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

[Clearblue]

Maiden finally happened today! What a sweet heart. This plane is amazing. It's a point and shoot aircraft, it just is such a grovy flyer! Power on landings, my maiden flight I over shot the touchdown spot that I had in my mind. So powered up slowly and rotated for a go around. Everyone thought I was showing off, I said nope. Over shot! But landed it pretty much spot on that time. A little left but on the pavement. Roll out, little bit off. But on the maiden flight? On the ground in one piece is the Ultimate goal, right? Second flight, low passes and Rock solid! I will have to tame the rudders a bit. Other than that? Loved it!
Jim.

[TSHobbies]

Congrats on the maiden!
Heres my maiden report:
using 2x Admiral 5000 50c ..has the CG at spec 78mm, rear batt against the control board, front batt butted to the rear...still flew nose heavy,kept wanting to dive a bit. ,but the landing went rather well, not perfect, but didnt damage anything...just had to fight the nose dropping. I only got one flight in though,. as I only have 3 Admirals, and my turnigys wouldnt fit...so need to order more Ads!
but at least it was a successful maiden anyway..once I get it dialed in I can see how this plane will be my goto edf.
one note, that nose gear is way too sensitive on takeoff...I might get a new Tx for the extra channel for that...or I need to dial down the rudder alot.

[Fast Eddie]

Congrats on the maiden!
Heres my maiden report:
using 2x Admiral 5000 50c ..has the CG at spec 78mm, rear batt against the control board, front batt butted to the rear...still flew nose heavy,kept wanting to dive a bit. ,but the landing went rather well, not perfect, but didnt damage anything...just had to fight the nose dropping. I only got one flight in though,. as I only have 3 Admirals, and my turnigys wouldnt fit...so need to order more Ads!
but at least it was a successful maiden anyway..once I get it dialed in I can see how this plane will be my goto edf.
one note, that nose gear is way too sensitive on takeoff...I might get a new Tx for the extra channel for that...or I need to dial down the rudder alot.

Congrats on the maiden. I took the advice from others here and put the CG at 84. 2 clicks of aileron was all the trim needed. I too used Admiral 5000's. 3 minutes and came back with 60%. Kept it around 50% throttle during the flight. I have my steering / rudder at 50%.

[ColtPilot]

Congrats on the maiden. I took the advice from others here and put the CG at 84. 2 clicks of aileron was all the trim needed. I too used Admiral 5000's. 3 minutes and came back with 60%. Kept it around 50% throttle during the flight. I have my steering / rudder at 50%.

I have 3 rates on my rudder/nose gear, taxi medium rate, take off very low rate and flight high rate. Works for me.

[Clearblue]

I split my steering servo from the rudder. Steering was okay, little back and forth at first. but IMHO that's possibly the side to side play in the gear? My rudder was set per the instructions, but that's just a tad to much for my liking. 84mm huh? I'll try that! I'm in the 78-80mm now. I think just a little more aft CG could help with the landing's.

[wvrailfan]

I finally got to maiden plus one this evening. Like most, I'm happy to report all went well. Just a few click of up and it was flying straight and level at a bit over half throttle.

I made the first flight with two Admiral 4500s and the second with a pair of Admiral 5000s. I placed them both in the same position in the plane and couldn't detect any difference in the way it flew.

Taking off and landing on our club grass runway was a non issue. I used 30% flaps for landing and the plane made it look like I knew what I was doing. It did take a bit longer than I expected to bleed off speed and settle, so I will have to get better acquainted with the plane's sink rate.

A tip 'o the hat to Freewing and Motion RC, I do believe you have a winner!

[Lon]

I finally got to maiden plus one this evening. Like most, I'm happy to report all went well. Just a few click of up and it was flying straight and level at a bit over half throttle.

I made the first flight with two Admiral 4500s and the second with a pair of Admiral 5000s. I placed them both in the same position in the plane and couldn't detect any difference in the way it flew.

Taking off and landing on our club grass runway was a non issue. I used 30% flaps for landing and the plane made it look like I knew what I was doing. It did take a bit longer than I expected to bleed off speed and settle, so I will have to get better acquainted with the plane's sink rate.

A tip 'o the hat to Freewing and Motion RC, I do believe you have a winner!

Great to hear you got the maiden in the books, plus one!!

[RCjetdude]

I love hearing about all the successful maiden reports over the weekend. I hope to add my own to the list tomorrow or Tuesday as I head North to Tired Iron Aviations 4th of July fly-in. I will be camping overnight with some of my kiddos and looking forward to excellent weather, flying, fellowship, food and just plain old fun. I hope to maiden my new 90mm "Blacksnake", there. Ssssssssss.

