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

[Xtraflyr]

Hey Folks,
For those of us average pilots who every-so-often have a less than perfect landing:
I tried a few options around the rodeo bounce and the following works best for me.
See video for results of the dampened struts.
Adding 500,000 wt silicon diff fluid to the nose strut works like a dream. (Thanks for the detailed steps Sockrat) I find that once that nose stays down the plane did not jump back into the air much, even with fairly hot landings Even if it did, it does so with the plane level and you simply land again with no damage to the nose gear. There is no rodeo bucking which kills the nose gear.
The next thing I did was soften the mains by stretching the last coil. The plane sits lower now and the mains do not jump back into the air.
I have had a 12 flights with it and it works well for me. I have had very hot landing which behaved like regular predicable plane and will simple become airborne and will gently sink back onto the mains first as it loses energy. This may not be for everyone. I just wanted to share so folks are aware of the options.

Now that is how a suspension is supposed to work!! You pick the stock A10 nose up and drop it it just bounces. I’d rather try that then rotating the mains around. I did that but havent flown it yet.

[downwindleg]

So ItgordonOO, what are the detailed steps for the 500,000 wt silicon diff fluid ? Brad

[Xtraflyr]

So ItgordonOO, what are the detailed steps for the 500,000 wt silicon diff fluid ? Brad

Yes please do tell!!
Frank

[JTClark]

Flying Tigers Decals Wanted

Hey guys, does anyone have the front nose teeth decals from the Flying Tigers livery that you are not using or will not use? I'm having to replace the front fuse and have all of the other decals I need except the teeth. I'd like to not have to purchase an entire set, which are out of stock, just for these two decals. If so, please PM me and let me know how much you need to part with them and payment method. Thanks.

[crxmanpat]

JT,

PM me your address and I'll send you the ones I have but didn't use. No charge.

[JTClark]

JT,

PM me your address and I'll send you the ones I have but didn't use. No charge.

Address sent. Thank you Brother, that's very kind.

[CDN_Iceman]

JT,

PM me your address and I'll send you the ones I have but didn't use. No charge.

For all the complaining on this thread and it is legitimate it is cool to see this kind of kindness and friendship among pilots. If I could give you five thumbs up I would CRXMANPAT

Jeff

[RCjetdude]

For all the complaining on this thread and it is legitimate it is cool to see this kind of kindness and friendship among pilots. If I could give you five thumbs up I would CRXMANPAT

Jeff

That's how this place is. We have our moments and issues but we also have each others back for the most part. Kinda' like family... it's one of the main reasons I like it here personally.

[Itgordon00]

So ItgordonOO, what are the detailed steps for the 500,000 wt silicon diff fluid ? Brad

Here are the steps from the Original author. I added in some additional tips.

Originally Posted by Sockrat Here were my steps I've suggested: First I cleaned the strut with soap and alcohol to degrease it. If oil is left inside - silicon grease won't stick. Into the servo pin hole I've screwed in a screw from a 12g servo to block a small hole at the end of it. Together with grease it makes upper part of the strut air tight. Stuffed the strut with the 1M cSt car diff oil with a screwdriver. Don't be afraid to put too much. Also greased the spring. (it feels like a foam glue) Assembled and moved a few times to let excess leak out. Oil doesn't hold well between the piston and cylinder, maybe less viscous oil (200-500 cSt) will be better in that place. For the spring 1 M cSt is really good in arresting it. It doesn't leak. I've flown at +10-20C and works well. In fact after success with A10 I started doing this on other planes and results are pretty remarkable. Because friction becomes proportional to velocity oleo becomes ~2 times tougher for slow motion and like 3-5 for fast impact. So on hard landing instead of compressing the spring and then breaking everything strong force is applied throughout the whole piston movement.

Thanks for jumping in Sockrat.

I do have some additional info. Sockrat mentions blocking the servo pin hole. I discovered that for some struts, this hole does not exist. (See diagram) If you have that hole, then use a screw to plug it up, if not just move on to the next step. Another tip is to remove the tension from the screw that keeps in the piston in the strut (by pushing in the wheel a bit) before trying to back out the screw.
My method for getting the thick 500K diff fluid into the piston was to use a screwdriver but to also smear it into the coils of the spring prior to inserting. Use Latex gloves! The secret is to make sure the metal parts of free of grease so the silicon sticks to it and creates all the that friction as it tries to flow in and out of the voids created by suction as the spring compresses and releases.

[AceMigKiller]

Very nice.

[RCAV8R]

I'm having trouble with both #2 pylons slipping over the hard points on the wings. The others are tight but both of these won't go. It looks like the hard point clips on the wing are rocked slightly to one side. I can get one clip on the wing to slip over the pylon, but can't get them both to go. Has anyone had any issues with that? Rob

[OV10]

Hello itgordon and sockrat,
This silicon Diff Fluid being added to the struts has me :Confused:for several reasons.
What prevents hydraulic locking of the strut? These struts don't have the porting that a fluid designed strut/shock has.
I'm guessing that the porting is actually achieved by the "leak out" mentioned via where the ram exits the strut bottom.
Was the 500,000 fluid just an arbitrary selection of the range available that is anywhere from 4K to 1M?
I've a bunch of spring oleos on 5-10lb warbirds and can see the advantage of this except for the leakage and subsequent fill maintenance required due to not being a closed ram system.
I'd like to learn more about your subsequent mods to your "other" planes such as AUW of the birds and the 'cst' being used.
Best regards,

[OV10]

I'm having trouble with both #2 pylons slipping over the hard points on the wings. The others are tight but both of these won't go. It looks like the hard point clips on the wing are rocked slightly to one side. I can get one clip on the wing to slip over the pylon, but can't get them both to go. Has anyone had any issues with that? Rob

Spray a Q-tip with some silicon and then rub that on the hard points.;)

[crxmanpat]

Address sent. Thank you Brother, that's very kind.

My pleasure. Since I went with a different scheme with some Callie decals, I still have all of the squadron and nose markings from my set.

[crxmanpat]

I'm having trouble with both #2 pylons slipping over the hard points on the wings. The others are tight but both of these won't go. It looks like the hard point clips on the wing are rocked slightly to one side. I can get one clip on the wing to slip over the pylon, but can't get them both to go. Has anyone had any issues with that? Rob

Another thing you can try is to run a sharp blade across the mold lines in the plastic mounts. I've had a few that had excess material at the mold lines and I had to knock them down before they'd slide on to the receiver.

[Itgordon00]

Hello itgordon and sockrat,
This silicon Diff Fluid being added to the struts has me :Confused:for several reasons.
What prevents hydraulic locking of the strut? These struts don't have the porting that a fluid designed strut/shock has.
I'm guessing that the porting is actually achieved by the "leak out" mentioned via where the ram exits the strut bottom.
Was the 500,000 fluid just an arbitrary selection of the range available that is anywhere from 4K to 1M?
I've a bunch of spring oleos on 5-10lb warbirds and can see the advantage of this except for the leakage and subsequent fill maintenance required due to not being a closed ram system.
I'd like to learn more about your subsequent mods to your "other" planes such as AUW of the birds and the 'cst' being used.
Best regards,

The system is not a perfect seal. It is not a true Oleo. All that is happening is the springs free recoil movement is gummed up by the thick sticky fluid and this slows down the recoil so it cannot push the nose back up into the air. The good news is that the Mod is reversible. Just clean out the diff fluid. I choose 500K because that was the thickest they had an my hobby store. Sockrat tried 1M. 200K may give a little more play which could have better results....maybe

[Pete Lane]

[Pete Lane]

Some one was listening to my vape pipe idea.
This just in from Best in the west. Now burn rubber to the nearest smoke shop....lol

[TiredIronGRB]

Cutting about 12mm off the spring will do the same thing, we tried the thick oil and found that it did ok on a hard bounce but didn't absorb normal runway roughness (small bumps) as well.

I have a couple of the HSD 105mm F-16 and the oil is too thinckk in them as well so I'm going to try 200 in one of them and see if it softens it.

[dahawk]

Some one was listening to my vape pipe idea.
This just in from Best in the west. Now burn rubber to the nearest smoke shop....lol

Okay, now I need to know how to do this. To get vape from any e-cig, you need to first inhale. So , this guy has figured out how to reverse the process. Saw he had also an led in the Guo-8. Pretty darn cool