Official Freewing 80mm Avanti S Sport Jet Thread

[xviper]

I picked up a used a Avanti, are any of you mixing elevator with your flaps? I also noticed that I can’t get the high rate settings even with mine set up with 125% throw. I can adjust the mechanical linkage if I want high rates.

I don't bother with ELE mixing for flaps on any plane anymore. A slow (3 to 4 second per step) deployment is all you need. This slows down the ballooning to the point where manually adjusting is easy and becomes second nature. As the plane slows down even more, elevator compensation is not needed at all. As far as the throws are concerned, you won't need the throws as stated in the manual. That would make for a very sensitive control response. I don't even fly mine on high rates, which is nowhere near what is stated. I use mid and low rates.

[Hemidoo]

I added more mechanical thro once I was looking for more authority
As far as the flaps on mine , slowing the flaps down seemed to fix any unwanted lift more than mixing in down elevator .. Just my 2cents

[rpellicciotti]

Well, my Avanti #2 ate the ground. #1 died due to aileron horns not properly glued. Lost control for some reason on the final turn before landing. No wind I could perceive but hot. I was at half throttle so I don't think I stalled. Suspect problems are: Radio interference (Highly unlikely at my private field.), receiver or transmitter failure (Also highly unlikely, transmitter has been used on other aircraft since and the receiver "seems" to test good. I have never had a Castle fail but there is always a first.), poor connection somewhere or BEC failure in the ESC. I do know for sure the BEC in the Scorpion spewed radio interference new out of the box and it is the same brand. The ESC W/BEC "seems" to be OK. I have not thoroughly tested anything yet. It was my third consecutive flight, it was hot and I flew mostly at half throttle. Lower throttle settings really heat an ESC. They work best WOT. That may have been enough to overheat the ESC. I may test it with a heat gun. I may never know for sure.

Overall this is THE BEST foam sport EDF jet I have ever seen! The overall design, quality, performance and size is unbeatable at this time. It has it all.

I learned the hard way and never will run a BEC again. On all of my EDF's I run a ESC that does not have a BEC and a separate receiver battery. The RX battery I use is the Glacier 2S LiFe 1100mah which is 6.6V. It is light and has plenty of power for two flights. The battery fits in the cavity aft of the flight battery and below the ESC. Note you have to pull the RED wire out of the throttle lead from the ESC to the receiver.

[dkalwishky]

A few days ago a buddy was flying his Avanti, he liked to do bounce and goes on the runway or grass, that's a high speed touch and go with the gear UP. :)

Anyway he wasn't thrilled with the plane and he preferred his Stinger 90 so this plane was for sale. On the last flight he attempted a bounce and go and it went poorly, the nose dug in and the plane came to a halt very quickly. The nose cone popped off and some foam on the nose was damaged. I looked over the damage and decided to buy the plane anyway, I could put a new fuse on it and have a practially new plane for less than the cost of new. We could not find the missing piece of foam in the grass from the nose or the second magnet that holds the nose cone on.

Last night I took some foam from a wrecked F-86 and made up the part for the missing foam on the nose and I pulled the grass that was in the engine inlet out and cleaned that area up. I sanded the foam down so it had the right shape and since the magnet was lost I decided to glue the nose cone to the fuse (I plan on replacing both pieces anyway). I test ran the engine for a few seconds to calibrate the ESC and it seemed fine. I got everything set up in my transmitter and the CG marked, I was ready to fly. I figured I'd fly it this way since the replacement fuse it out of stock for a few weeks.

Tonight I went to the field to fly the plane, Terri was taking the video. As soon as I advanced the throttle I heard a bang and the EDF did not sound right, in the video you'll see it spit out a few small pieces of foam. I started it again and it did not sound right so I abandoned trying to fly it.

Someone suggested that it sounded like the fan was missing a blade, sure enough when I looked at the fan it was missing a blade and another was damaged. Behind the plane in the grass was the chewed up foam from the missing nose piece AND the magnet. The noise you hear when the engine starts is the magnet being sucked into the engine destroying it.

I found that the fan blade is $17, a whole new EDF assembly (minus the motor) is $22. It makes sense to order the entire assembly, now I have spare parts if I ever need them. I hope the parts are here on Friday so I can try to fly it again this weekend. To repair the EDF will be an easy and straight forward job.

I should have inspected the plane better than I did since we were not able to find the part that broke off, it never occurred to me that it could have been hiding in the plane.

[Twowingtj]

Well worth making the repairs. These are great flying planes:Cool:. The gear should be in good shape as they weren't used for most landingsLOL

[Mach9]

I learned the hard way and never will run a BEC again. On all of my EDF's I run a ESC that does not have a BEC and a separate receiver battery. The RX battery I use is the Glacier 2S LiFe 1100mah which is 6.6V. It is light and has plenty of power for two flights. The battery fits in the cavity aft of the flight battery and below the ESC. Note you have to pull the RED wire out of the throttle lead from the ESC to the receiver.

