Official Freewing Twin 80mm/90mm A-10 Thunderbolt II Thread

[Aros]

Although a night sortie with an F-117 and a tricked out LED setup could be pretty sweet! :Cool:

[Clearblue]

My first experience with the "Gatoring" was on my T 28. The cockpit black areas swelled up terribly! It wasn't a very warm day. Just very sunny. I used some lightweight spackle to cover and then repainted it. So ever since that episode, I either turn the cockpits over, or cover then with a light colored towel. Brad, I received my cockpit canopy parts today. Now, Where's those pesky A 10's? LOL

[downwindleg]

I hear ya Clearblue, those parts are having the same effect on my workbench as my credit card is in my wallet. It's starting to warm up.:Sick2: Aros , love the table reflection. Like flying low over Lake Washington. Bet that would wake up the liveaboards!!!LOLBrad P.S. So that's what causes the "gatoring"!! Too many people wearing black pants before summer shorts weather!!!:Smug:

[dusmmdb]

ok guys, forgive my ignorance on this subject................ gatoring????

[F106DeltaDart]

ok guys, forgive my ignorance on this subject................ gatoring????

When the foam is heated up, the cells tend to bubble leaving a "gator-skin" effect.

[Shirty]

Yeah, it's properly referred to as "crocodiling". ;)

The cells in the foam react to heat, causing them to become very visible, like a "crocodile skin". As dark colours absorb more light, leading to more heat, it's most noticeable on these, black especially.

[dusmmdb]

yeah.... yeah...... I knew that :Silly:

thanks

[Clearblue]

Shirty, Just had to look Mate! Only thing I Know? I'm not going to find out personally! :) I could be wrong? But I think they like white and dark foam!;)

[Shirty]

Lmao... ;). I had to post it cause we do call it crocodiling down under. Dunno what this gatoring thing is lol...

One thing missing from your comparison is saltwater crocs are the only species that actively hunt man as a food source. Luckily it's mainly tourists and stupid fishermen. There's a growing call in oz to start culling them again, numbers are exploding in the northern half of the country. (Which I'm against, I'm a bit of a animal greenie). Given salties get over twenty feet, you wont see me swimming in rivers and lakes up north tho... bout the only animal in oz I'm dead set scared of. (And this comes from someone who dives with great whites regularly). :)


Sweet 117 aros.

[HellHathNoFury]

Crocs eat Gators for breakfast..LOL

[downwindleg]

So what I am hearing is that it is high time these foam manufacturers develop a new "Super EPO" foam that doesn't gator or show ANY cells, right? Sign me up. :Cool:

Yeah, you heard right my friend OR precoating the molds, prior to injection, with a gelcoat or something to give the foam a hard surface that doesn't dent with a sneeze. I , for one, would gladly pay for a more durable surface on these foamies and I don't want to hear any whining from people with 30+ planes that think it would be too expensive!!! And don't even start with the weight issue, you just have to take off and land at a higher speed. Allot of us have been doing that for years. Do you want 10 really durable scale surfaced planes or 30+ crappy planes? Quality or quantity, that is the question. Come on you marketing experts, there has to be something between a $400 foamy and a $2000 composite ARF!!!! Therein lies the challenge!!!! Brad

[Clearblue]

(And this comes from someone who dives with great whites regularly). :) Not me! I'm not getting dressed to be dinner. In Florida once the kids and we waded out to a sand flat while the tide went out. Well as the tide came back in we didn't notice it right off. But as we started back, my youngest couldn't touch bottom any longer. So I picked her up and carried her and followed my son in. I was brushed by what I believe was a small shark? It felt like sandpaper. My heart stopped as I grabbed my son and and beet feet to dry sand! Chicken? You damn well better believe it. :Scared:

[crxmanpat]

You would be surprised at the number of sharks swimming right there in the shallow surf. Lived in Florida most of my life. We used to catch sharks regularly right off the piers.

[Shirty]

You guys actually have the most shark attacks in the world in the USA, but very rarely are they fatal. (Florida is your most likely state to get bitten). Here, nearly every attack is fatal. I've had a few come in for a closer look, but that's about it. Just push em away with a speargun no biggie. Plus I use a shark shield most times which seems to keep em at least 6 meters away. Most just swim on by and ignore us. It's the bit on the surface bobbing about getting in or off the boat where I feel vulnerable.

