Official Freewing 90mm F-104 Starfighter Thread

[gooniac33]

Pilots, finally maidened my F-104 this weekend. Stock except FMS 90mm EDF, FMS Predator 130A ESC, JP wheel brakes and 2 Nerf Whistles. Was quite nervous but everything went well. My initial adevise, fly it in wide turns and keep speed up especially with flaps deployed. Landing flaps set at about 20 degrees. I am happy to be member of the F-104 family now!

Welcome to the club!! You for sure took the easier route with the FMS fan! The plane is so much better with that fan! I am loving mine! I got some flights this weekend as well... I was pushing it pretty hard and it didn't bite me this time! here they are...

[Stu C.]

Has anybody flown this with the two extra ventral fins removed?

[DCORSAIR]

Has anybody flown this with the two extra ventral fins removed?

Yep, when I first put mine together I left all of them off for the first few flights, then I put them on to see if I would notice anything different while flying, I didn't notice anything different in flying, it does look better with them on so I left mine mounted.

[TiredIronGRB]

I got this a while back and just never really did anything with it so while the weather is bad I decided to spruce it up a little by removing some dead weight and putting a 6S F-4 9 blade setup in it...oh and some paint and Callie graphics:Cool:

[EA-6B Geek]

TI, that looks super cool. This jet is now on my short list. Have you flown it, or had any exposure to them?

[gooniac33]

I got this a while back and just never really did anything with it so while the weather is bad I decided to spruce it up a little by removing some dead weight and putting a 6S F-4 9 blade setup in it...oh and some paint and Callie graphics:Cool:

I use the airbrakes in mine!!! They have saves my hieny many times! Plane does look amazing though! Any flight footage yet?

[TiredIronGRB]

I use the airbrakes in mine!!! They have saves my hieny many times! Plane does look amazing though! Any flight footage yet?

Now yet, waiting on weather and camera man ;)

[themudduck]

I use the airbrakes in mine!!! They have saves my hieny many times! Plane does look amazing though! Any flight footage yet?

Hey Gooniac, tell me more! I just haven't had the guts to try the airbrakes in the air - and usually I am so busy with all the workload during landing this thing that I simply forget to use them.
Please tell us all about how the model reacts when you deploy - do you have to use a ton of throttle to keep flying, do they affect the pitch at all? Does it make the model slow down really well?
I think I saw a comment somewhere here that using the airbrakes in the air would make the model fall out of the sky like a shot duck. So I am very curious to know more about your experience.

Or do you deploy them right at touchdown to decrease the rollout?

[gooniac33]

Hey Gooniac, tell me more! I just haven't had the guts to try the airbrakes in the air - and usually I am so busy with all the workload during landing this thing that I simply forget to use them.
Please tell us all about how the model reacts when you deploy - do you have to use a ton of throttle to keep flying, do they affect the pitch at all? Does it make the model slow down really well?
I think I saw a comment somewhere here that using the airbrakes in the air would make the model fall out of the sky like a shot duck. So I am very curious to know more about your experience.

Or do you deploy them right at touchdown to decrease the rollout?

I flew it again on Monday... CG is about 3/4 of an inch ahead of the forward wing mounting screw which is more towards the middle of the CG range which is actually where the CG mark should be made. If you look on page 14 of the manual you see how they show a CG range. I hate it when most of the time they say that the rear of the range is the CG when it really is not. The plane is borderline unflyable at that mark. Yes it can be done but there is no margin for error at all and you can not flare when you come in to land! It ends up doing the death bounce and killing itself. So now I fly ahead of the screw and the plane is oh so much more fun to fly! Especially when landing!! I don't encourage flaring this model since it really doesn't like it... but when you have the CG at this point, once the wheels touch down you can hold full up and deploy the speed brakes without worrying about it lifting off again. I have even hit the brakes when it was still in the air to get it to come down sooner and it didn't have any ill effects on the way it was flying aside from making it sink. With the recommended CG the brakes make the plane pitch up.

Here are my flights from monday and yes I used the brakes on these flights too

[gooniac33]

Here are a couple videos from before that were a mix of my flying with other planes but has the F-104 in there as well.

[M1110]

Has anybody had issues with the undercarriage not cycling correctly? I have tried all configurations with the wiring and just don't seem to be able to get the correct sequence going. Is there a set order to plug the servo leads into the board? I have replaced the board and it didn't achieve anything, still the same issue. Any thoughts?

[fhhuber]

Has anybody had issues with the undercarriage not cycling correctly? I have tried all configurations with the wiring and just don't seem to be able to get the correct sequence going. Is there a set order to plug the servo leads into the board? I have replaced the board and it didn't achieve anything, still the same issue. Any thoughts?

We'd need more detail as to what isn't working correctly.

I test my retract systems with the struts removed to prevent wiping out the gear doors.
Then If gear doors are on separate servos, I use a servo tester to open the doors and leave them unplugged while getting the mains and nose-gear to operate correctly.
Then I plug a separate servo (not installed) in to check timing of the gear doors vs the gear. (this desn't verify the doors are moving the correct direction...)
Unplug The retract with it up, and plug in the door and test that the door servo direction is correct (nothing quite like closing the door then dropping the gear)

Once all sequencing and direction issues are sorted out, THEN operate the gear and doors (still no struts) and verify its all timed right.

Then its time to put the struts back on.

[themudduck]

Yo Huber... On the F104 the gear and doors all plug into a control board and there is only one connection to the receiver. So checking everything first is a good idea, but I don't see that there is any way to "sort out sequencing and direction issues" - the user has no control over that, its all done by the control board. If the nose gear is operating in reverse from main gear, wouldn't the board be at fault? I don't know what else it could be.

[Beeg]

Don't know if you have any additional timing settings set up but I think I read a couple years ago that unless you have things cooked up to receiver directly, make sure you don't have any additional timing settings in your transmitter. Let the board do all the timing/sequencing otherwise they can conflict. May check to make sure?

[TiredIronGRB]

I scaled up a 70mm F-104 to replace the stock one on my 90mm TM ;)

I removed the led ring and will use a RCGeek center afterburner.

[gooniac33]

That looks really good!! I have my own unit that I will be adding to my FMS powered F-104. I may actually get started on it this weekend...

[Bandiferous93]

Here a flight in the wind with my Yellow 90mm F-104....love this jet and you will too! )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_qgXP3UTM

Damn, those trees sure have gotten a lot taller since I learned to fly at Apollo in the early '80s.

[Bax91]

Hey guys going crazy trying to find correct CG.
My setup is FMS Edf and predator esc 130 amp. I will use Turnigy Heavy duty 60c 5000 mah on this bird. Any major info and pictures about correct cg location and battery placement with this setup? It will be a good point of start...

[Evan D]

CG is talked about a lot in this thread. Different motors or batteries does not change where you should balance your plane.

[DCORSAIR]

There are four screws holding the wings on, use the front forward screws, it has worked for me many flights so it has to be close, I just place my fingertips on those screws and lift up, slight nose drop is good, if the tail drops it's a crash...:Angry::)