Official Freewing 70mm F-16C Falcon V2 Thread

[fhhuber]

Tbh theres not a lot of remains...its completely in pieces. I was trying to do a pass and just couldnt pull up. It smashed into the side of a hill. I had the elevator pinned and it didnt pull up at all.

That sounds like a clevice pop-out.

Disconnect the elevator from the servo... game over.

[C17loadmaster]

I lost my first bird on the second flight. The elevator on the port side just tore off in a dive and I didn't have enough left to pull out and pancaked into the concrete road. So, the next one will have hinge tape added for sure. I may just cut them off and use CA hinges... :Confused::( Better to repaint the hinge line than lose the entire plane and paint job!!

I installed the separate hinges and used CA as well as hinge tape haha. With the weight of 6s batteries up to 5000mah that is a lot to ask of a foam hinge

[Hardway]

Copy that!!! I agree..... Plane flies great though!!

[C17loadmaster]

I lost my first bird on the second flight. The elevator on the port side just tore off in a dive and I didn't have enough left to pull out and pancaked into the concrete road. So, the next one will have hinge tape added for sure. I may just cut them off and use CA hinges... :Confused::( Better to repaint the hinge line than lose the entire plane and paint job!!

I installed the separate hinges and used CA as well as hinge tape haha. With the weight of 6s batteries up to 5000mah that is a lot to ask of a foam hinge

[Hardway]

I lost my first bird on the second flight. The elevator on the port side just tore off in a dive and I didn't have enough left to pull out and pancaked into the concrete road. So, the next one will have hinge tape added for sure. I may just cut them off and use CA hinges... :Confused::( Better to repaint the hinge line than lose the entire plane and paint job!!

[C17loadmaster]

Are the carbon horizontal stabilizer supports glued in the entire length? The way you describe it makes it sound like the elevator is flexing under pressure too much. I had to secure my elevator with hinge tape after the second flight because it doesn’t come with hinges installed and the elevator looked like it would rip off if I flew twice

[LAIR202]

Nose heavy requires high speed to keep the nose up. Tail heavy can make stalls always result in spin and no recovery possible.

Generally a nose-heavy plane will be easier to fly, until it so nose heavy it won't fly at less than full throttle.

A perfect example is a plane a local had that he always complained it couldn't climb or do aerobatics and landed hot. He gave it away... a few owners later it was mine. I checked CG, put 12 ounces of lead under the tail plane and commenced doing loops... Nobody had checked CG and it balanced on the leading edge (Telemaster 8 ft wingspan intended for .60ci glow and it had a 28 cc weedeater conversion on the nose)
It flew 4.5 inches noseheavy... but it flew like crap.

F-16 is not tolerant of stalls. The wing shape makes the tips stall first and it will snap into a spin in a heartbeat if CG is too far back. So the factory recommends a forward CG so you can recover more easily.

Overly sensitive elevator is a sign of CG too far back.

Best that we can say beyond that is we need to see the flight and the remains to be able to tell what really happened.

Tbh theres not a lot of remains...its completely in pieces. I was trying to do a pass and just couldnt pull up. It smashed into the side of a hill. I had the elevator pinned and it didnt pull up at all.

[LAIR202]

What battery are you using ? I found that the recommended CG was indeed nose heavy . If your nose was dropping in a bank in excess , you are nose heavy ..

I was flying with a 4000

[fhhuber]

Nose heavy requires high speed to keep the nose up. Tail heavy can make stalls always result in spin and no recovery possible.

Generally a nose-heavy plane will be easier to fly, until it so nose heavy it won't fly at less than full throttle.

A perfect example is a plane a local had that he always complained it couldn't climb or do aerobatics and landed hot. He gave it away... a few owners later it was mine. I checked CG, put 12 ounces of lead under the tail plane and commenced doing loops... Nobody had checked CG and it balanced on the leading edge (Telemaster 8 ft wingspan intended for .60ci glow and it had a 28 cc weedeater conversion on the nose)
It flew 4.5 inches noseheavy... but it flew like crap.

