Official Freewing 80mm Avanti S Sport Jet Thread

[xviper]

My Avanti arrives Monday. If I add Elevator to flap mixing, do the elevators go up when flaps go down?
Thanks for the input!

Tom

No, most conventional winged aircraft, the plane "balloons" (goes up) when flaps deploy. You would mix in down elevator to compensate. However, if you use a slow flap deployment (3 to 4 seconds) and use them as you are slowing down for landing, no elevator compensation is needed on this plane.

[CapnKen]

I have an Avanti S on its way. Has anyone used the FRSKY stabilizing receiver (S6R or S8R) with this plane? and if so, do you have some tips on setup.

Thanks

[CFIT rob]

All of my other edfs (even my 64mm) have a stabilizer or stabilized rx in them as they benefit from having one. The avanti flies great without one. No big attitude changes from the wind. Holds knife edge easy. Little to no wing rock. I regularly fly in 15-18mph winds. The thing is designed incredibly well....(unlike my exwife...she's a machine that would have definitely benefitted from a stabilizer)

[CapnKen]

All of my other edfs (even my 64mm) have a stabilizer or stabilized rx in them as they benefit from having one. The avanti flies great without one. No big attitude changes from the wind. Holds knife edge easy. Little to no wing rock. I regularly fly in 15-18mph winds. The thing is designed incredibly well....(unlike my exwife...she's a machine that would have definitely benefitted from a stabilizer)

This will be my 1st jet - and I already have the stabilizer receiver, so one would think it couldn't hurt - as long as I set it up right.

Re: exwife, some time ago I stopped at a tavern in Ferndale, WA... the big sign above the door said... "We have beer... colder than your EX" lol

[CFIT rob]

Copy that on having it already. Would suggest if rx has a remote stabilizer on /off to assign a switch. Or a remote gain at the very least. Thought my mig 21 was all dialed in until i flew it without the drop tanks. First high speed dive it started a violent roll oscillation. Throwing the gyro off switch made it a non event instead of another addition to the wall of shame. You will love the avanti. Follow the forum advice about checking control horns. And its best to bleed off as much speed as you can when landing to keep it from bouncing. It is a classic "floater".

Lol on the quote,one i havent heard.

[CapnKen]

Would be perfect if some of you seasoned Avanti S pilots would put together a sticky; things to check for during assembly, recommended throws based on flight experience, and things to watch out for during flight.

[Papadave418]

I have spent some time reading through all of your posts and decided to reinforce the nose gear as I fly off of soccer field grass. Thank you for the nose gear mod idea, for uploading it to Thingiverse (I mispronounce it in the video), and I gotta say it’s flawless. I made a little video about it to help those still considering how it works. I’ve got a number of fun edited videos (David Douglass) about other planes as well. Thanks guys!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2553111/#files

[Grossman56]

Thanks Papadave, I love my Avanti,as you probably gathered from previous posts. I fly with a 4000, a 4000 PRO and a 5000 brick. (Going to pick up some 4500's as they would seem to be the perfect battery for her and other planes as well.) All of them sit so the battery is flush with the back of the battery plywood board, flies great right there and she CG's at the recommended point. The ailerons are wicked!!
I dumbed mine down to 80% in the servo throws menu on my DX8-1 and have my rates and 100%, 80% and 70% on a three way switch and I use 30% expo.(Prefer the 80%) Take off with no flaps and land with full (flaps are set and 15 and 30 degrees). She's definitely a floater and she had to be positioned just right. Too much altitude will have you floating across the runway. I've learned that you cannot force her down without her turning into a bucking bronco, so peel off the altitude on base and bring her around on final and line her up, use the throttle to control descent, raise the nose just before touchdown.

I've seen a lot of videos where guys look like they're doing a three point touch down. Maybe they are, but mine will live up to the State emblem (the bucking horse) if I even think about trying that!!

Grossman56

[Swisstyphoon]

I just found a video on youtube from a german guy, that converted his Freewing Avanti to a P20 turbine. :)

https://youtu.be/1yxAnfIFSW8

[Mach9]

Sweet! I would not trust the glued horns for that! Maybe someone will make a conversion kit in the future!

[Grossman56]

Another Mad Modder, that's insane!!

