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

[Veltro]

Was it ever decided if there will be a "scale" nose strut available for us pavement flyers?

[xplaneguy]

Production scale wheels installed on the prototype Hawg. She looks SWEET!!!!!

[Alpha]

Hi Veltro, here are CAD images I've screenshot for you showing the final A-10 PNP's struts/wheels. We've kept the trailing link mains and large tires seen in the prototype photos thus far. The trailing links are simply too effective to pass up and whether on pavement or grass, I think everyone will appreciate the ground handling these main struts impart. For the nose, we're keeping the same large wheel size as seen in the prototype for rough surfaces and tall grass, although we've relocated the scissor link to appear more scale. Note also that the wheel hubs themselves are scale, opposed to the non-scale hub's seen in the prototype thus far. This CAD is indicative of what all PNPs will have pre-installed --what we feel in our extensive testing is the best balance for everyone between scale APPEARANCE and excessively non-scale rough/tall grass FUNCTIONALITY.

[Alpha]

The Freewing twin 80mm A-10 'Hog is a big bird! That's a Freewing twin 80mm F-14 Tomcat, by the way! One of the bigger foam scale EDFs out there.

[Alpha]

Freewing twin 80mm F-14 Tomcat...



Twin 80mm F-14 Tomcat, meet twin 80mm A-10 Warthog...




:D :D :D

[Brandon Moon]

Who is that in the picture with the TomKitty?

[Alpha]

A bystander and his young son. The boy waited for me to taxi back after landing, hollering as I taxied by! It was a prime photo op with both our phones. Pictures of kids holding planes is one of the fun things we get to capture often with the crowd at Apollo.

[Shirty]

Sooo nice. Love the scheme on the 14 too. Great pics. Ours is a busy field with people bringing their kids to watch too. It's great to see the looks on their faces. :)

[Aros]

Awesome...Just, plain ol' fashioned awesome.

[Mike_Then]

I like the SU-35 scheme on the F-14. That looks really good! And I've had the F-14 so all I can say is wow, she's a big'un! Glad the wing has EZ connectors, so to speak, cause there ain't no way I can get that in my car assembled. I have the V2 DH-112 Venom and I can get that (along with the F/A-18E and the Super Scorpion) into my '07 Honda Pilot fully assembled. Don't think that's gonna happen with the A-10!

[Twowingtj]

This bird just keeps getting better. Like the NLG redesign. Has the base PNP package list and list of available options been finalized yet?

[mavdriver]

Where's the buy now button ?

[F106DeltaDart]

Love the new scale nose gear, looks great! Really looking forward to seeing all the extra options that will be available as well. I know the ordnance, powder gun, and sound module are on my list for sure.

[Grossman56]

As a matter of interest, does anyone think it's pretty exceptional that a plane that hasn't even been posted for preorder should have 53 pages of posts??
Fantastic!

Grossman56

[Twowingtj]

And, there's 164 pages over on RCG. When the pre-order goes live, it's going to be like a shark feeding frenzy.

[Veltro]

Thanks, Alpha. I like what you guys came up with on the stock nose strut.

[Legman01]

Legman01 it's an honor to have you here, thank you for your service (and all of you veterans posting/reading/lurking!)...So what was it like strapping into your "office" in the Hawg?? What did you most love about her? What - if any - shortcomings did you encounter as far as bad habits? As little or as much as you care to share, you have a thirsty audience here.

:Cool:

Remember, you guys asked for it!

“THE GUN”

“Everyone remembers their first time”


A bedtime story by Legman



Every A-10 pilot vividly remembers the moment he gingerly squeezed the trigger and unleashed holy hell from the front of his Warthog for very first time . Of the millions of forgotten seconds in a lifetime, this particular one is forever etched in my memory. Nothing can really prepare you for the experience….shock, joy, awe, fear, euphoria….all rolled into that first one-second burst of the GAU-8 Avenger. I think I may have spotted a little.