F-16 is not tolerant of stalls. The wing shape makes the tips stall first and it will snap into a spin in a heartbeat if CG is too far back. So the factory recommends a forward CG so you can recover more easily.

Overly sensitive elevator is a sign of CG too far back.

Best that we can say beyond that is we need to see the flight and the remains to be able to tell what really happened.

[Dirty Dee]

I also personally feel that the 90mm CG mark is nose-heavy, and requires a lot of elevator to fly inverted. I've been flying 95mm, but I feel like it can still be worked back another 2-4mm.

[Felixs10]

What battery are you using ? I found that the recommended CG was indeed nose heavy . If your nose was dropping in a bank in excess , you are nose heavy ..

[LAIR202]

Hey guys, in need of a little help. I recently put 3 f16s into the ground. Im having a hard time figuring out why. The first one i got was perfect and flew perfectly. Had a few crazy landings and some scratches but nothing major. I decided to get the second one because i felt like i mastered the flight characteristics but it felt super nose heavy when flying, even though my battery was all the way back and the cg was right where it says in the manual. Just crashed the third one today. Again, cg was on and i put the battery as fsr back as i could. The takeoff and few circles were nice but then its like my elevator always feels like its giving out? I thought maybe the battery was moving while in the air? But i cranked it down so i dont know. Any help would be appreciated. I know it sounds silly to fly three planes and blame the plane....but ive been flying for awhile and have flown jets before. Idk, i thought maybe i was overlooking something. Also sorry for the essay of a post

[purduephigam]

Oddly enough, it's easy to tell that the flaperons are orientated in the right direction, but difficult to tell if the rudder and and elevator are in the correct orientation. I mentioned this to MRC and they recommended trying it in high rates with that gains at 100%. I'm not sure if it's because of the flaperon setting but my other admiral stabilizers haven't been this difficult to determine proper orientation. As far as sub trims, I have none. I've managed everything mechanically according to the book and made adjustments to the throws per the manual as well.

I'm going to retest at home: high rates, gains 100%. If I can confirm the dip switches are set correctly, I'll leave the gains at 40% and see how it works.

If this doesn't work, I'll switch to "normal wing mode" in order to confirm rudder and elevator stabilization movements, then back to flaperon before the maiden.

MRC also said you really don't get the movements on the bench as you do in the air (me questioning why the stabilizer seemed to move only in very small amounts, even at 100%).

Naturally, I wanted to put this on the boards as I'm still kind of a moron with all this stuff.

[C17loadmaster]

Anyone running the Admiral receiver/stabilizer with their V2? I have a flaperon setting with the dip switches, but notice hardly any movement with the control surfaces even when the gains are 100%. I'll need to try a normal wing setting to verify the gyro is set correctly, but just wondered those with flaperons and gyro if they've experienced something similar; or if I just need to configure the receiver/stabilizer to a normal wing configuration.

I use that in mine and I just had to take out as much of the sub trim as possible with the servo linkages. Then it there was a lot more throw in the flaperons

[purduephigam]

Anyone running the Admiral receiver/stabilizer with their V2? I have a flaperon setting with the dip switches, but notice hardly any movement with the control surfaces even when the gains are 100%. I'll need to try a normal wing setting to verify the gyro is set correctly, but just wondered those with flaperons and gyro if they've experienced something similar; or if I just need to configure the receiver/stabilizer to a normal wing configuration.

[gooniac33]

more flights this weekend.

[gooniac33]

How much do are those ones? It looks good

$55 shipped.. get a hold of me for more info

[C17loadmaster]

How much do are those ones? It looks good

[gooniac33]

Afterburner has been installed and it works fabulous! This is a new design and not the same as the ones already out there. Different mounting method and different LEDs... it works great!! I have had one in my Freewing F-5 with FMS 80mm fan set up for about 4 months now with really good results. Now its on the F-16 and man does it look good! I got some good video finally... lemme know what you guys think. And if interested in getting this set up just shoot me a PM.

[Dirty Dee]

17 flights on mine so far and twice popped the nose off. Pitot tube didn't lost long :P

Flaperons really help though.