Grossman56

[Papadave418]

Well guys I am excited to get my maiden done finally, again thank you to all the wisdom and experience shared. By no means am I a superb builder or pilot, but I made a little video of what I’ve gleaned from you guys. Thought it might possibly be helpful to others about some small odds and ends when it comes to set up mods. Tried to edit it to keep it quick and succinct for those who can’t read through 94 pages and 184 posts!

[Shirty]

Good onya Dave

[russ t]

Has anyone got the Avanti S ESC low voltage 'soft' cut-off to work? I (unfortunately) have had two dead stick landings due running a poor battery down. In both occurrences I glided in. After reducing the throttle to zero, and not knowing what the problem was I then added a small amount of throttle to see if it would taxi. The motor powered up for 1 second. I tried a few more times. Surely the battery voltage would have recovered somewhat so I could run say at low, low, low idle (vs. 50 Amps in flight). Especially since according to the ESC manual (on the aircraft web page below the price https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/10...iles/fwesc.pdf), the default throttle setting is 'soft' cut-off. But it just shuts off instantly even when I tried to get it to low, low idle.

So for next day of flying I went into the ESC programming mode and definitely set it for 'soft' cut-off. A few flying days later, same thing.

I called MotionRC support, and they graciously suggested I send the ESC back to them for testing. But that's harder to do from Canada, and at Christmas time. So I though I would post here to see if anyone else had this problem. Please can anyone comment?
Thanks, Russ.

[Grossman56]

I like the elastic band idea Dave, gotta try that!

Grossman56

[Papadave418]

I like the elastic band idea Dave, gotta try that!

Grossman56

Yeah pretty easy to do!

I couldn’t get my jet to lift off the grass at the city park we fly at, and it had just been mowed. The nose gear compressed down which tilted the jet in a forward attack angle. I just added fuel tubing to keep the nose gear from compressing so much, are any other suggestions if a hard surface isn’t possible?

Hand launch? :D

[Mach9]

I use a touch of up elevator for take-off. You could try flaps. That works for my Taft Viper 90. Is your CG good? Are all the wheels rolling free?

[Rosytime]

I had he same thing happen a while back but it happened to be grass the was damp. The nose compressed down and I could never get it off the ground. The jet never got enough speed up to have the elevator be effective. Going the other way on the runway was successful since there seemed to be a little bump which freed up the gear and got the angle of attack just right. Now on to why I'm posting. Yesterday after touching down on the runway, my Avanti suddenly veered to the left. No damage but I found the nose gear turned for no apparent reason. After looking at the gear I found one of the screws that hold the collar on the gear had come out allowing the strut to turn. It's the collar that is attached to the link in the gear. Of course no one had a screw small enough at the field so home it went. Luckily I have some struts from the A-10 and the screws are the same. Moral of the story is to check all the screws on the gear and make sure they're tight. A little thread locker might be wise also. My Avanti has over 200 flights on it and I should have been a little more diligent with the maintenance. And not to cause a debate, but my Avanti is from the first batch and I have done none of the nose wheel modifications that have been posted and they still work fine. I fly from a grass runway that is bumpy and have had a few nose first landings,(pilot error), and other than bending the strut back straight they work fine. Motion did a great job on designing these gear. My A-4 has similar gear and it has no problems.

[TopGun]

Hey Rosytime, Papadave418,

I have found that if you have a nose gear landing, the tire on the nose wheel will shift around on the rim.

Upon inspection you will see cross ribs running crossways of the rim and they are in a set pattern therefor
if the tire shifts on the rim it becomes out of round and thus the wheel will hardly turn. This makes for the
problem of the nose dropping while trying to take off because of the resistance of the wheel not wanting
to freely roll.

The fix is to get the tire lined up with the cross ribs on the rim so the tire will return to it's natural form and
be able to free-wheel again.

Hope this helps, should this be your problem, if not, keep this in mind as I have had this happen to my
Avanti.

Cheers and Blue Skies to ya.......:f4phantom

[Papadave418]

I was able to get her up using full flaps and a little head wind. The grass is long as it’s a soccer field, not a club field. Such a fun plane! All of your advice was right on the mark, and I toned down those touchy ailerons. The fuel tubing on the nose gear was the touch that helped. My wheel was spinning fine, but with longer grass it was compressing. This might be the easiest plane to land I’ve ever owned, comes in nicely to the point I pretty much deadstick the final approach.