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

[xviper]

Also remember that (with respect to Spektrum) ALL "SAFE select" RXs have AS3X. NOT all AS3X RXs have "SAFE select". AS3X can get by with a 3-axis gyro, while SAFE needs 6-axis to work properly.

[jasmith41]

Hello All,

Just finishing up my A-10. Just need to permanently install the receiver and satellite and final balance.
I did a bunch of custom painting with my airbrush, and also a bunch of weathering following loosely the RC Geeks tutorial on weathering.
Did all the "rivets". Lots of rivets....
Pilot is Jet Hangar Hobbies 1/10 scale I painted up.
I think it came out pretty good.

-Dave

great job on the finish work - mine will look like that too after the maiden... :)

[Hugh Wiedman]

Can anyone help with spektrum as3x gains setting for my 80mm a10. What is heading gains and do I need them and what’s a good number to start with on my gains in general

Eveyone has their own personal preference when it comes to gyro gains. ColtPilot has his in the 20's and that's his sweet spot. I tend to use much higher gains, but never heading hold or SAFE. I'm using the AR637T along with a satellite remote and try to get the highest gains I can without oscillations, but that's my personal sweet spot. Used flap switch as FM channel (for gains, not to be confused wth Flight Modes you can set in your TX) and am flying (quite happily) at the following gains: Flaps Up - 45/50/55. Take-Off Flaps - 70/75/80 and Landing Flaps at 80/85/90. Just my preference but you need to find your own sweet spot. With that RX, I have the top right knob set as my gain adjust and can always decrease the gains (to zero even) while in flight if need be, but never needed/wanted to.

If you are using the same RX, please also install the flight pack voltage wires included with the RX and set up a low pack voltage warning which will save you from draining a pack and crashing. Also use the TX timer, but the voltage call out is the final authority.

Using 2 SMC 6200's balanced about 15 mm further aft than recommended, but that too is a personal preference. Makes landing with the nose up and avoiding the dreaded bucking bronco is much easier. With those packs, I get 6-8 minutes flight time when flying very scale. 5 minutes when hot dogging (more often than not), so that voltage sensor is a huge help.

So you see there's not necessarily a right/wrong answer, find what you like best. With the in-flight gain adjust knob, it's relatively easy to get the gains you like best.

[okcrcpilot]

Can anyone help with spektrum as3x gains setting for my 80mm a10. What is heading gains and do I need them and what’s a good number to start with on my gains in general

There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to setting up AS3X gyro gains, so I recommend you look at several YouTube videos that explains how to properly set up and adjust the gains to fit your particular flying style.

[jasmith41]

[QUOTE=Hugh Wiedman;n342136]



you're the best, man!

[rickfe101]

Been flying my A-10 for about a year. Last two flights the flaps are not deploying fully. One inside or both inside, partial on the outside. On the ground it works fine 30-40 times. Seems like a load problem. Anyone seen this? Circuit board? Servos? Any help is appreciated.

[xviper]

Have you done the usual checks? Loose control rods (holes getting enlarged?)? Are the control horns on the flaps surfaces getting loose? Deploy the flaps on the ground and wiggle the flaps. Is there a lot of play?

[t33jetman]

Everyone on here has up the game on the modifications on the A10 and have done a fantastic job making painting not the only mod to be done.
I'm going to have to put mine back in the shop and work on some mods :).
In the first two pics , I made the refueling port removable so air can come in and cool my batteries with the APU exhaust port in the rear as the air exit vent.

[jasmith41]

Everyone on here has up the game on the modifications on the A10 and have done a fantastic job making painting not the only mod to be done.
I'm going to have to put mine back in the shop and work on some mods :).
In the first two pics , I made the refueling port removable so air can come in and cool my batteries with the APU exhaust port in the rear as the air exit vent.

Gorgeous bird, Jetman... well done!

