Official Freewing 80mm Avanti S Sport Jet Thread

[xviper]

Each plane and each battery will be slightly different. A 4000 Admiral Pro will weigh much differently than say, a 4000 HobbyKing Turnigy Heavy Duty battery.
The CG that's printed in the manual is already a "suggestion" and is a starting point. For anyone to tell you what they use as their battery placement may not necessarily apply to you. Why not just make a mark on you wings where the manual suggests for the CG and start by placing the battery so the strap holds it in the middle. Hold it upside down with canopy on and see how it balances. Move the battery accordingly till it balances on the marks. After the first flight, adjust accordingly to make it fly the way you like.

[Grossman56]

X is correct, they seem to vary from plane to plane, depending on whether you've done any upgrades or paint jobs, or just because. I fly mine with an Admiral 5000, 4000 PRO and a 4000 reg. The 5000 is at the back of the plywood deck and the 4000's I usually place slightly forward of that, slightly meaning no more than a 1/4 inch.
Bottom line, mark the CG from the manual (I used a fine tip felt marker) and flipped it over as X says and checked it out, after that adjust to your preference. Don't overdue the adjustment though. She's an extremely easy plane to fly, just remember to raise the nose when landing and commit to it, don't ask how I know!!

Grossman56

[Kurtzz]

I had the pleasure of flying a brand new Avanti S today. Evidently Motion must have gotten in a small shipment this past Wednesday, his arrived Friday. After he maidened this morning, I got flight number 2. WOW, what a nice flying bird, plenty of power to blast out of a thick grass runway with very heavy dew, required zero trim changes and will knife edge with little to no coupling. His is set up per the recommendations and using a 6S 5000. If I could change one thing it would be the nose gear. Being a trailing link, under acceleration on a thick, dew saturated runway the nose gear packs down, causing a slight decrease in the AoA of the wing. Probably not a big deal, but an oleo in my opinion, for our field, and conditions would be better. From reading the A10 message board, I'm the only person in the world who thinks FreeWing and MRC got the gear on the A10 100% correct, trailing link mains and oleo nose for grass field ops. I will have an Avanti S as soon as they come in. Attached is the photo of the happy owner!

[Doorman]

Thanks Kurtzz for leading me to this site...and showing off that big stupid grin in the pic!!!
This is my first EDF and all of the videos and the articles I have read about it are spot on... Maiden was a no brainier with this model.. What a pleasure!! I fly mostly scale helis now, but in the last few seasons I have been getting back to the roots and flying planes again.. I started in 1969, so you can bet that I have replanted at least one "balsa" forest!! Thanks to everyone for the different mods that will help make this an even better everyday flier for me.... and looking forward to my next EDF..

Stan

[Grossman56]

Hey Doorman and Kurtzz, welcome to the Squawk!
I'm hands down in agreement with you, it's an amazingly easy plane to fly. It is my first EDF as well and man am I glad I went this route.
Such an easy plane, and as far as the suspension, there is same mention a few pages back on this thread to a method of dampening hat using a piece of tubing. You might want to check that out.

Grossman56

[Pascandrea]

{"data-align":"none","data-size":"medium","data-attachmentid":97407}[/ATTACH] Grossman56

like this ?

[Planeclothes]

Hello guys, I am new here. Just waiting for my next opportunity to buy one of these little EDFs. I only became interested after reading Model Aviation's review and watching some videos. A few days ago I visited Motion RC online and since the plane was out of stock I clicked on "Notify me when back in stock". A couple of days later I received an email but instead of purchasing the plane rignt away I just added it to the cart without finalizing the order and proceeded to research the web for more info on batteries, etc. Guess what? By the time I decided to come back and place the order they were gone! Over 100 of them in just 26 hours I've been told. My bad, I didn't know this little jet was so popular. Well the not so bad news is they will have some in stock in 10-14 days. I will be waiting.

[Grossman56]

Hey Planeclothes, welcome to the Squawk!!
The Avanti is super popular you almost have to hover over the button when they com up. Even spare parts fly off the shelves, pardon the pun!
Being the proud owner of one myself, I can attest to the fact that this bird lives up to all it's hype and then some. Hands down the best money I've spent in this hobby, closely followed by the FlightLine Tigercat and Bearcat I might add.

Grossman56

[xplaneguy]

Hello guys, I am new here. Just waiting for my next opportunity to buy one of these little EDFs. I only became interested after reading Model Aviation's review and watching some videos. A few days ago I visited Motion RC online and since the plane was out of stock I clicked on "Notify me when back in stock". A couple of days later I received an email but instead of purchasing the plane rignt away I just added it to the cart without finalizing the order and proceeded to research the web for more info on batteries, etc. Guess what? By the time I decided to come back and place the order they were gone! Over 100 of them in just 26 hours I've been told. My bad, I didn't know this little jet was so popular. Well the not so bad news is they will have some in stock in 10-14 days. I will be waiting.

Welcome to HS, Planesclothes!

Good choice! The Avanti is well worth the short wait.

Have fun,
Tony

[T-CAT]

This plane definitely doesn't dissapoint, at least I don't think and manyyyyy others think the same. The sales show LOL. Good choice on your next purchase, planeclothes. Welcome to the forum.

