce and wouldn’t put some junk gyro in such a higher end model like this.

Are folks like you (in your opinion) just ripping out the stock gyro and adding an AS3X receiver without giving the stock gyro a fair shake early on simply due to experience and familiarity with the AS3X product?

I am actually quite curious about that because I have had success with both FW and AS3X gyros but there definitely appears to be some of those out there with very strong opinions on the matter.

For me, it’s more that I already had an extra AS3X receiver on the shelf. I had nothing against the stock gyro, but I would have had go buy another receiver to use it.

[DCORSAIR]

Made 4 more flights this morning.
STOCK gyro does fine. New “discoveries”:

1) 5-7 mph direct cross wind = she did well
2) Gotta REALLY keep in your head what you are doing. I was yacking to a bystander and turned downwind. I lost orientation due to the distraction. Only experience saved it. IF YOUR ARE DOING SOMETIHING TO CORRECT THE SIGHT PICTURE AND THINGS GET WORSE….DO THE OPPOSITE FAST!

Doing the opposite fixed my sight picture as the plane leveled out. A novice would have plowed her into the ground. It happened so fast.

Don’t let yourself get distracted. This bird demands focus. Even to the point of talking to yourself like,”Going right, so left will shallow!”

3) She flies well at 1/2 throttle. Will allow for a bit more extended flights.

Loving this bird!

-GG

Yeah she will get away quick, like you said, just talk to yourself as your flying this one. I did fly mine in a slight crosswind yesterday and it handles it no problem and the rudders work great, I also did some slow flight approaches with gear down the whole time, looks awesome doing those, I think people thought this one was going to be just a go fast jet, nope.

[Shaun Evans]

Hi,

I want to mask and paint mine to the M21 or A12 silver/black scheme, but I have never had much luck peeling masking tape off of FW planes without the existing paint peeling up. Those of you who've painted these, what kind of masking did you use? Any tips?

[GliderGuy]

Yeah she will get away quick, like you said, just talk to yourself as your flying this one. I did fly mine in a slight crosswind yesterday and it handles it no problem and the rudders work great, I also did some slow flight approaches with gear down the whole time, looks awesome doing those, I think people thought this one was going to be just a go fast jet, nope.

I totally agree! I made 6 more in dead calm. Without the chute or reverse, best have some pavement to roll out on.

Total flights = 17

-GG

[Aros]

Hi,

I want to mask and paint mine to the M21 or A12 silver/black scheme, but I have never had much luck peeling masking tape off of FW planes without the existing paint peeling up. Those of you who've painted these, what kind of masking did you use? Any tips?

I always use painter's tape. Either the blue or green variants. One key is to stick the piece of tape on your pants or something a few times to help absorb some "tack" of the tape. This way, when you then put the tape down, it's less likely to pull up the stock paint when it's time to pull up the tape. I've had good success with this method over the years. However, I ALWAYS plan ahead and have matching paint to do touchups which are almost always inevitable no matter what you do. You can get a small tester's-size from Home Depot or Lowe's if you bring a piece of the plane in for them to scan the color. Works great! For something like this model you can just grab a rattle can or small paint sample (say, Testors 1/4 ounce enamel for example) of black paint with eggshell finish and be good to go to cover up any dings, blemishes or paint pull ups.

[Aros]

Made 4 more flights this morning.
STOCK gyro does fine. New “discoveries”:

1) 5-7 mph direct cross wind = she did well
2) Gotta REALLY keep in your head what you are doing. I was yacking to a bystander and turned downwind. I lost orientation due to the distraction. Only experience saved it. IF YOUR ARE DOING SOMETIHING TO CORRECT THE SIGHT PICTURE AND THINGS GET WORSE….DO THE OPPOSITE FAST!

Doing the opposite fixed my sight picture as the plane leveled out. A novice would have plowed her into the ground. It happened so fast.

Don’t let yourself get distracted. This bird demands focus. Even to the point of talking to yourself like,”Going right, so left will shallow!”

3) She flies well at 1/2 throttle. Will allow for a bit more extended flights.

Loving this bird!

-GG

Oh yes, this bird DEMANDS FULL ATTENTION AT ALL TIMES. As DCORSAIR mentioned, I always talk to myself when flying a SR-71 as I refuse to paint any orientation-non-scale colors on it. "Banking left....Banking right..." etc...Keep those tails pointing up at all times (except when performing an aerobatic maneuver). Distraction is death with this model. Ask me how I know! LOL!

[DCORSAIR]

I totally agree! I made 6 more in dead calm. Without the chute or reverse, best have some pavement to roll out on.

Total flights = 17

-GG

I have 12 flights as of now on mine. I have plenty of runway myself to let it roll out and a couple of times I didn't pop the chute just because I got tired of repacking it

[EDF-Jetpilot]

For me, it’s more that I already had an extra AS3X receiver on the shelf. I had nothing against the stock gyro, but I would have had go buy another receiver to use it.

You wouldn't have had to buy another receiver, you can switch the AS3X on or off as you like on any receiver using forward programming in the transmitter. You can also use any Spektrum receiver with AS3X and Safe as a normal receiver.

[Skosh25]

Anyone know if the EG01 can be used for steering as well? Just Y into the RUD maybe? I usually install the Assan AG61 in all my EDFs but I don't have an extra for this one and could not find anything in the manual.