[cdbody@msn.com]

New A-10 all set up, went back a couple days later and now the landing gear and light does not respond, nor do the flaps. The flaps and ailerons are now working in unison. DX8 with AR 8360T . new batteries. have tried rebind, different model select, Zip, nothing. All worked properly when first set up. Got a request to Freewing to help sort out. Any ideas? I had a channel that wasn't working on a prior model, but I
setup the A-10 on another Model channel to see if that was the problem. I'm stumped

[SanExup]

Is your bind plug still in?

[cdbody@msn.com]

The crew at Motion RC solved my problem. It was simply a change to the wing configuration in the Transmitter program. One aileron and one flap, I had it setup as two for each. Once they guided me through the problem (about 4 minutes of their time I was up and running. test flight coming soon.

[kallend]

All worked properly when first set up.

The crew at Motion RC solved my problem. It was simply a change to the wing configuration in the Transmitter program. One aileron and one flap, I had it setup as two for each. Once they guided me through the problem (about 4 minutes of their time I was up and running. test flight coming soon.

Funny that it worked properly at first, and then didn't.

[cdbody@msn.com]

That's what was so puzzling

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got out Wednesday with a few and got 4 flights in on my A-10 for the first time in a while. With our typical Spring winds being so strong for the last couple months, I had an opportunity to change my Mig-29 fans to the FMS 12 blade 3280-2100Kv inrunners (not that it need it with the TV nozzles) which added about 25% more thrust (have yet to get that up yet). I took the Mig fans (9-blade 3658-1920 Kv inrunners) and put them in my A-10 replacing the old outrunners (not that it needed it), which increased the thrust 15-20%. Talk about "Killing Two Birds With One Stone". WOW, really made a difference on getting off of grass and it's speed and vertical is outstanding. I've never flown it without all the ordinance, even on the maiden, so that's a testimony to it's incredible flight characteristics.

I had painted those swirly white things on the fan hub and the first time out RudyD54 asked why it sounded like an "angry mosquito" as in the Mig they sounded great. He checked it and told me the fans were out of balance, probably due to the painted hubs. It was vibrating so much my JHH pilot came down with his eyes crossed and missed the post flight briefing due to a massive migraine. Well I guess you really can "teach old dogs new tricks" so thanks to gooniac33 and his outstanding fan balancing videos, it's now "quiet as a church mouse" except for the "whoose". Now if I can just figure out what all the hoopla is about over this thing called CG, I might be getting somewhere.

Anyway, I do have to say the A-10 is the best and easiest flying EDF I have. I'd almost recommend it as an EDF trainer and with it's large size, orientation is never an issue. Easy to see why it's been around for so long and continues to sell well while never having to be upgraded; what can you do to something that's close to perfect except mess it up. I had zero complaints with the stock outrunner fans, but the Mig fans are spectacular in it. On 2 SMC 6200's I have my timer set at 5:30 and come down with 38-40% in the tank, flying it much faster than scale. If I spend the flight more scale like, I can get over 7 minutes before my flight pack voltage telemetry indicates low voltage. Thanks to FW/MRC for keeping this one on the Flight Line. If this was a HH product, it would have been gone long ago (and the overall quality would not have been as good, IMO).

[jasmith41]

Sweet! Love that bird. My first edf was the eflite a10 and while i'm on my second one (first one got handed down to my buddy who's just starting out as well), it's the one i look forward to flying the most, other than the FW F8 crusader (really small, but fun fun).
Great piloting Hugh - love the livery too - i may do an arctic camo on my FW A10 if i ever get it out of the box...

[OV10]

Hugh Wiedman Hello Hugh,

It's been 5 years since I mid aired my Hog with TI's (George Baker) Corsair down at fall Triple Tree (the year before it became Fall Nall)
I just recently replaced it with a gently used one for less than half the cost of new. I also got a BNIP set of the oleo mains and an AR8010T still in the fuse for that frugal sale price.

Anyways, the reason I write is because my old manual with all my setup notes is long lost. After watching your video, I knew that I could get some solid info from you.

Where is your CG set? What IS the hoopla you are referring to about the CG?
If I remember correctly, there was a 4mm up ELE trim setup to compensate for the inability to get the book CG appropriate due to the limited aft movement of batteries

Since you are using 6200 SMC's, I'm thinking I should not have any issue getting the 5300 SMC's I have to balance.
Anxiously await your input

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hugh Wiedman Hello Hugh,

It's been 5 years since I mid aired my Hog with TI's (George Baker) Corsair down at fall Triple Tree (the year before it became Fall Nall)
I just recently replaced it with a gently used one for less than half the cost of new. I also got a BNIP set of the oleo mains and an AR8010T still in the fuse for that frugal sale price.

Anyways, the reason I write is because my old manual with all my setup notes is long lost. After watching your video, I knew that I could get some solid info from you.

Where is your CG set? What IS the hoopla you are referring to about the CG?
If I remember correctly, there was a 4mm up ELE trim setup to compensate for the inability to get the book CG appropriate due to the limited aft movement of batteries

Since you are using 6200 SMC's, I'm thinking I should not have any issue getting the 5300 SMC's I have to balance.
Anxiously await your input

It remains to be seen whether you get any "solid info from me", but here goes. The recommended CG balance point per the manual is 78mm. It seems that for many, including me, that balance point is way too nose heavy, which in some cases may lead to a landing orientation that is level or worse, with the nose gear touching first, which results in an uncontrollable bucking bronco which always seems to end badly (or so I'm told). I can't say for certain that's what caused others to bounce the landing (never flown mine at 78mm) or if the pilots just landed too fast and failed to get it into a nose up landing position. Either way, for me at least, I found that I really like the way it flies at 92mm-95mm. I've never flown it without all the ordinance, but you'll find that she slows down very nicely (slower than you can possibly image) with full flaps/gear down without stalling and is very responsive to flaring just before touch down. I'm not the best pilot out there and landings are easily the hardest part for me to get exactly right, but with the A-10 and maybe 100 flights, I've never had a bad landing (and that's either a miracle or a testament to the incredible stable flight of this model). You may even be able to go further back, but I kind of settled at 92mm and it stuck. I would recommend that you start at maybe 88mm and work your way back (I can't tell you how it flies without the ordinance, so if you fly it without, it may just be a little bit different, but probably not enough to worry about).

Also, I fly off of grass and for maybe 60 flights I used the trailing link nose gear (as many recommended for grass). Last 40 flights switched back to the stock and actually like it better on grass as occasionally the trailing link gear door would get stuck against the wheel when fully compressed causing it to completely stop turning. It was like slamming on the brakes (even happened a couple of times on take-off when I hit some bumpy parts, compressed the nose gear and it put the brakes on).

You should be able to get just about any balance point you want using the SMC 5300's. Great batteries and they weigh 130 gr less each than the 6200's I'm using. For those, I had to remove the circuit board in the back and mount it on the fuselage wall so I could shove the batteries as far back as possible. I also had to extend the floor of the front battery tray as the fuselage has a step down in the front and the location of the front battery for me had it hanging over that step. You shouldn't have any issues positioning yours. I'm getting a minimum of 5 minutes flight time, but also using the AR6360T with gyro and in-flight battery voltage telemetry, which your RX also has, and I rarely even get to the point of a low battery warning. I'm usually at the pits with 40% left. Suggest you start at 4:00 and work your way into a final timer setting.

On the elevator trim for flaps, mine required absolutely no extra trim for either flap settings (maybe the only aircraft I have that didn't require any compensation). The neutral elevator position per the manual had the elevator lined up with the bottom of rear light and another round "thingy" (see photo below). Not sure, but I think I ended up with slightly less than that, most likely due to the more rearward balance point. Regarding rates, I pretty much use manual rates and use a 3 position switch so I also have mid rates (but fly it on high rates). I do use about 2mm more on the high rates for both elevator and aileron, and rudder high rates around 30mm instead of 26mm in an effort to make knife edge a little better. On the flaps, I am using more than the manual, with take-off flaps at 30mm (same as manual) but landing flaps at 50mm instead of 40mm per the manual. Of course, all this is personal preference, so the book rates are a good place to start.

The only modifications I did, other than cosmetic of course, was moving the board to allow the batteries to go further back as I mentioned above and I also added a 5mm square carbon fiber tube with length of about 24" glued into the existing channel on each side of the front half of the fuselage. Not sure it's necessary, but someone recommended it and the empty channel just looked like a good place to stiffen the fuselage considering the weight of 2 batteries. I also recently swapped out the stock 80mm outrunner fans with the 3658-1920 Kv 9 blade inrunner fans from my Mig (which I upgraded to FMS fans with 25% more thrust). It honestly didn't need it, took off fine on grass, climbed with ease and had plenty of power, but I didn't want those Mig fans to go to waste and they did give me about 15% more thrust, more efficiency on battery use, takes off from all kinds of heavy grass much better, and climbs like a rocket!

Hope some of this helps, if you have any other questions, just ask. I know you'll end up loving this aircraft. IMO, it is definitely the easiest EDF to fly and land and when it's with me, it's always the first up because it really relaxes me to fly it and I get a load of confidence before moving on to something else.

The photos below show the location of my batteries (that was using 2 Roaring Top 6250's, which weigh about the same as the SMC 6200's I'm now using) and also the carbon fiber tube. Third photo is the rates and elevator neutral position from the manual.

[OV10]

Hello Hugh Wiedman ,

Your the best, I have printed out your most excellent setup details to add to the manual I D/L'd from the Motion website. Your effort/time is greatly appreciated

Your comment "I know you'll end up loving this aircraft." had me saying "ya think!! " Just because it took me sooooo long to replace didn't mean I lost the fever for it.
I was the first to fly one @ Muncie ( maiden) the day before Pilot Ryan and Cap'n Mike and Steve - RCjetdude arrived for NEFI 2017.
Here's two pics that Alpha posted #4379 from that event.

Mines the blue Artic Thunder


While rummaging through the thread looking for the pictoral evidence, I was reminded of how far off we all had the CG back then.
The book called 78 while most were doing mid 80's and as evidenced by your flight/landing that it really belonged in the 90's.
Boy were we flying some nose heavy hogs back then which explained why my memory of landings was much faster than what your vid showed.
The CF rods have been already installed by the previous owner so the only thing I have to do is move that circuit card and batt trays aft.
A big THANX again Hugh for all the valuable info.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hello Hugh Wiedman ,

Your the best, I have printed out your most excellent setup details to add to the manual I D/L'd from the Motion website. Your effort/time is greatly appreciated

Your comment "I know you'll end up loving this aircraft." had me saying "ya think!! " Just because it took me sooooo long to replace didn't mean I lost the fever for it.
I was the first to fly one @ Muncie ( maiden) the day before Pilot Ryan and Cap'n Mike and Steve - RCjetdude arrived for NEFI 2017.
Here's two pics that Alpha posted #4379 from that event.

Mines the blue Artic Thunder


While rummaging through the thread looking for the pictoral evidence, I was reminded of how far off we all had the CG back then.
The book called 78 while most were doing mid 80's and as evidenced by your flight/landing that it really belonged in the 90's.
Boy were we flying some nose heavy hogs back then which explained why my memory of landings was much faster than what your vid showed.
The CF rods have been already installed by the previous owner so the only thing I have to do is move that circuit card and batt trays aft.
A big THANX again Hugh for all the valuable info.

OMG, I really like the Blue Arctic Thunder! Are you resurrecting that one?

[OV10]

Plan to when the flying season ends, just gotta fly it grey stock for now just because it has been so damn long since I've had a hog in the air.