I was aiming at an old parachute, strung up like a bullseye, on the Gila Bend bombing range out in the desert near Tucson, AZ. Directly below the parachute was a berm of dirt, behind which was hidden an acoustic sensor designed to count the supersonic shock waves of the 30mm rounds as they whizzed through the parachute, and instantly transmit the number of “hits” to the range officer. I vaguely heard the unimpressed radio call “zero hits two”, as I pulled off the strafing pass. I was lucky to even remember to pull off at all. I had done exactly what my IP briefed me not to do: “don’t be distracted by the gun firing, FOCUS on tracking the target with the gun cross.”


Focus, ok. So….I’m hurling myself at the ground at 350 mph, literally riding on top of the biggest baddest gatling gun ever made by mankind to fit in a combat aircraft, spewing out sixty 30mm rounds per second, fire, smoke, this primordial vibration, overwhelming smell of gun gas, and a guttural roar like a T-Rex...pretty much total sensory overload. And I’m supposed to “focus”, for that entire second, and hold the little green cross in my Heads Up Display on that tiny parachute rag out there half a mile away? Yeah, there was no focus anywhere near that cockpit during that strafing pass.


Like all Baby Hog Drivers, after firing a few thousand rounds with “The Gun”, I fell into the groove, and started to develop an intense focus while strafing, in spite of the cacophony of sensory distractions. Focus like your life depended on it, because somebody’s life might someday.

Even though I completely missed the target on my first strafing pass in the A-10, I had a huge grin on my face. I’d been given a new toy to play with…...and I liked it!

Stay tuned, more Hawg stories to come.

Cheers!
Legman

[xplaneguy]

Great story, Leg! Thanks for sharing.

Here's some awesome photos by photographer Mike Gaasch, taken yesterday at Apollo Field - Van Nuys, CA.

[bill34207]

And, there's 164 pages over on RCG. When the pre-order goes live, it's going to be like a shark feeding frenzy.

Got that right. One great thing about shopping from the internet, whether we manage to get it or not, we at least don't have to worry about being trampled trying to get in the door. LOL

[RCjetdude]

Remember, you guys asked for it!

“THE GUN”

“Everyone remembers their first time”


A bedtime story by Legman



Every A-10 pilot vividly remembers the moment he gingerly squeezed the trigger and unleashed holy hell from the front of his Warthog for very first time . Of the millions of forgotten seconds in a lifetime, this particular one is forever etched in my memory. Nothing can really prepare you for the experience….shock, joy, awe, fear, euphoria….all rolled into that first one-second burst of the GAU-8 Avenger. I think I may have spotted a little.


I was aiming at an old parachute, strung up like a bullseye, on the Gila Bend bombing range out in the desert near Tucson, AZ. Directly below the parachute was a berm of dirt, behind which was hidden an acoustic sensor designed to count the supersonic shock waves of the 30mm rounds as they whizzed through the parachute, and instantly transmit the number of “hits” to the range officer. I vaguely heard the unimpressed radio call “zero hits two”, as I pulled off the strafing pass. I was lucky to even remember to pull off at all. I had done exactly what my IP briefed me not to do: “don’t be distracted by the gun firing, FOCUS on tracking the target with the gun cross.”


Focus, ok. So….I’m hurling myself at the ground at 350 mph, literally riding on top of the biggest baddest gatling gun ever made by mankind to fit in a combat aircraft, spewing out sixty 30mm rounds per second, fire, smoke, this primordial vibration, overwhelming smell of gun gas, and a guttural roar like a T-Rex...pretty much total sensory overload. And I’m supposed to “focus”, for that entire second, and hold the little green cross in my Heads Up Display on that tiny parachute rag out there half a mile away? Yeah, there was no focus anywhere near that cockpit during that strafing pass.


Like all Baby Hog Drivers, after firing a few thousand rounds with “The Gun”, I fell into the groove, and started to develop an intense focus while strafing, in spite of the cacophony of sensory distractions. Focus like your life depended on it, because somebody’s life might someday.

Even though I completely missed the target on my first strafing pass in the A-10, I had a huge grin on my face. I’d been given a new toy to play with…...and I liked it!

Stay tuned, more Hawg stories to come.

Cheers!
Legman

WOW! Thanks for that Legman01. Awesome story.