The shark attack file at the museum of natural history in Florida pretty much sums it up. You're 30 times more likely to be killed by a cow. More likely to die from being hit by lightening, stung by bees..., you have more chance of winning lotto. I could go on. On average, since about the last 100 years, only 7.9 people die from shark attack each year. In the whole world. Think about how many people are in the ocean on any given day around the world, multiply that by a year and still, only 8 people die. I like my chances and I like diving too much to worry about sharks. Just gotta be smart. Don't dive on cloudy or low visibility days. Don't dive at dawn or dusk. Stay close to the bottom, or reefs etc. however, you wouldn't get me swimming a 50 foot wide creek if there are crocs about.

Sorry for the thread divergence, you get that when you're waiting for a model. Had a great session today with some clubmates turbines and my freewing f16. I'm really starting to look forward to getting the a10. Should be a fun jet I'd reckon if the performance is anything like the pre production vids. Can't wait. :)

[vduniec]

Back in my flying days, we would fly along the beach line a lot. We would see people in waist deep water and they would be waving at us and having a great time. Because of the glare on the surface of the water, they couldn't see that there were sharks in the water between them and the beach.

(And this comes from someone who dives with great whites regularly). :) Not me! I'm not getting dressed to be dinner. In Florida once the kids and we waded out to a sand flat while the tide went out. Well as the tide came back in we didn't notice it right off. But as we started back, my youngest couldn't touch bottom any longer. So I picked her up and carried her and followed my son in. I was brushed by what I believe was a small shark? It felt like sandpaper. My heart stopped as I grabbed my son and and beet feet to dry sand! Chicken? You damn well better believe it. :Scared:

[Clearblue]

I've not allowed that incident to keep me from going back in. But it's always right there in the back of my mind. The other strange thing, they allowed fishing right there where everyone was swimming? Let's just ring that dinner bell, shall we? BBBBRrrrrrrrt!

[crxmanpat]

Well, that's where a lot of the fish are. And that's why the sharks are there too. ;)

[Kloverzero]

So what I am hearing is that it is high time these foam manufacturers develop a new "Super EPO" foam that doesn't gator or show ANY cells, right? Sign me up. :Cool:

Interestingly enough, I have the Prometheus from E-Flite, which is mostly black. I do not do anything special with it, it sits on the flight line right along side all of my other planes, and it hasn't gatored the first bit. I wonder if there is something to the Z-foam that prevents it?? On the other side of the coin, I have the FMS 1500mm P-47 Razorback, which I repainted in a medium green and finished in "The Bug" livery. Well, it looks like a bug!! The entire plane is gatored very badly. The foam on that model is the softest I have ever encountered. There has to be a correlation between foam density and gatoring I think.

Sorry to divert from the shark stories, as interesting as they are....

[downwindleg]

Interestingly enough, I have the Prometheus from E-Flite, which is mostly black. I do not do anything special with it, it sits on the flight line right along side all of my other planes, and it hasn't gatored the first bit. I wonder if there is something to the Z-foam that prevents it?? On the other side of the coin, I have the FMS 1500mm P-47 Razorback, which I repainted in a medium green and finished in "The Bug" livery. Well, it looks like a bug!! The entire plane is gatored very badly. The foam on that model is the softest I have ever encountered. There has to be a correlation between foam density and gatoring I think.

Sorry to divert from the shark stories, as interesting as they are....

You may have something there Kloverzero and Todd too. I am in construction building rediculously over the top houses for people with too much money and because the houses we build are on the water, there is always lots of glass. That means the insulators have to be pretty creative to make up for the heat loss of the glass. Many new spray foams have been developed in recent years to create better insulation properties. Some, I have noticed, actually form their own skin that is pretty hard. I know that is probably because the surface is exposed to the air versus being injected into a mold and there are structural issues to be considered, but I'm wondering if some further research might be in order. There are hundreds of different foam applications with more coming along all the time, just sayin' , Brad

[Aros]

Interestingly enough, I have the Prometheus from E-Flite, which is mostly black. I do not do anything special with it, it sits on the flight line right along side all of my other planes, and it hasn't gatored the first bit. I wonder if there is something to the Z-foam that prevents it?? On the other side of the coin, I have the FMS 1500mm P-47 Razorback, which I repainted in a medium green and finished in "The Bug" livery. Well, it looks like a bug!! The entire plane is gatored very badly. The foam on that model is the softest I have ever encountered. There has to be a correlation between foam density and gatoring I think.

I think this proves the different types of foam (Z-foam, versus standard or various EPO) effects gatoring levels. You are right, the FMS 1500mm Razorback is by far the softest I have encountered. At first I thought they just went totally cheap but I really think it's a density issue to keep the wing loading low. But in turn it made the foam too impressionable and the cells are too pronounced. Freewing is going in the right direction as we have all noted with each new model release the gatoring is less and less. Keep it up Freewing!