[401 FOOT CEILING]

IDAHO SKULL BLAZERS:

https://callie-graphics.com/collections/a-10-thunderbolt-1/products/a-10-idaho-skull-blazers-graphics-set?variant=36540760269

[downwindleg]

Congrats on all the maidens over the weekend. For me, the airplane gods were not smiling. Took the airplane up for flight #3 and finally began to relax and enjoy the way the plane grooves. Half throttle was plenty for scale speed. Does nice axial rolls without differential....( no seperate aileron servos). My runway goes exactly north and south and on saturday it was coming s s e. Waited for 5 hours for the wind to die down to fly comfortably. Anyway, on landing approach, a blast of wind from southeast caught the plane and tipped the right wingtip into the ground. What followed was a major cartwheel that tore the nose and right wingtip off the plane. I will try to post video at some point from a friend that caught everything but the cartwheel. Anyway, was able to taxi back to the pits but serious work to be done. Everything worked well except that damned crosswind! Ordering parts tommorrow, Brad

[RCjetdude]

Congrats on all the maidens over the weekend. For me, the airplane gods were not smiling. Took the airplane up for flight #3 and finally began to relax and enjoy the way the plane grooves. Half throttle was plenty for scale speed. Does nice axial rolls without differential....( no seperate aileron servos). My runway goes exactly north and south and on saturday it was coming s s e. Waited for 5 hours for the wind to die down to fly comfortably. Anyway, on landing approach, a blast of wind from southeast caught the plane and tipped the right wingtip into the ground. What followed was a major cartwheel that tore the nose and right wingtip off the plane. I will try to post video at some point from a friend that caught everything but the cartwheel. Anyway, was able to taxi back to the pits but serious work to be done. Everything worked well except that damned crosswind! Ordering parts tommorrow, Brad

Bummer Brad. Sorry to hear. I do not like flying in crosswords if I can help it I just won't fly at a point but when they come out of nowhere that bites.

[GTiR1080]

Awesome to see the modifications and different schemes people are doing with these so far. I have just got mine and have it mostly put together now. Just have to change the battery/esc connections to suit my batteries and do the CG. I want to check all the control surfaces first and get them set up, do I need to have power to the board as well as the reciever for the control surfaces to work? I had a battery plugged into the reciever and bound up to my DX18 but had nothing respond. And the reciever did have signal from the radio.

[RCjetdude]

Awesome to see the modifications and different schemes people are doing with these so far. I have just got mine and have it mostly put together now. Just have to change the battery/esc connections to suit my batteries and do the CG. I want to check all the control surfaces first and get them set up, do I need to have power to the board as well as the reciever for the control surfaces to work? I had a battery plugged into the reciever and bound up to my DX18 but had nothing respond. And the reciever did have signal from the radio.

Any power to the board should come through the receiver believe. I know that the nose gear light will not work for instance if you do not have the gear channel on the receiver tied into the gear slot on the board. The LED takes its power from the gear channel. Did your ESC's complete initializing?

[GTiR1080]

Any power to the board should come through the receiver believe. I know that the nose gear light will not work for instance if you do not have the gear channel on the receiver tied into the gear slot on the board. The LED takes its power from the gear channel. Did your ESC's complete initializing?

No I havent plugged them in yet since I have to change the connectors to suit my battery. The LED's on the plane come on though. This is just with plugging a small 6v 2000mah pack into the reciver that I bought awhile back to use in an Extra 330L.

[RickVB]

Hi Fast Eddie, the UBEC is essentially taking the 25v from your flight battery and knocking it down to 5v. Some of that excess is converted to heat energy. Warm is to be expected, hot if over time is acceptable, but too hot to touch for a couple seconds or melting should be avoided. The normal expected interval from power on to taxi/flight/taxi to power off is normally around 10 minutes. If you plan on "working on" your model for significantly longer, like, 30 minutes, it doesn't hurt to plug a 2s or 3s battery into the battery connector instead of a 6s battery. I soldered up an EC5-to-Deans adapter for this purpose. Having a lighter battery during setup also helps when I'm flipping these big planes upside down to change linkages, etc.

HOWEVER, don't be stupid and plug a receiver battery (like a 2S LiFe or a NiMH) into an open port on the receiver instead of the flight battery. This WILL fry your BEC, ask me how I know...:Angry:

[RCjetdude]

No I havent plugged them in yet since I have to change the connectors to suit my battery. The LED's on the plane come on though. This is just with plugging a small 6v 2000mah pack into the reciver that I bought awhile back to use in an Extra 330L.

Be careful with 6V. If I recall correctly I think there is a greater potential to damage the servos at anything over that. I think Alpha posted something on it awhile back. Do you have a servo tester that you could check them to make sure they are at least working?

[GTiR1080]

Be careful with 6V. If I recall correctly I think there is a greater potential to damage the servos at anything over that. I think Alpha posted something on it awhile back. Do you have a servo tester that you could check them to make sure they are at least working?

I would say in reality this battery pack probably doesn't put 6 volts out of it anymore. Have had it for probably 10 years. Always kept charge in it though. I have regularly used it to bind various receivers and check servo's with it through my rc cars and my freewing V2 FA18 super hornet.

[Aros]

Oh drat Brad! Stupid crosswinds!!!

[GTiR1080]

Be careful with 6V. If I recall correctly I think there is a greater potential to damage the servos at anything over that. I think Alpha posted something on it awhile back. Do you have a servo tester that you could check them to make sure they are at least working?

Problem found. Seems the brand new spektrum AS3X AR9350 reciever I bought for it doesn't seem to be working. Stuck an AR9020 I had spare in and everything works. Still annoyed though since it's a brand new reciever.

[RCjetdude]

Problem found. Seems the brand new spektrum AS3X AR9350 reciever I bought for it doesn't seem to be working. Stuck an AR9020 I had spare in and everything works. Still annoyed though since it's a brand new reciever.

Glad you got it sorted out. :Cool: