Official Freewing 80mm A-4E/F Skyhawk Thread

[davegee]

Hi Mark 2: I painted over the entire rudder in white to get rid of the blue stripe. I couldn’t get the Callie decals to set up right for the rudder, so I masked off and painted all those details, myself. All other markings from Callie worked fine. Perhaps others could have gotten those tail stripes to work, I don’t know. In the end, I liked painting them on better.

[davegee]

I'm always interested in the history of the planes that I paint up. I did a little research on the USS Shangri-La, one of the markings from Callie for VA-152, circa 1970.

I found that the USS Shangri-La was one of 24 Essex class aircraft carriers completed in WWII, or shortly afterwards. The reason "Shangri-La" was chosen to name this carrier is an interesting one. The ship was dedicated to honor the Doolittle Raid in April 1942. This secret, surprise attack on the Japanese home islands was thought impossible at that early part of the war. Reporters peppered President Roosevelt with questions afterwards on where in the heck those B-25s came from to complete that raid, when no bases anywhere nearby were known to exist. FDR responded with words to the effect " They came from Shangri-La." For those unfamiliar, Shangri-La was a mythical place high in the Himalaya mountains that was featured in a book called Lost Horizon. FDR wasn't going to blow the lid on the secret, quite yet.

Mrs. James H. Doolittle, the general's wife, sponsored and did the honors of christening the Shangri-La before it slid down the ways and into active combat in WWII and Viet Nam. It was eventually decommissioned and broken up for scrap years ago.

[Mark 2]

Thanks Davegee, nicely done. My painting skills aren’t good enough so I guess I’ll stick with the stock scheme.
I’m envious of yours though!

[davegee]

Thanks Davegee, nicely done. My painting skills aren’t good enough so I guess I’ll stick with the stock scheme.
I’m envious of yours though!

The stock marine or navy versions that come with the kit are quite nice. I used the navy one on my first one, that I eventually sold. With this new one, I wanted a different look, so I finally decided on VA-152 that was one of the choices with Callie's large selection of markings schemes. You'll be very happy with the stock schemes that come with the kit. Happy modeling!

davegee

[Mark 2]

Thanks! I’m looking forward to getting started on it.

[davegee]

Through a combination of high winds and now snow, my flight operations have ground to a halt for the time being. I still have a E Flite Timber on floats that works well on the snow, so that's probably a good near-term plan.

During this down time, I have pretty much completed the extras and markings (Callie) for my A-4. I replaced the pilot with one from Chris Wolfe's RC Geek company, added some details like cockpit painting, and scratchbuilt ejection handle and gunsight. I also used his (Chris') example to make a functioning retractable nose gear door, which seems to work ok. Added a few exterior lights, as well. I have a three position tail hook that I might eventually try some "trap" tests as some others on Hobby Squawk have already successfully demonstrated, we'll see.

I also added thin plastic sheeting on the inside of the flaps, which made them more scale, and also easier to put the aircraft numbers on them. I may to a few more things as time goes by, but this was just a fun challenge of doing a little detailing on a bird I intend to fly a lot. Only two flights on it so far, but it seems to be pretty much trimmed out now.



Davegee

Finally got out to the field, as the winds died down and the snow melted off for me to try another test hop with my new A-4E. Looks much better with all the markings on it now. I first flew my reliable ol' T-Bird T-33 as a warmup for the A-4 or F-4 when I haven't flown for a while. That one went beautifully, then I flew the Skyhawk (this flight still without the drop tanks) and it went pretty well. Tail hook deploys and retracts just fine, the scratchbuilt retractable nose gear door (inspired by RC Geek Chris Wolfe) seemed to work ok, and it tracks better as I get more used to flying it. Landing could have been a bit better, nose wheel went off the side of the runway on the rollout a bit and the nosecone fell off, scratching it somewhat, but repairable.

Took some photos, postflight, with and without the drop tanks.

Davegee

[SanExup]

davegee Your A4 looks amazing Dave! And thanks for sharing about the Shangri-La!

[davegee]

davegee Your A4 looks amazing Dave! And thanks for sharing about the Shangri-La!

Thanks, SanExup! I enjoyed learning about the USS Shangri-La, too!