That is an option but I hate having another battery to deal with. Maybe an external BEC. My receiver is rated for 8.4V max which is 2S LiPo (Lithium Ion is 8.2V) but the servos in the Avanti are rated at 6.0V max. I don't know about the LEDs. That .6V extra may take its toll in time. Also when fully charged, a 2S LiFe pack will have 7.2V. That would be 1.2V too much. Do you use a regulator? With my glow planes and full size analog servos I can easily get 6-8 flights with a 600mAh 4.8V nominal (5.6V peak) NiCd or MiMH pack. Those digital servos really suck the power.

[Mach9]

Well I found the time (weather and work) and nerve to fly Avanti #3. I went ahead and replaced the receiver with a new one and also changed the channel. It flew awesome with no problems! Four flights Saturday and three Sunday. It has the motor, EDF and ESC from #1. I don't trust the ESC from #2. I added a pilot this time. I hope he does not carry out his catch phrase! I usually just paint the canopy black.

[Mach9]

LOL The Super Vipers look like the Avanti.

[xviper]

That is an option but I hate having another battery to deal with. Maybe an external BEC.

This is my feelings on the matter as well. I have had over 100 RC planes in my short 7 year history in this hobby. Of those, only a few had external BECs that were powered via the flight battery leads and a couple that had external BECs powered by a separate battery. None have had actually separate batteries powering the Rx directly. Of all the downed planes, I can only attribute perhaps one to a failed internal BEC due to ESC failure. Many of us have made statements to the effect that "I will always do ……... ………………… " or "I will NEVER do …………. ……………… " and that's OK. Everything is alright till it isn't, then it changes your whole perspective on the matter. But insofar as relying upon the built-in BECs in ESCs, I believe they are pretty good. Personally, I've lost more planes due to dumb thumbs or other "malfunctions" than those caused by internal or external BEC failures.

LOL The Super Vipers look like the Avanti.

They really do ------------ giant Avantis. I've considered getting one myself but space is a limitation for me and my Avanti S is already a nice size and a great value.

[lasdoug]

Hi Everyone, Concerned with Flap Issue on 80mm Freewing Avanti.Was at the field and a fellow pilot was describing his flap issue on his New Avanti (Purchased July 2018). On go-around with full flaps, upon retraction, one flap side did NOT Retract and the other side did, He said he was able to recover from this, but barely. What's going on with this Flap issue, I assume it's a on going problem.

[xviper]

Hi Everyone, Concerned with Flap Issue on 80mm Freewing Avanti.Was at the field and a fellow pilot was describing his flap issue on his New Avanti (Purchased July 2018). On go-around with full flaps, upon retraction, one flap side did NOT Retract and the other side did, He said he was able to recover from this, but barely. What's going on with this Flap issue, I assume it's a on going problem.

First I've heard of it so hard to say that it's an "issue". Could be a bad servo or bad connection and either of these could happen to any servo or connection. It would be luck of the draw which one it could happen to.

[dkalwishky]

I bought my friends Avanti, he had the same flap issue. It did it for him a several times. I've only put six flights on the plane and no issues so far. We've reseated all the connections, I'm hoping that solved it.

[dkalwishky]

After my post a above about the EDF problem I had I now have six flight on the plane.

This is a sweet flying plane, on the second flight I reduced the aileron throw another 10% from the suggested low rates and I liked that better. I'm running 30% expo across the board. As you'll see in the video I can in to hot, on the second flight I did a few touch and goes and the final landing was spot in speed wise. She is a floater if you have a little extra speed.

[fhhuber]

One flap retracting and not the other will be a connection of servo (failure of wires/plugs/solder joints) between servo and RX or bad servo issue. Something failed to "tell the servo" to move.

If it was a common issue with the plane (bad servo/leads or Y harness) then you'd be seeing it everywhere the affected part is used, not just on that control surface of that model. They use the same servos and Y harnesses in a lot of places on a lot of models.

[TiredIronGRB]

It could also be the connection board.

[Woodcock]

It could also be the connection board.

I can't formally comment on this as I don't own one. But I do own 2 HSD Vipers. If the Avanti has the multiple pin connectors to attach the wings, i would make sure and clean them regularly with a good electronic stabilant. These connections look beautiful, and make things convenient. Never really like them though. To much potential for failure in my opinion.

Woody

[fhhuber]

It could also be the connection board.

Yes, that's between RX and servo for the people who use them.

I've been bypassing the boards (except to operate lights) so I can make use of my TX's programming capability for mixing things the way I want.

I'm not sure if having a board (adding more connections) between RX and servos is the best plan, but it does let you operate a model when your radio doesn't have the functions the model needs. However the boards are adding cost to the models. Avoiding paying for 3 or 4 of those would compensate for getting a better TX that doesn't need the board for mixing/sequencing.

[lasdoug]

Enclosed, After a quick search, I cut and pasted comments relating to the flap issue, people commented on in the past on this website; Haven't been through the whole site though-
Little concerned with this issue, cannot think of a faster way to trash a $300 Airplane!!

Do you have the flap deployment delayed? Try reducing the time for deployment. Some owners have discovered it's not a servo problem, but the control board not being able to deal with a slow deployment, while others have had no problems. Mine is no more than 3 seconds. If you continue to have issues with the flaps, hook them up directly to the RX and bypass the board.
Just an additional note: Some have reported that going more than a 2 second transition time on the flaps has caused some flap glitches. 2 seconds is my normal set-up, so have not seen any.
Today I flew my 15th flight on the Avanti. The plane performed flawlessly in the first 14 flights and was a thrill to fly. After takeoff today I noticed a tendency for the plane to roll left like it was suddenly out of trim. It wasn’t enough that I thought I had a asymmetrical flap issue. When it was time to land, I selected full flaps and did not notice any change in the roll trim. The plane did not seem to slow as much as usual and I ended up waving off the first approach. The second approach was also fast but I landed the plane without event. After taxing in, I checked the flaps and found that they were not extending more than a fraction of the usual travel and the right flap was deploying a bit more than the left. I cycled the flaps several times and got the same results. I then cycled power to the receiver and the flaps began working normally.

I checked the board connections and everything seemed secure. Since every other function was normal, I believe it was not a receiver signal issue. Since both flap servos seemed to operate similarly, I don’t believe it was a bad servo. That leads me to suspect my plane’s control board has an intermittent failure. Since I don’t remove the wings for transport, I am considering bypassing the board and plugging the servos directly into the receiver. Has anyone had success with this?

What deployment time have you selected for the flaps? Someone told me that if the deployment is too slow, the flaps can have a hiccup.
I never use a board anymore. Wire everything direct to the receiver. Just my personal choice to avoid any FURTHER problems.
I had a 3 second deployment for flaps programmed on my transmitter and encountered similar issues. I changed it to a 1 second deployment + reseated the servo plugs in the wing root boards on both sides. Have not had an issue since.
I had the flap deployment speed set at 1 second and I confirmed that the servo plugs are firmly seated. It looks like I need to bypass the board and plug all servos directly into the receiver
Try one last thing before you go through the PIA process of running new servo extensions (you may have already done this). When I took off the wing root boards, I cycled each flap and aileron servo separately using a cheap servo exerciser. If you don't have one, I'm sure you know you can hook them up to a spare receiver to test them as well. If servos are working as expected, then it's probably time to run extensions and bypass the board as you said.
In reference to the flap issue, I wrote about mine before. I was having an intermittent problem with one flap no going all the way up after landing. If you touched it, it went up all the way. After reading some of the earliest post about a possible control board problem,( I got mine in the first batch), I went ahead and pulled it and used extensions since I don't remove my wings. The only problem is that you have to get a LED controller to run the lights. Obviously the board has a circuit on it for the strobes and to reduce voltage to the lights. I then flew the Avanti for a bunch of flights but was still having the problem. I figured it only happens after I land so why bother. We all know that the magic repair fairy will come in the middle in the night and fix it. Well, I went to drop the flaps and the jet went into a crazy roll. I pulled the flaps up and back to level flight. Lined up again and dropped them again, same result. Landed with no flaps which I don't want to do again. It rolled a long way into the high grass. Bottom line is I replaced both flap servos and the problem has not come back for over 30 flights as of now. Luckily I had some Freewing servos with 550mm extensions which fit perfectly and eliminated an extension to each. I have had a flap servo go bad on my Yak 130 before and after replacement had no problem. Still love this jet and it seems to never come out of my truck so it's always ready to fly.
I forgot to add that I tried changing my servo speed also and if I went to the 20 setting, on my Futaba, they didn't work as well. I have them set at 15 now.
I ran extensions and Y leads to the ailerons and flaps and connected them directly to the receiver. I left the landing gear and lights plugged into the board and all seems to work well. I don't remove the wings for transport so this should be a reasonable work around. I look forward to getting her back in the air this weekend.

[Hemidoo]

I've been running my flaps at 3 seconds without problems so far , Spektrum DX8

[Mach9]

Hi Everyone, Concerned with Flap Issue on 80mm Freewing Avanti.Was at the field and a fellow pilot was describing his flap issue on his New Avanti (Purchased July 2018). On go-around with full flaps, upon retraction, one flap side did NOT Retract and the other side did, He said he was able to recover from this, but barely. What's going on with this Flap issue, I assume it's a on going problem.

That is a problem since the first batch. My first one had/has (never found the cause for sure) it but I have not noticed it in number 2 or 3...unless THAT is what caused the crash of number 2. Hmmm, I had not thought about that. I was so far out that there is now way I could actually see them deploy.