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

[Mobywon]

Hi Mobywon, welcome to Hobby Squawk! As Aros said, we're getting close to announcing the pre-order. We'll know in about a week or so when we will plan to open it, and we'll let you guys know. It will be soon; we anticipate shipping within the month.

Thanks for the welcome, looking forward to seeing it up and ready. You guys are great to deal with, any idea of what the shipping costs to London, Ontario ,Canada might be? I am assuming its gonna be in a really big box!

[xviper]

Thanks for the welcome, looking forward to seeing it up and ready. You guys are great to deal with, any idea of what the shipping costs to London, Ontario ,Canada might be? I am assuming its gonna be in a really big box!

From my last experience of buying a Venom shipped to Alberta from Motion, choose UPS expedited. It'll be the cheapest and most of the brokerage fees are taken care of at the time of sale. My Venom was about <$50.00 at check out and UPS send me another bill for about $15.00 (some goofy admin fee +tax). This plane will be in a bigger box and cost more, so shipping will be more.

[Legman01]

Alpha, outstanding detailing on your Hog, especially the crew ladder. Now I'm gonna have to make one for mine! I suggest you finish it off with some artwork on the inside of the ladder door.

The Air Force didn't allow us to sport nose art on our jets, but pilots and crew chiefs were allowed to paint artwork on the inside of the ladder door. I left that particular decision up to my crew chief at Nellis, and wound up with a charactertur of Bart Simpson and a balloon bubble above his head, where we'd write all sorts of (erasable) politically incorrect comments in grease pencil.

The A-10 was designed so that the pilot could launch all by himself without a ground crew....except for retracting the ladder. That had to be raised from the ground. We surmised, in a pinch you could tie your survival kit lanyard to the bottom step and haul it up, or just screw it and take off with it down, what's a little more drag on an already very draggy jet?

Speaking of grease pencils, Hog Drivers used them in flight to jot down notes on the side of the canopy for quick reference....target coordinates, attack headings, friendly locations, etc. We also used them to address our bombs and Mavericks to the intended recipient. A really cool and simple scale detail Easily added to the model with a fine sharpie.

Like I said, get me going on my beloved Hog and I'll talk your ear off!

[Beeg]

Legman01, do you recall what year or serial block they switched from these square tube ladders to the round tube?

[FastBob]

Is there a way to get am email notification when the pre order is open, thanks

[Alpha]

Hey there FastBob, we don't have a SKU# for the model so our system cannot email a list regarding it. The best way to stay up to date remains to check in this thread, as all information is subject to update. We will announce the pre-order here, and also on the front banner of our website, www.motionrc.com, the moment we open the pre-order. As relayed before, we're currently looking at a 4-6 week timeframe, after the shipment is on the water.

[Alpha]

Lehman01, I'm sure we'd all love to hear more about your experiences as a Hog driver. I'll be sure to scribble something on the inside of the canopy before I close it up for good.

Another question I've always been curious about is the Have Glass program. Was your A-10 part of the program? Whether HG I, HG II, or HG III, I cannot find definitive information on which A-10s were part of which phase of the evaluation. Aside from Have Glass, I take it A-10s have also over the years received standard glare reduction coating on the port and starboard panels of the front windscreen. I ask because I'm considering offering this canopy tiny as an upgrade, but 1) it would be very difficult to implement on only two panels due to the masking process, and 2) I'm unsure how accurate it is.

For those reading along, see the photos attached of what I'm talking about ;) Have Glass was an RCS reduction coating, applied most notably to F-16 canopies. The gold tint seen on an F-16 canopy is almost always one of the phases of Have Glass. But, the coating was not always as overtly gold as sometimes seen. Sometimes it was more green, sometimes more blue, sometimes barely visible, sometimes with an additional tint layer of another hue. As with many things in a constantly evolving military force, it just depends. F-22s sometimes display very distinctly golden canopies. Same principle.



HG coating on front windscreen?



NOTE, it is only ever on the outer panels. Never the front panel or the main bubble.



F-16 with HG



F-22 with a flamboyant ITO coating. Think HG on steroids.

[bill34207]

A question that's been plaguing my thoughts... Getting the MA mag today featuring the Flightline Tigercat made it surface again. Great looking model, and if I were not already pushed to the limits for hangar space...
Anyways, early in the thread when ideas of a green version were mentioned, it came out that the dark green color would make the A-10 prone to popcorn. Wouldn't the same hold true for that dark blue finish on the cat?

[Model Sounds Inc.]

I got sound samples from www.modelsoundsinc.com of an A-10 TF34 and GAU-8 cannon for the Shockwave2 sound system they sell. The A-10 is just one of many plane sounds they offer. Is that who you are referring to or am I way out in left field?

Hi, folks, here at Model Sounds Inc. we have had a full A10 sound set, including the GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon sound available for the last six years. But if you folks find a better sounding one than what we offer, let me know where you found the sound (try YouTube for example) and we can incorporate that into our ShockWave2 sound set for the A10.

[Alpha]

It's an adept observation, Bill. Each color reacts on foam differently. It depends on the composition of the paint itself, the sheen additive, and other factors. With the Tigercat, I could hold three foam wings painted in three different blues, and most of the crew with us couldn't tell the difference. But, each wing reacted to heat slightly differently.

As with anything, we're open to anything the majority of the purchasing Market wants, but over the years we've been able to learn and establish a clear set of IF/THEN conditions which need to happen before we consider making a change to a demonstrably proven process. I for one truly hope we can offer a green variant within the first year. Modeling a green A-10 is not impossible, I'm not saying we'll never make one, but a green scheme does add additional challenges beyond just the color.

First, a dark green color will bubble faster than a ligher gray color, there's no way around that. All of us Tigercat owners know that we need to be mindful of sun exposure more than our lighter colored aircraft. It's a balance to find behind "it's dark but I like it anyway and will accept the responsibility of keeping it out of the sun" and "I like it but I won't buy it because it will bubble too quickly". Size works against us in this sense, as well. A big bird like the A-10 will be our biggest, darkest aircraft in the entire lineup, and its large surface area soaks up UV. Trust me, I've timed with a stopwatch the bubble rate on this A-10, painted in green and drab. It's quick.

Second, from a complexity standpoint, the Tigercat is one color on the outside --no paint molds, just paint every part blue. The green A-10 would be three colors --two paint molds. For competitive reasons, I cannot go into too much detail but suffice to say paint molds are incredibly complex, in fact more difficult than the foam mold itself. Whereas foam molds are CNC cut by machine, the paint molds (more appropriately, "masks") are hand fit to sit flush against a model without overspray. Where each separate mask meets a different color, must be perfect. This adds considerable time and cost to produce molds. These costs are built into the plane's price range from the very beginning of a project's start, and so a second scheme's additional mold costs would need to recouped... elsewhere.

Third, from a mass production standpoint, it is much easier for the factory to focus on a single iteration of a new product. Every part goes through the same process to produce the same result. Less deviations = less cost and less potential for delay. The P-38 was a teachable moment in this regard. Behind the scenes, there was a lot of scrambling around to co-release two different schemes (and both together had fewer paint mold/masks than a larger A-10 would require) and we all agreed we wouldn't try that again. Then we did it again anyway later on the MiG-21, and were reminded of the difficulty.

Fourth, from a spare parts inventory standpoint, a single scheme is much easier. Stagnant inventory has killed business in the past so we're very vigilant in our inventory management processes and keeping things fresh. A large A-10 won't have the volume a cheaper aircraft would, that's based on the data of other similarly priced aircraft, so it adds an extra element of caution.

Fifth, historically, second paint schemes simply do not sell as well as the first, if not released jointly. In fact every "original" scheme Freewing has ever produced with us has outsold its "second" scheme by more than 4:1, across the board. With every new aircraft, we have our mind toward offering a second followup scheme, but it is very rare that a model meets those requirements and we get the go-ahead to produce that second scheme.


Of course, this post is dated 2/4/2017, and in a day or week or quarter or whenever, all this could change. We proved our flexibility with the Avanti canopy. I said a cockpit wasn't in the cards, then enough people said they really wanted one, so voila, a cockpit is now standard on the PNP. :) Our first intention is to deliver a model that is versatile, capable, and worth every penny of its purchase price. From there, paint, details, bonus features, are icing.

So... how many of you want green icing? Hands up!

[Alpha]

Welcome to Hobby Squawk, Model Sounds! Please send me a PM with your information and let's talk more offline about your product.

Thanks!

[davecee]

looking forward to the day I can order this beauty.

[Mike_Then]

To clarify, Mike, the stock PNP wheels will be the same size as what has been shown in my photos thus far. I was talking about using a scale sized wheel and tire only on the [TBD] "Scale Nose Strut" option, which would be sold separately for people who wanted to add a scale detail at the cost of less rough handling capability. In the same way that the other "optional strut" sets we've sold for past models typically reflect ~5% of the PNP models sold, I expect the A-10 to be similar, so as always it comes down to the question of does it make financial sense for us to offer an upgrade if we'll never come close to breaking even on it. I'm still weighing the math on a scale strut/wheel/tire aftermarket option. But in the meantime don't worry, your unprepared runway will love the stock PNP's trailing links and tires.

Thank you very much for the clarification, Alpha! As far as the color, I'm just as happy as a clam with the gray.

[RCjetdude]

It's an adept observation, Bill. Each color reacts on foam differently. It depends on the composition of the paint itself, the sheen additive, and other factors. With the Tigercat, I could hold three foam wings painted in three different blues, and most of the crew with us couldn't tell the difference. But, each wing reacted to heat slightly differently.

As with anything, we're open to anything the majority of the purchasing Market wants, but over the years we've been able to learn and establish a clear set of IF/THEN conditions which need to happen before we consider making a change to a demonstrably proven process. I for one truly hope we can offer a green variant within the first year. Modeling a green A-10 is not impossible, I'm not saying we'll never make one, but a green scheme does add additional challenges beyond just the color.

First, a dark green color will bubble faster than a ligher gray color, there's no way around that. All of us Tigercat owners know that we need to be mindful of sun exposure more than our lighter colored aircraft. It's a balance to find behind "it's dark but I like it anyway and will accept the responsibility of keeping it out of the sun" and "I like it but I won't buy it because it will bubble too quickly". Size works against us in this sense, as well. A big bird like the A-10 will be our biggest, darkest aircraft in the entire lineup, and its large surface area soaks up UV. Trust me, I've timed with a stopwatch the bubble rate on this A-10, painted in green and drab. It's quick.

Second, from a complexity standpoint, the Tigercat is one color on the outside --no paint molds, just paint every part blue. The green A-10 would be three colors --two paint molds. For competitive reasons, I cannot go into too much detail but suffice to say paint molds are incredibly complex, in fact more difficult than the foam mold itself. Whereas foam molds are CNC cut by machine, the paint molds (more appropriately, "masks") are hand fit to sit flush against a model without overspray. Where each separate mask meets a different color, must be perfect. This adds considerable time and cost to produce molds. These costs are built into the plane's price range from the very beginning of a project's start, and so a second scheme's additional mold costs would need to recouped... elsewhere.

Third, from a mass production standpoint, it is much easier for the factory to focus on a single iteration of a new product. Every part goes through the same process to produce the same result. Less deviations = less cost and less potential for delay. The P-38 was a teachable moment in this regard. Behind the scenes, there was a lot of scrambling around to co-release two different schemes (and both together had fewer paint mold/masks than a larger A-10 would require) and we all agreed we wouldn't try that again. Then we did it again anyway later on the MiG-21, and were reminded of the difficulty.

Fourth, from a spare parts inventory standpoint, a single scheme is much easier. Stagnant inventory has killed business in the past so we're very vigilant in our inventory management processes and keeping things fresh. A large A-10 won't have the volume a cheaper aircraft would, that's based on the data of other similarly priced aircraft, so it adds an extra element of caution.

Fifth, historically, second paint schemes simply do not sell as well as the first, if not released jointly. In fact every "original" scheme Freewing has ever produced with us has outsold its "second" scheme by more than 4:1, across the board. With every new aircraft, we have our mind toward offering a second followup scheme, but it is very rare that a model meets those requirements and we get the go-ahead to produce that second scheme.


Of course, this post is dated 2/4/2017, and in a day or week or quarter or whenever, all this could change. We proved our flexibility with the Avanti canopy. I said a cockpit wasn't in the cards, then enough people said they really wanted one, so voila, a cockpit is now standard on the PNP. Our first intention is to deliver a model that is versatile, capable, and worth every penny of its purchase price. From there, paint, details, bonus features, are icing.

So... how many of you want green icing? Hands up!

If both colors were offered at pre-order I would go with green but the problem is I want one ASAP so grey it is. I can always play with some paint colors on an old plane to see how they behave in the sun if I really want to paint it when I get it. I painted my Mig before it ever took to the air and it has been great. If you say the dark greens matter I may do some testing but I am just as content with the grey too. Still undecided.

[bill34207]

Thanks, Alpha. Well explained and I will be happy with the gray once it gets here. :Cool:

[Lon]

So... how many of you want green icing? Hands up!

Ummmm, I'll pass thank you.

[F106DeltaDart]

Thanks for all of the explanations Alpha, it is awesome to see all of the design considerations that go into these models! I really love all of the detail work you have put in on your model as well, the ladder is a nice touch. All of the options on this model are what make it great! Mine will definitely have the scale nose gear and powder cannon with sound. I see were also doing canopy tint research on the F-22, hopefully that a hint to what's next :)..

[crxmanpat]

If both schemes were offered at the same time at pre-order, I'd get the green icing. However, if the green icing comes later, I'd get it as well and then sell the grey one. The grey just disappears too easily here in the bright blue Arizona sky. That's why I'll be repainting my F-15 into an aggressor scheme, and my F-14 into a VF-1 Wolfpack scheme. Although the Wolfpack scheme is just white and grey, it has a lot of red accents that will help with visibility.

[dkalwishky]

So... how many of you want green icing? Hands up!

I did a google search on the green camo schemes and I think over all I would prefer the gray.

[OV10]

Alpha...........I'll pass on the green also, but how about considering as a second color alternative a plain non painted version.
This scheme has been asked for on some many birds across so many forums so that any modeler may paint their prize however to their own individual desires.
And one less cost factor to be considered!!!;)