Happy Holidays!

davegee

[SanExup]

Happy Holidays to you as well! davegee

A tidbit of irony is that I lived at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for about 3yrs in the early 80s while my dad's ship was in overhaul. So I'm sure I saw the Shangri-La.

[davegee]

Happy Holidays to you as well! davegee

A tidbit of irony is that I lived at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for about 3yrs in the early 80s while my dad's ship was in overhaul. So I'm sure I saw the Shangri-La.

Most probably so. What little more info I dug up on its last days is that it arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1971, and then was towed to Kaoshiung, Taiwan in 1988 to be scrapped. I would imagine you saw it sometime back in those days.

On a happier front, I also saw that the ship's bell was saved and resides at Jacksonville University's NROTC facility. For those interested in more info, here is a link I found on it: https://wavemagazineonline.com/the-b...nd-her-heroes/
Dave

[Flyboy79]

Hello I hope everyone had a good Christmas snd I wish everyone a happy New Years.I have the A4 with the new 9 blade EDF unit, I am in A high elevation state and was looking to get more speed and power out of this jet and was wondering if the FMS 80 mm pro with a Freewing 100 amp ESC would be a better set up with more punch? thanks for any input.

[Cws]

I discovered the missiles from my fw F4 phantom will fit on the outboard mount on my A4.
I am wondering if anyone has flown theirs with that configuration??

[Shaun Evans]

Hi

Just maidened my second one! This time on the Xicoy X45. It was epic! It seemed like the plane would fly straight up as fast as it would level. My only gripe is the stall seems a bit abrupt. I love this little hot-rod!

[RobWetterholtJr]

Hey all,

New to the forum after lurking a bit and reading what everyone has had to say. Good to see the majority of people have had success with their Skyhawks; the story hasn't been so for myself.

I've lost two Freewing A-4 Skyhawk models as a result of electronics failure (I think). It has really been a huge bummer watching more than $850 of Skyhawk-shaped foam airplane bite the dust. Here's the analysis of both flights as best I can recall, with associated details in hopes someone can identify something I may have done incorrectly.

A-4 #1

Lost 12/31/2021 on first flight.

I assembled this A-4 as per the instructions. No modifications (stock).

Transmitter: Futaba 14SG (approximately eight years old, fully charged)
Receiver: Futaba R2008SB (brand new)
Receiver Antenna Setup: One wire run forward in the canopy latch recess area, one wire run down right side of fuselage near the battery
Battery: Admiral Pro 6S 6000mAh 50C (brand new)

Details: Takeoff was normal. I circuited the pattern with the gear and flaps down once, then retracted the flaps and the landing gear. I flew two circuits and then noticed a slight "glitch" after about 45 seconds of flight while turning from base leg to runway heading. A momentary loss of complete control. I regained control and then immediately began setting up for a landing. I deployed flaps and then lost total control. The aircraft started a shallow right-hand bank to which I applied left aileron and nothing happened. I regained brief control with the aircraft about 50-feet above the ground, almost completely tail-on and in about a 45-degree dive. I applied full power, up elevator and left aileron to get the aircraft headed back toward my runway. The aircraft responded for about a second and then I lost complete control again. The aircraft stalled, nosed over and impacted a road embankment. The aircraft was a complete loss. Total flight time was about a minute and a half.

A-4 #2

Lost 3/20/22 on fifth flight.

I assembled this A-4 as per the instructions. I bypassed the white control board, removed the control boards from the wings and routed the servo wires for all control surfaces and landing gear through Y-harnesses (one triple Y-harness for the landing gear) and directly in to the receiver. I bypassed the control board(s) because I wanted to remove another "connection" between the servos and receiver. Also, I have wired servos directly in to my aircraft's receivers for as long as I can remember. Go with what has worked, right?

Transmitter: Futaba 14SG (approximately eight years old - same as above, fully charged)
Receiver: Futaba R2008SB (brand new)
Receiver Antenna Setup: I drilled two small holes to route the antenna wires externally. One on right side of the fuselage, oriented vertically, next to the canopy hatch. The other horizontally out the left side of the fuselage just forward of where the white control board would sit. I had perfect 90-degree separation between the two antennas.
Battery: Admiral Pro 6S 6000mAh 50C (brand new)

Details: I maidened this Skyhawk with no problems. The flight was approximately one minute and 45 seconds. Flaps up, gear up with no problems. No control issues. I conducted a second and third flight with the same battery pack, each flight consisting of a takeoff and then an immediate landing. No longer than one minute. I put a new (fully charged) pack in and made a CG modification and flew a fourth flight with no issues. Flight time was approximately one minute. I then departed for a fifth flight and was about a minute in to it and starting to feel comfortable with the aircraft (by this time I had trimmed it out). While making a flat pass down the runway, almost directly above me, I began encountering problems. Control input became "glitchy" in the roll axis and delayed to the point where the aircraft became uncontrollable. I was able to maintain control enough to affect a wings-level crash-landing that resulted in the front third of the aircraft being destroyed with the associated shock from impact manifesting itself in numerous cracks and bends in the surviving structure.

I'm at a total loss with these A-4s. I thought I may have a problem with my transmitter but I have had no problems flying 64mm EDF jets from Freewing (I love the Lippisch and MiG-15) as well as aircraft from other manufacturers after these losses just to make sure I didn't have an issue with the transmitter. No problems whatsoever with other airplanes in my fleet. Just to be 100% sure it wasn't a transmitter issue I sent my 14SG in to Futaba in Huntsville, AL and it checked out 4.0 on deck.

While doing past-crash analysis in my shop after the second crash I found the left aileron servo to be incredibly weak. The right aileron servo, elevator and rudder all functioned as they should (from what I was able to tell). While resting my index finger on the left aileron and then commanding full left aileron on the transmitter the servo painfully glitched its way to full deflection after about a second-and-a-half.

I absolutely love the Skyhawk but after two losses I'm hard-pressed to sink any more money in to this model. Maybe a bad batch of servos and/or electronics (ESCs)?

Any insight is appreciated.

[quitcherbitchen]

Just a hunch and granted I almost never do this myself, but I have done it. You might need to exercise the servos on a servo tester to break them in. I have had cheap servos stop after a few rotations on the tester when I had issues with my bomb drops I was assembling. They were cheap D90s and never had high expectations, but the tester did seem to weed out the weak ones.

[Evan D]

There are a lot of things like running the servos that have a slim possibility of finding an issue. Exercising a foam hinge line is another thing some do. When I read the question the first things that popped into my head were...

- Did you do a range test before both flights and if so how many paces did you get before it stopped working?
- Did you change out ANYTHING from stock, BEC, bypass control boxes, etc?

[RobWetterholtJr]

Hey Evan D,

- Did you do a range test before both flights and if so how many paces did you get before it stopped working?

Yes, numerous actually. I was able to get to about 60 paces away from the model before control input began to suffer.

- Did you change out ANYTHING from stock, BEC, bypass control boxes, etc?

Yes: I assembled this A-4 as per the instructions. I bypassed the white control board, removed the control boards from the wings and routed the servo wires for all control surfaces and landing gear through Y-harnesses (one triple Y-harness for the landing gear) and directly in to the receiver. I bypassed the control board(s) because I wanted to remove another "connection" between the servos and receiver. Also, I have wired servos directly in to my aircraft's receivers for as long as I can remember. Go with what has worked, right?

[pullupnow]

Maybe a bad BEC? Sounds like you covered almost everything else.

[pullupnow]

It's really a great airframe, and worth your time and treasure to put back in the air. Absolutely hit up motion for some restitution, they're usually pretty good about customer service.

[Evan D]

Thanks for the answer. Stock ESC with the stock built in BEC?

Hey Evan D,



Yes, numerous actually. I was able to get to about 60 paces away from the model before control input began to suffer.



Yes: I assembled this A-4 as per the instructions. I bypassed the white control board, removed the control boards from the wings and routed the servo wires for all control surfaces and landing gear through Y-harnesses (one triple Y-harness for the landing gear) and directly in to the receiver. I bypassed the control board(s) because I wanted to remove another "connection" between the servos and receiver. Also, I have wired servos directly in to my aircraft's receivers for as long as I can remember. Go with what has worked, right?