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

[Hugh Wiedman]

Given the number of snapped noses, the carbon fiber rods make sense. I did that on my Freewing Me-262 for similar reason. However, I would also point out that on my (and other) Me-262 the fuselage snapped at a consistent location, and purely through foam, with no other damage. When I bronco'd my A-10, it actually snapped the gear mount if I recall correctly. So rods might have changed the outcome, but probably the gear mount would still have broken. I don't precisely remember though.

Also as Hugh says there seems to be about 99% consensus that 78mm is too far forward. I and two others at my field use 85-86mm, just as a point of reference. 92-94mm seems to be at the back end of the range you will read on this board, I think. Of course it is also normal to maiden a plane a little forward of where you think you should ultimately be.

Absolutely my fellow Gringo (don't forget, I live in Miami where only Spanish is spoken and I'm also the only "Gringo" in my family and the only one who doesn't speak fluent Spanish), maiden first in the nose heavier direction, around 82 mm I suggest, and move back if/when you feel comfortable. I only suggested a possible final CG of 92-94 mm in setting up this model so you would have the ability to get further back if you like it. Maidened mine at 82 mm, then slowly moved it further and further back if I was comfortable. 94 mm is actually as far back as I can even get, so quite happy there. Ignorance is Bliss.

I also had my original Spitfire's fuselage begin to crack just behind the battery after about 75 flights. Probably due to poor landings before I learned to land with some power level on the mains. Added carbon fiber tubes there as well, in addition to a new Spitfire I got last year, since oddly enough, at least in mine, it had no carbon fiber tubes in the existing channels. Others claimed there's came with them, but neither of mine did. Do you suppose MRC has special boxes ready ship with only my name on it?

[Gringotuerto]

Just my 2 cents!

Given the number of snapped noses, the carbon fiber rods make sense. I did that on my Freewing Me-262 for similar reason. However, I would also point out that on my (and other) Me-262 the fuselage snapped at a consistent location, and purely through foam, with no other damage. When I bronco'd my A-10, it actually snapped the gear mount if I recall correctly. So rods might have changed the outcome, but probably the gear mount would still have broken. I don't precisely remember though.

Also as Hugh says there seems to be about 99% consensus that 78mm is too far forward. I and two others at my field use 85-86mm, just as a point of reference. 92-94mm seems to be at the back end of the range you will read on this board, I think. Of course it is also normal to maiden a plane a little forward of where you think you should ultimately be.

[Hugh Wiedman]

The best thing you can do while waiting is read all the posts....best time you will ever spend AND it may prevent you from crashing your A-10.

Sooo many important things are here. CG, nose gear brace, set-up info.

Search on “ferrite” or “RF choke” or “choke” and read/learn/buy/install these. I lost an A-10 twice and an F-4 due to not installing these. No issues after I began installing the chokes.

Failure to take the time to read these posts puts you at risk of taking a pile of foam home.

-GG

GFSPILOT , listen to GG, he knows of which he speaks.

Love my A-10 (taking it out again tomorrow) and there are only a few things I would recommend (nothing relating to cosmetic modifications, that's entirely up to you)

1) GG's ferrite chokes, as many as you can get on!!
2) An additional satellite remote receiver if you can. I use the AR 637T located as far aft as possible, including moving the board to the port fuselage wall to get the CG I want and a remote receiver all the way in the front.
3) Run some carbon fiber tubes in the channels on each side of the fuselage from as far back as possible in the battery bay all the way forward, simply for a bit more structural support on the front that holds a lot of weight in batteries
3) If landing on grass, upgrade to the trailing link nose gear, but on asphalt, just the opposite, leave stock nose gear and upgrade the mains
4) Book CG is 78mm, mine flies best at 92-94 mm and is not "pitchy" and lands very nice and slow with the nose up. Battery placement depends on the weight of the batteries you use. I use 2 Roaring Top 6250 mah 35 C, each weighing 794 g, with one placed as far back under the foam (hence the reason I moved the circuit board) and the other right up against the rear battery and had to relocate the battery straps and add a step under the front battery so it laid flat (when you get it, you'll understand what I'm referring to here). I get 5 minutes of flight time on this set-up, but no doubt the 7000 mah batteries you plan on using are heavier so not sure how you'll be able to get to a 92-94 mm balance point.

With that more balanced CG, at least IMO, it will fly extremely well and surprisingly floats in nice and slow for landing with the nose up. Worse thing you can do is land with the nose touching slightly early or god forbid with the nose hitting first. It will be a bucking bronco down the runway and most likely finally come to rest with some/lot of damage, and I think that further rear CG really helps in making that never happen.

Just my 2 cents!

[Gringotuerto]

I have a spectrum nx8 and I purchased a AR8020T DSMX 8-Channel Telemetry Receiver and two....

I have not used "Smart" batteries from Spectrum, but if I understand correctly the extra pin sticking out will not interfere with a normal (non-"Smart") EC5. In other words, I think you do not need any adapter to plug those batteries into the ESCs that come with the plane (which are EC5). The ESC will not support Smart function the way an Avian ESC would, but it will work normally. I noticed those 7000mah batteries are 890g each, whereas the quasi-standard battery that you would see in the flight videos from MotionRC is 5000mah which weighs 732g. I feel that this plane already has a reasonably high wing loading, I would not want almost 320g more on it. But I know people who fly it with batteries in that weight range and like it fine.

8Chan receiver seems OK. The AR8020T does have an SRXL2 port on it, so if it didn't already come with a satellite receiver, I would definitely add one. That part number (I think) is SPM4651T. Also the AR8020T does not have an integrated gyro (AS3X).

As you probably noticed, 50% of this thread is dedicated to how to avoid "bucking bronco." Any tricycle gear plane can do this, but this one is more susceptible than most, possibly because of the geometry (that nose is long). Mine has a repaired front end due to a bucking incident on one of my first few landings. I ended up putting straight (non trailing link) struts on the mains, but more importantly I got better at landing it. I just keep it hovering and inch or two off the ground until it can't fly anymore, and settles down by itself. That way it just doesn't have enough energy to buck.

Also you should notice in the manual that the elevator needs to be trimmed up a few millimeters. It is better to discover this in the instructions, than in the air like I did

Oh - one other thing - on many MotionRC planes, I find the recommended rates to be a little high, especially for a maiden flight. I would advise starting with lower rates. You can always raise the rates if you start too low. But if you start too high it might be your last flight.

Bottom line is - although people have preferences, I don't think there is any absolutely necessary modification here. It's not like they ship you a plane that doesn't work. It works, and flies very well. In fact, as a jet with a "normal" wing, it is much easier to manage (IMHO) than most other jets. It is not twitchy on roll axis like delta-ish jets tend to be.

[GliderGuy]

Hi GFSP...Please consider getting the maiden / shakedown flights done BEFORE investing additional time and money on upgrades and details!

Nothing worse than taking home a pile of foam + add ons + upgrades + details because something was missed or pilot learning curve was too steep.

Fly it after doing ONLY the important tweaking. Get to know it and THEN invest the extra time on the details.

This is a hard lesson MANY of us have learned related to both TIME and MONEY.

-GG

[GFSPILOT]

Thanks glider guy,
I plan on reading as much as I can but I want to make sure that I didn't miss anything. I plan on taking my time with this one I'm not going to even put it in the air until I am sure I have gone over everything. Plus I'm going to spend quite a bit of time putting some more detail into the aircraft. I want to add a sound system plus a light system for the 30 mm scale Gatling gun up front. Any scale upgrades or add-ons would be greatly appreciated. All pretty much listen to any ideas!
Plus I live in a new area and recently found a flying field and plan on becoming a member of the Glacier Rcer's and apparently there's a lot of EDF guys out here. So hopefully I'll get lots of info from these guys as well.
Thanks 😊

[GliderGuy]

Okay guys so without going through every single thread of this page I would like to get some info since I just purchased the A10 and I'm waiting for it to arrive.

The best thing you can do while waiting is read all the posts....best time you will ever spend AND it may prevent you from crashing your A-10.

Sooo many important things are here. CG, nose gear brace, set-up info.

Search on “ferrite” or “RF choke” or “choke” and read/learn/buy/install these. I lost an A-10 twice and an F-4 due to not installing these. No issues after I began installing the chokes.

Failure to take the time to read these posts puts you at risk of taking a pile of foam home.

-GG

[GFSPILOT]

Okay guys so without going through every single thread of this page I would like to get some info since I just purchased the A10 and I'm waiting for it to arrive. Come on FedEx man where's my package? Lol This is the best looking A-10 aircraft I've found on the internet and I would like to know what are some of the first upgrades I need to make and what do I need to safeguard my plane as far as the electronics go. I have a spectrum nx8 and I purchased a AR8020T DSMX 8-Channel Telemetry Receiver and two

22.2V 7000mAh 6S 30C Smart LiPo G2: IC5 SPMX76S3 to go with it!

What cables connectors if any do I need to purchase to make everything work or is everything I have compatible with all the electronics that are currently in the aircraft now?
thanks 😁

[GFSPILOT]

Thanks! 😁

[Gringotuerto]

What scale is the A-10 80 mm?

About 1:10 (more precisely, about 10.4). Span is 1.7m and the full scale span is 17.53m. (Sorry for quoting the span of a US plane in meters, I guess I should quote it in hot dog lengths or footballs, but the scale is the same whatever units you use.)

[GFSPILOT]

What scale is the A-10 80 mm?

