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...

[DCORSAIR]

I got me another one, sold my first one after a battle with trying to land with no gyro, never hooked it up so I never knew how much the gyro helped this plane, it is so easy to land now, haven't tried it in the wind, heard it can be a handful with the rocking. Maiden flight went great and ten flights total early this morning. Time to put the decals on.

[Hardway]

Welcome!!! Glad your are on board!!! Good luck with the 104. My 70mm flies nice and lands much slower than you would expect!!!

[DenisFerrari]

Just received my F-104 Black/Yellow nice livery! Out of the box quality is just superb! Kept flying my 90mm F-16 all summer (1st Freewing EPO electric jet, tigether with my bigger "jet-A1 propelled" jets and hely's :) ) and I liked it...this is my first 90mm F-104, I look forward to fly her nicely, of course with lot of respect to this marvelous airplane specs and behaviour!Just finished to read all the threads here, very interesting indeed and thak you all.

[Greyhound61]

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!

[mongo]

Im thinking a Vietnam era camo job.
Im on the fence about the yellow version I cant see silver in the air worth a darn.
I like snoopys sniper may do that scheme

i painted my tip tanks red/orange.
helps a LOT...

[Hardway]

I do!!!!! When I get the chance!

[DCORSAIR]

Don't see much action here about the 104, anyone besides gooniac still flying the F-104??

[Jhnybgd]

I would be using the FW 8s setupwhich the fan and esc are pretty heavy,
so even with the heavier fan it would still be difficult to get the cg back far enough using 2 5000 4s?

[gooniac33]

Hey All,I have a spare 8s setup from the f16 ,could the battery location on the 104 support 2 4s 5k batts?
I know it would add weight but im good with that.
I tried to find some build video or still shots of the battery compartment but havent had any luck.

thanks for any info

not sure how you would get this thing to balance with that set up though... the fan is so far back and makes a huge difference with any changes. If you can get it to work it will be awesome!! Just beware of the CG issues.

[Jhnybgd]

Would like to find a used 1 to practice with if any one has 1 not far from richmond va they want to get rid of?

[Jhnybgd]

Im thinking a Vietnam era camo job.
Im on the fence about the yellow version I cant see silver in the air worth a darn.
I like snoopys sniper may do that scheme

[crxmanpat]

No problem. Let us know how it works out. I'm currently working on a new scheme for mine (old German Air Force) and may also consider going 8S.

[Jhnybgd]

Awesome,thank you Crx

[crxmanpat]

Although I don't fly mine on 8S, I just stuck two RoaringTop 4S 5800s in mine, and they fit. You should be able to easily get away with two 4S 5000s.

[Jhnybgd]

Hey All,I have a spare 8s setup from the f16 ,could the battery location on the 104 support 2 4s 5k batts?
I know it would add weight but im good with that.
I tried to find some build video or still shots of the battery compartment but havent had any luck.

thanks for any info

[gooniac33]

I know that I am beating a very dead horse but my comments are pretty far back in the thread... so I'd like to mention it one more time. Its kind of a weird thing and I didn't realize what it meant at first.

See, when I had set my model up the ailerons had way too much throw. Which is typical of course, so I reduced it by reducing the throws using my radio - and I added in expo to smooth it out. As we know, this model is very sensitive to ailerons. When I first flew it, it rolled like a drill bit.

So I've been flying it last season and its set just the way that I like it. I like flying scale-like.
But in this configuration, I noticed that the gyro was overcontrolling (making the plane roll back and forth) when dealing with wind gusts and so on. Especially at low speeds, for example during the landing approach.
So I tried turning the gyro pot down. It didn't seem to help much.

So the epiphany was realizing that the gyro is controlling the aileron at 100% rates and with no expo. It doesn't see the radio settings at all!

And with that knowledge in mind, reducing the aileron throws mechanically should help a great deal.
At a given gyro setting... with full mechanical throw the gyro will be sending large inputs to the aileron.
But with reduced mechanical throw, the gyro will send a proportionally smaller input to the aileron.

What this means is that you can set the gyro for a medium setting, giving it more sensitivity to its job, but the aileron response will actually be less due to the lower mechanical throw.

If you DONT do this and just turn the gyro down really low, its not going to be able to do its job properly.

So if the weather ever gets better, I'm looking forward to more flight testing. I'll have increased throws on my radio, the same reduced aileron throw as before due to the corrected pushrod settings, and I am expecting that the Gyro will work a lot better. I have no idea how long it will take to get back out there. So in the meantime I am going to be painting my F4.

That is an excellent point. I can replicate the throw easily if I change where it is located on the horn. But it will help the gyro be more effective. I feel like it is overcompensating and with what you have said it makes perfect sense as to why.Elevator is working perfect with the current gyro setting but aileron and rudder are still jittery... Thanks for the explanation...

[themudduck]

I know that I am beating a very dead horse but my comments are pretty far back in the thread... so I'd like to mention it one more time. Its kind of a weird thing and I didn't realize what it meant at first.

See, when I had set my model up the ailerons had way too much throw. Which is typical of course, so I reduced it by reducing the throws using my radio - and I added in expo to smooth it out. As we know, this model is very sensitive to ailerons. When I first flew it, it rolled like a drill bit.

So I've been flying it last season and its set just the way that I like it. I like flying scale-like.
But in this configuration, I noticed that the gyro was overcontrolling (making the plane roll back and forth) when dealing with wind gusts and so on. Especially at low speeds, for example during the landing approach.
So I tried turning the gyro pot down. It didn't seem to help much.

So the epiphany was realizing that the gyro is controlling the aileron at 100% rates and with no expo. It doesn't see the radio settings at all!

And with that knowledge in mind, reducing the aileron throws mechanically should help a great deal.
At a given gyro setting... with full mechanical throw the gyro will be sending large inputs to the aileron.
But with reduced mechanical throw, the gyro will send a proportionally smaller input to the aileron.

What this means is that you can set the gyro for a medium setting, giving it more sensitivity to its job, but the aileron response will actually be less due to the lower mechanical throw.

If you DONT do this and just turn the gyro down really low, its not going to be able to do its job properly.

So if the weather ever gets better, I'm looking forward to more flight testing. I'll have increased throws on my radio, the same reduced aileron throw as before due to the corrected pushrod settings, and I am expecting that the Gyro will work a lot better. I have no idea how long it will take to get back out there. So in the meantime I am going to be painting my F4.

[seaviper]

You have to reach a happy medium with control throw and gyro settings. Reducing one will require increasing the other.

[themudduck]

Thank you, themudduck. This is good work. I too am still futzing with the gyro. The excessive wing rock with gear down has decreased with decreasing the gyro aileron gain. I have it at 9-10 o’clock now. The rock is hardly noticeable. Watching the foamy aerobatic planes with gyros, we all see the wing rocking at higher air speeds if the gyro gain is too high. So, Maybe gradually decreasing the gain is the ticket here. I am still dialing in this bad girl. Let us know how your plan works.

This Spring in NE Ohio, Winter has been like a petulant child that storms out of a room and then comes back, going "OH YEAH - and ANOTHER thing...!!!!" Its raining one day, snowing the next. This morning it was 20 degrees and my car was covered with ice. I am hoping to start flying again soon. They're telling me that April temps are predicted to be below normal all month.

Anyway I have reduced the control throws on my aileron servos mechanically. This should result in the Gyro providing less-sensitive inputs. We will see.