Official Freewing 90mm F-16 Falcon Thread

[Aros]

I absolutely loved your Arctic Aggressor F-16 before, but now your taking it to another level. Damn, now I'm getting tempted to get another one just to try and emulate yours. STOP IT

I am a big fan of yellow on aircraft, sports cars (your truck is the same color I would want for my dream car the Lamborghini Aventador (or Diablo still!) and hydros! Yeah Callie is a miracle worker. I submitted a fantasy scheme to her once and she nailed it in every detail. She is one of my "Essential Workers" of the hobby that is for sure!

[Hugh Wiedman]

lol keep 'em guessin' Hugh Wiedman ! Man I really love that custom paint treatment you gave the Stinger 90. Looks like a completely different model! I need to take my F-16 out more...Problem is the track I always fly at is closed for reseeding the field grass. And with the quarantine still more or less in place, more people are showing up at the school to walk their dogs or let their little kiddies run around. Not conducive to flying jets that's for sure! I have been using the extra home time lately working on new weathering techniques. My buddy was prodding me to weather it up so I certainly have. My airbrush is on the fritz so I decided to try a new technique using a paint brush, soft pastels, water and a drop of dish detergent. You can make it as dirty or as clean as you want just using a damp paper towel after letting the initial wash dry for 30 minutes. I still need to go in with a paper towel and Qtip and clean up some areas but it's growing on me.

Aros Oh those pesky dog walkers and little kiddies, sounds like you need to do a few "strafing" runs to clear the area, all the while "hiding" behind the nearest bush. Would like to see your video on that!

Thanks for the shout out on the Stinger 90, it was definitely worth the time. It flies great but I thought the original scheme was butt ugly. A couple other guys at the field had one and you can guess by seeing my other stuff, but I can't stand having something that looks the exact same as someone else, so time for a re-paint. Modeled it after my truck and a nitro hydroplane I built long ago (and now I'm redoing a 1968 Firebird 400 convertible that was originally my hot roddin' mom's in the same scheme). My CO kind of came up with the scheme and we found the different pictures on line that we wanted to use for the graphics. I sent Callie some low res photos of the images I wanted along with the colors I wanted and the sizes, and she did the rest. Her graphics actually came out better that the images I sent her, she is truly amazing. I now really enjoy flying it, I think it looks interesting, it certainly is much easier to pick up the orientation considering I'm most likely blind and it has a zero "pucker" factor. I think it flies as easily and as well as the Avanti, only slightly heavier and faster. This was my first EDF and got me hooked!

[Phantom]

Dropped a solid 2lbs of weight and gained 90 seconds of flight time. I got about 2:30 of flight time on 8s lots of thrust but she was a heavy pig!
Now I'm back to 6s with the FMS fan flying an agile bird that actually handles. 4 minutes of flight time doing an air show maneuvers. I can do a 15 to 20 degree banking coordinated level turn at just at just below 50% throttle. A huge improvement from flying an overweight sled!
we had light winds today and both landings were power off. Any more winds and I'd need some power. Point being, I've never landed this bird power off. On all of my previous flights, both with my FW 6s 9blade setup, and my 8s 1390kv system I always had least 30% throttle in on approach and a minimum of 60 to 70% throttle during flight.
It's a night and day change for this bird, she's been my project from day one. I'm finally happy with her performance.
Flights were performed on HRB 6000mah 6s 50c lipos.
I flew my maiden on my FW F-4 6s camo version today on this same power system. I put it together last night and I thought to myself, this has an 8s version as well, so could probably benefit from more power. The FMS setup is lighter and more powerful than the 9 bladed FW stock setup. It was epic. More over on the F-4 page...

[Hugh Wiedman]

lol keep 'em guessin' Hugh Wiedman ! Man I really love that custom paint treatment you gave the Stinger 90. Looks like a completely different model! I need to take my F-16 out more...Problem is the track I always fly at is closed for reseeding the field grass. And with the quarantine still more or less in place, more people are showing up at the school to walk their dogs or let their little kiddies run around. Not conducive to flying jets that's for sure! I have been using the extra home time lately working on new weathering techniques. My buddy was prodding me to weather it up so I certainly have. My airbrush is on the fritz so I decided to try a new technique using a paint brush, soft pastels, water and a drop of dish detergent. You can make it as dirty or as clean as you want just using a damp paper towel after letting the initial wash dry for 30 minutes. I still need to go in with a paper towel and Qtip and clean up some areas but it's growing on me.

I absolutely loved your Arctic Aggressor F-16 before, but now your taking it to another level. Damn, now I'm getting tempted to get another one just to try and emulate yours. STOP IT

[Aros]

lol keep 'em guessin' Hugh Wiedman ! Man I really love that custom paint treatment you gave the Stinger 90. Looks like a completely different model! I need to take my F-16 out more...Problem is the track I always fly at is closed for reseeding the field grass. And with the quarantine still more or less in place, more people are showing up at the school to walk their dogs or let their little kiddies run around. Not conducive to flying jets that's for sure! I have been using the extra home time lately working on new weathering techniques. My buddy was prodding me to weather it up so I certainly have. My airbrush is on the fritz so I decided to try a new technique using a paint brush, soft pastels, water and a drop of dish detergent. You can make it as dirty or as clean as you want just using a damp paper towel after letting the initial wash dry for 30 minutes. I still need to go in with a paper towel and Qtip and clean up some areas but it's growing on me.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Got 20 flights in today, 5 each on the F-16, F-4, Stinger 90 and Avanti. Winds were supposed to be 10-13 mph, but all day it was 18-25 mph, but perfectly straight down the main grass runway. Was a little nervous flying the F-4 and F-16 in those winds (certainly the highest I've tried), but both handled it nicely. It actually seemed that this heavy beast of an F-16 liked it. First time I haven't had to use take-off flaps on grass, and it lifted off nice and smooth. But I still landed with full flaps and wow, was it great to bring it in and land at maybe 10-15 mph ground speed and it was so easy to get it into high alpha before touchdown. The upgraded 1835 inrunner did a great job climbing, doing cuban 8's and split S's. I'm starting to really enjoy flying this F-16, I just gotta get it out more (2 little time for 2 many planes-but you can't have too may planes). Just changed the tail and nose to the 2nd of 4 liveries I made so next time out it will be "a different F-16" again. Guys at the field think I have 4 F-16's, and I'm not telling them any different.

[Phantom]

You reduce your planes weight by 1 and a quarter pounds, and only sacrifice 0.4lbs when you compare thrust to weight for the power system's, its also 1/3 cheaper and all my FMS fans give me atleast 30 additional seconds of flight times due to their efficiency.

[Phantom]

[Phantom]

Wouldn't you know, just as you said Motion has been out of the 4068-1835KV 12 blade inrunner for some time, they got it back in stock today. That's the fan I have in my F-16 and love it, but can't compare it to anything else since I got the ARF version and put that in to begin with. But I am thinking about putting it in my F-18 that I just finished that has the stock 3748-1750KV 9-blade outrunner. Forget who, but someone on that thread said they used it in the F-18 and it was basically a drop in fit. The updated F-18 Blue Angel now comes with the 3672-1900KV inrunner, but that fan in not available yet unless you get it with the F-18 BA.

I see that it's back in stock, but look at these two comparisons on RC Castle's website

[Hugh Wiedman]

I'm throwing the FMS fan and 1900kw motor in my F-16. I've been flying her on 8s with the FW 1390kw motor for a couple of months now but man I just want to pit this girl on a diet! It would be nice to get back to a 6s setup as well. Motion has been out of the 1835kv 6s setup that you all love on here for this bird for a while now.

So I'll try the FMS fan. It's only half the weight of the 1390kv 8s FW fan and I've been very happy with my F-86 80mm swap to an FMS fan and motor. Losing a little weight on the ESC as well, going from the FW 150amp to the FW 130 amp. We'll see what happens.

Wouldn't you know, just as you said Motion has been out of the 4068-1835KV 12 blade inrunner for some time, they got it back in stock today. That's the fan I have in my F-16 and love it, but can't compare it to anything else since I got the ARF version and put that in to begin with. But I am thinking about putting it in my F-18 that I just finished that has the stock 3748-1750KV 9-blade outrunner. Forget who, but someone on that thread said they used it in the F-18 and it was basically a drop in fit. The updated F-18 Blue Angel now comes with the 3672-1900KV inrunner, but that fan in not available yet unless you get it with the F-18 BA.

[Phantom]

Will do, testing it tomorrow.

[C17loadmaster]

Let us know your thoughts post flight. I thought it was a huge improvement

[Phantom]

I'm throwing the FMS fan and 1900kw motor in my F-16. I've been flying her on 8s with the FW 1390kw motor for a couple of months now but man I just want to pit this girl on a diet! It would be nice to get back to a 6s setup as well. Motion has been out of the 1835kv 6s setup that you all love on here for this bird for a while now.

So I'll try the FMS fan. It's only half the weight of the 1390kv 8s FW fan and I've been very happy with my F-86 80mm swap to an FMS fan and motor. Losing a little weight on the ESC as well, going from the FW 150amp to the FW 130 amp. We'll see what happens.

[JeremySean]

Guys, I got the FMS fan in, wasn't difficult at all... a little surgery and she went in just fine. I was planning on doing the maiden with the stock servos, what would be a drop in fit for the horizontal stabilizer servos? I bought Hitec but they are just a little too big.. :(

[DCORSAIR]

Just got my F-16 and I can't fit the FMS fan..... What do I do????

You must have missed some of the post about that, the FMS unit is not a drop-in fit, it requires some cutting, the Freewing 4068-1835 inrunner drops right in, which is heavier but sounds and performs great, I wasn't impressed with the FMS unit, some claim to get better performance, I never did on any of my Freewing jets, I like the drop in fit of the Freewing inrunners, no hassle.

[C17loadmaster]

Shave... in order to get the unit in I had to cut out a section of the fuselage. Which was replaced and glued in.

Just by coincidence, I literally just expanded the hatch on a F-15 for fitting the FMS fan. I used a monocote iron turned all the way up and melted the shroud area from the hatch alone. Then sanded the hardened areas. Make sure you run the motor up to full throttle before flight. If you cram the fan in it will end up rubbing on the blades.

[JamesonC]

Just got my F-16 and I can't fit the FMS fan..... What do I do????

Some pictures or a description of why will help folks here try to offer some assistance.

[Aros]

You may have to cut out some of the foam but I've never used the FMS fan so I can't say for certain.

[JeremySean]

Just got my F-16 and I can't fit the FMS fan..... What do I do????

[JeremySean]

I like this setup, just the horizontal stabs for tailerons and the ailerons just for flaps... I believe tailerons and ailerons maybe too much roll for this plane but I might be wrong.