[coz375]

Just had the first two flights on the Avanti. What a great plane. I did find that the ailerons to be way too touchy in both the suggested high and low rates. Can anyone that has more experience with this plane suggest rates and possible expo percentage? Does making it a little nose heavy calm it down? Thanks for the help.

[T-CAT]

Just had the first two flights on the Avanti. What a great plane. I did find that the ailerons to be way too touchy in both the suggested high and low rates. Can anyone that has more experience with this plane suggest rates and possible expo percentage? Does making it a little nose heavy calm it down? Thanks for the help.

I can't remember off the top of my head what I used and I'm not at home to check. However, I remember having a tad less throw than the manual suggests for low throws on ailerons.The aileron throw in the manual is bananas in my opinion, but everyone flies differently and prefers different throws, and that's okay. Even at a bit less than the recommended low aileron throws, the plane was capable of amazing aerobatics, and didn't need more throw whatsoever. Hopefully someone has their plane next to them and can provide you with throws (preferably the measurement of throw, not percentage because every radio is different). Expo can be used to tame the roll sensitivity (you tend to see many who use 20-30% expo on jets, + or - on expo depends on the radio manufacturer as some are reversed), but lowering the throws of the ailerons is the primary key to it as long as you find it provides the flight character and maneuverability you want in the jet, and then fine tuning how much expo is needed afterwards for personal preference. This is just my experience and what I prefer to do, and you may find you prefer it differently. :)

The suggested CG in the manual provided for nice and predictable flight, and after that a person can adjust a very small amount for personal liking.

[Shirty]

Grats coz. Most people are running their ailerons around the suggested low rates mark. As for expo, well expo is mainly a personal thing but generally speaking, the more throw the more expo. I'm running about 20% on the ailerons personally. If you found low rates a bit too touchy, just dial it back your throws a bit further. At low rates, you shouldn't be using more than 40% expo as a max tho, as the travel distance is already very small (only about 20mm each way), so dialing in 50% expo on a 20mm throw would just make the response extremely mushy at the centre, and very touchy at the end of your stick movement.

I'd recommend starting around the 20% mark for expo on the ailerons. The one thing I always encourage my students to do is experiment to see what suits your flying style best. Hope it helps :)

[Pascandrea]

Just had the first two flights on the Avanti. What a great plane. I did find that the ailerons to be way too touchy in both the suggested high and low rates. Can anyone that has more experience with this plane suggest rates and possible expo percentage? Does making it a little nose heavy calm it down? Thanks for the help.

I fly with lower rate than their low rate, 10% lower with expo 15 % and it s still good for me, use a 3 way switch and do a test in flight ...

[BenAtkinsonUK]

Hi All, I'm new to hobbysquawk and have a new avanti. Wow - what a plane. Plenty of power, rolls wonderfully, aggressive when you want it to be - half power loops. Flies slow too. It's great.

Ive attached highlights of the maiden earlier last week and also some landings from yesterday's 4 battery flying session. It's my first EDF and landings are what I've found toughest.

https://youtu.be/8hNDZAJEx7E

Mods: I've painted the canopy, also done the 'rubber band to keep the nose gear door spring in place' mod and my neighbour is making me a nose gear reenforcment mod too - I've seen some others do this with mdf or similar to help reduce the play in the nose gear.

problem: I've had a flap stick in the half position for about a minute on one of the flights until I landed - I've read others with this problem. Seemingly a servo issue?

I'm running 3 rates for ailerons - 100 / 75 / 50 (50/40/30 expo) - generally in on 75%, but 50% for take offs, 100 for fast rolls and 75% for cruising and landings.

any thoughts on the flap issue, mods, the maiden, the videos in general all welcomed,

thanks for having me on the hobbysquawk

ben

[Mach9]

So the flap problem has not been solved with the newest models.

[BenAtkinsonUK]

I'm in the UK and ordered pretty early I don't know but I think I'm in the first couple batches - how did people get over the flap issue?

[xviper]

I'm in the UK and ordered pretty early I don't know but I think I'm in the first couple batches - how did people get over the flap issue?

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.

[BenAtkinsonUK]

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.

Thanks for your reply. I did read that it was a potential issue before I even bought it so have flaps at 1second deployment!

Anyone ever had the same issue with ailerons or elevator? If those go wonky you've almost certainly had it!

[Grossman56]

Just had the first two flights on the Avanti. What a great plane. I did find that the ailerons to be way too touchy in both the suggested high and low rates. Can anyone that has more experience with this plane suggest rates and possible expo percentage? Does making it a little nose heavy calm it down? Thanks for the help.

Rolled my rate down to 80% over all servo throws for ailerons and then left the switch at 100/80/70 for high/mid/low rates with 30% expo. Seems to work great for me. In regards to expo, I set the plane on the ground and test the controls as if I'm flying and see if I get any twitches from other control surfaces, i.e, am I getting some movement from my ailerons when I pull up elevator, then adjust my expo until I don't see any movement, if your fingers aren't what they used to be, then it's a good idea to see what you're really telling the airplane to do while she's safe on the ground.
My hands are still in good shape thanks to years of guitar playing, and I find that around 30% works for me. I've played around with lowering it, but found that when a new season starts, I have to revert to 30%, so I just leave it there.

Grossman56