[Manu-B]

OK I looked at the instruction manual for that Jeti product. I think it is designed for exactly what you are talking about, and should work fine if you put another BEC in there. Note that it has its own current limitations, (10A continuous, 20A burst), but since the BEC included with the A-10 says 8A (from MotionRC website), this should not be a huge problem. Of course any extra thing in the path will introduce some tiny losses, but I would estimate it is not an issue here. So if you want two BECs for redundancy, I think that is a fine method of doing it. And it seems to me plugging together products designed for this purpose is less risky than hacking something. I have dual power on some larger planes also.

Thank you very much for this neat and clear feedback and for having taken the time to look at it Gringotuerto! Much appreciated. Cheers.

[Gringotuerto]

OK I looked at the instruction manual for that Jeti product. I think it is designed for exactly what you are talking about, and should work fine if you put another BEC in there. Note that it has its own current limitations, (10A continuous, 20A burst), but since the BEC included with the A-10 says 8A (from MotionRC website), this should not be a huge problem. Of course any extra thing in the path will introduce some tiny losses, but I would estimate it is not an issue here. So if you want two BECs for redundancy, I think that is a fine method of doing it. And it seems to me plugging together products designed for this purpose is less risky than hacking something. I have dual power on some larger planes also.

[Manu-B]

1. I have flown this plane in stock configuration for years with no problems. I haven’t read this whole forum, but I have read a fair bit of A-10 chat, and don’t recall seeing any specific evidence of a deficient design on this one. Actually that is true of all my Freewing or Flightline planes – stock electronics, no issues that I know of.

2. I agree with above posts that directly shorting output of two regulators is not good (unless you are sure they were designed with that in mind). When you say “dual power switch”, did you have a particular product in mind?

Thank you for your answer and feedback Gringotuerto. It is important that I say there is no challenge from my side regarding the quality of this kit. I am truly amazed by how it is put together and how it flew out of the box: I already feel super comfortable with the plane whereas I have only flew it 4x which is a first on my side. My question is only in link with my habit of securing supply to receiver and servos on my big planes with dual power supply. I have no intention of directly shorting 2 UBEC and was rather thinking of using products like dual switch sourcing automatically from the highest voltage source. I.e. if one battery drops then the power supply is maintained through the 2nd one. E.g. JETI DSM ESC. Before doing so, I preferred to ask here what other pilots did and challenge my position. Owing to the great feedback I think it is pretty clear: box standard configuration... ^^ Which is by the way synonym of money saving... :p

[Gringotuerto]

Before doing so I wonder if any of you would have gone through such modifications and what would be your experience with this?

1. I have flown this plane in stock configuration for years with no problems. I haven’t read this whole forum, but I have read a fair bit of A-10 chat, and don’t recall seeing any specific evidence of a deficient design on this one. Actually that is true of all my Freewing or Flightline planes – stock electronics, no issues that I know of.

2. I agree with above posts that directly shorting output of two regulators is not good (unless you are sure they were designed with that in mind). When you say “dual power switch”, did you have a particular product in mind?

[ParaCanary]

Dear all,

I’d like to get a bit more robust on the energy input of my A10. On these kind of beasts I would usually go for a dual power supply. This is my first 6S plane and I just discover the problem is not as simple as I am used to. The A10 is running on a UBEC supplied with it. I was thinking buying another UBEC/SBEC to go on the other power line and then a dual power switch. Before doing so I wonder if any of you would have gone through such modifications and what would be your experience with this?

Cheers.

Manu

If you run 2 bec or 2 batteries, they should be isolated with diodes to prevent conflict. You can build the module yourself or buy it all ready made. I like smooth flite which has built in telemetry and gives you both battery voltages with current. On my A-10 the max current at 5.2 volts is 8 amps. The diode isolator uses .3 volts to do its thing so I input 5.5 volts and get 5.2 out. This is not a regulator, just isolates 2 inputs. The regulation is done with the bec. 4stripes has another solution which uses a bec to charge a small pack as a backup power supply which works. He can explain it better than I can

[Gringotuerto]

[Manu-B]

Same here.

Mike

Thks! 🙏

[MikeT]

Going on 4 years on mine with no issues on original power system. It is robust and have a lot more extras on mine than most. I did go with all oleo struts. Use everything from 5000 packs to RT 6250's with plenty of get up and go on the stock 80mm set up. I'm at an eighth inch behind CG for a good flair. The weight is 13.5lbs. Hope this helps.

Same here.

Mike

[Manu-B]

Going on 4 years on mine with no issues on original power system. It is robust and have a lot more extras on mine than most. I did go with all oleo struts. Use everything from 5000 packs to RT 6250's with plenty of get up and go on the stock 80mm set up. I'm at an eighth inch behind CG for a good flair. The weight is 13.5lbs. Hope this helps.

Thanks for your feedback colt pilot.