Official Freewing 70mm F-16C Falcon V2 Thread

[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.

[Ron1950]

ive gone through 2 nose gear and 2 nose cones so far lol gotta work on that high alpha technique landing...who can beat that?

landing the f86 has spoiled me

[Hardway]

No blue box in mine!! :Cool: Has room for the A3-L gyro. It does help....

[purduephigam]

Good idea, I think I will do this. Thanks Dee.

[Dirty Dee]

Stupid question, but regarding getting the plan set up for flaperons, do I just bypass the blue box completely and set up flaperons via the receiver? Furthermore, I'm confused how I would connect a gyro with all this; Y connector? Thanks in advance.

For flaperon, each aileron servo needs to be put on a separate channel, so yes bypass the blue box. for piece of mind, maybe get a dedicated y-harness and bypass the elevators as well, since the servo power through the blue box is just being derived from the retract lead.

[purduephigam]

Stupid question, but regarding getting the plan set up for flaperons, do I just bypass the blue box completely and set up flaperons via the receiver? Furthermore, I'm confused how I would connect a gyro with all this; Y connector? Thanks in advance.

[purduephigam]

It's like when I came up with the idea of the Double Stuffed Oreos. Apparently everyone else thought of it too LOL

[C17loadmaster]

I purchased the Centerburner from Chris. Unfortunately didn't get to it last night, but will hopefully get it installed this weekend. I put this in my F4 and have one set aside for my F15. Definitely really cool, even cooler with the aluminum tape!

Yeah totally haha. I thought I was a genius when I thought of using aluminum ducting tape with afterburners that and started a thread and had a video showing it off. Turned out I was a little late to the show... Other people thought of it too. I had been using it for years as hangar rash patches on aluminum colored foam P-51s