Official Freewing 70mm F-104 Thread

[goosekiller1]

The build Saturday morning in Justin garage, all any of us can say he's got bigger cojones than any of us at our field to fly this bad boy.

[urrl]

My old jet still flies but looks pretty badly beaten up. Let's hope I take better care of this new one. I'll use the old one for parts or crazy experimental flight maneuvers.

[Model jet juggernaut]

Ive posted this on rcgroups as well. Here is my latest video of a dialed-in-at-last flight and landing with some laughable landing bloopers in the end. Took me a bit to figure out proper flap setting and approach technique

[urrl]

Some full flaps landings

[the snake]

Project Bob Vincent is so slow is done enough to show although it has no power system in it yet. This is my Motion RC Freewing F-104 Starfighter redone from the Epp silver scheme to the Red Indian scheme. Thankfully my girl Callie Soden delivered right on time! Don't know if you guys have noticed but I have not been posting that much obviously now you know why I've been so busy. I know my other friends Lawrie Henrickson, Ray Manuel, Henrik Torphammar, Jeremy Solt, Michael Lovero will love it.

[urrl]

Had to abort this flight due to humid Florida weather causing my glasses to fog up.

[urrl]

[urrl]

[urrl]

Morning flight no tanks. Nice flight but occasional wing flutter.

[urrl]

Quick clips of two flights.

[kenelder]

I had one of the first batch F104s and flew it a lot. And damaged it a lot. After I had reinforced it so the fuselage stayed together on bad landings, I let a friend have it. Always felt that if I got another one and modded it first then I'd enjoy it better. So- how does everyone like the EPO version with the 12 blade fan as opposed to the original EPS with 6 blade fan?

Thanks ahead of time!

[urrl]

I think I would prefer the lighter EPS which seemed smoother on the surface. As long as you know the jet well enough to minimize any mistakes in flight it was a great version. The EPO works well in this scale though since thrust to weight ratio is still better than most 90mm scale jets. So I have no regrets with the EPO version either. If it crashed today I would probably buy another immediately.

[urrl]

[kenelder]

Flew my new silver scheme F104 this weekend- love it!!! The 12 blade is a big improvement over the original 6 blade, sound is much better and thrust for vertical performance is a lot better. I had trouble looping my original with 6 blade, this new one just goes right around with plenty of speed. It has been a long time so I don't know if the 12 blade is faster than the 6 blade, but I do like the thrust of the 12 blade. For whatever reason (maybe more attention to set up) this new one slows down a LOT better than the original. Landings were all smooth and short. I do have the full flaps set up so maybe that is helping it slow down. But approach was very stable with no pitching up or down unlike the original. I intended this one to be a replacement for my scratch built 104 that had an in flight failure, so I bought an extra set of wings to play with the airfoils a bit. After flying the new one with the factory wings, I'm not so sure I want to experiment with the airfoils.

I have found an interesting thing with edf jets: they seem to fly better with slightly heavier batteries. By better, I mean more stable and easier to land smoothly. I used 2600 6s on my original 104 and experienced "pitchy" flight at low speeds. In fact once stalled out on turning to final with that one. This new one was flown on the recommended 4000 6s and was just the opposite of my original- it was very smooth and stable. Possibly there is a technical reason for the added stability. I also have the 70mm F16 and have flown it with a range of batteries- from 2200 to 4500 6s and find that the heavier batteries just seem to make it smoother.

Maybe also had something to do with setup- I just put the original together quickly and didn't worry too much about throws, etc. This new one I moved push rods in on the servo horns for aileron and elevator so I could use more servo throw and still limit the surface movement- gives more resolution and makes smoother control in the air. Quite possible I had the servo throw too limited on the original. On this new one I used the 3rd servo horn hole from the outside position- still had clearance but gave much better resolution than the outside hole.

In any case I really like this new one- the silver/white scheme is easy for me to see and I just really like the way it flies. I'll be experimenting with more aerobatics in future flights, already did rolls and loops- anyone have any experience with inverted flight?

[kenelder]

Did anyone do any 3D printed parts for the F104? Maybe cockpit parts or other dress up parts? I am not interested in drop tanks or other things like that, just small scale parts.

[urrl]

Hope this thread is not dying... Morning flight.

[Alpha]

Keep it going, Urrl!

[the snake]

Still flying mine too!

[Alpha]

Did anyone do any 3D printed parts for the F104? Maybe cockpit parts or other dress up parts? I am not interested in drop tanks or other things like that, just small scale parts.

Hey Ken,
Post some reference photos of what you want and perhaps we can create some 3DPUPs for this F-104.

[Hardway]

I would buy those for my 104!!!! :-) :Cool: