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

[seaviper]

Yeah that spot will get cleaned out next time :) I can't believe how dirty it was. I noticed a little power reduction. I guess that's life flying out of hay fields

[Boots Whirlygig]

I just hit 26 flights on the A-4 today! Flew my first formation flights with a buddy's FMS 70mm Scorpion. Tons of fun. I flew formation both loaded up and clean. No trim required either way. Guess I am getting used to the A-4 finally.

Got home, opened up the engine compartment to find the fan full of gunk from the grass field. Amazing how much stuff gets sucked through that fan. I also repaired an aileron hinge which had kind of worked loose at some point. I used the Freewing glue from the kit to fix the aileron hinge. It worked great. Otherwise not much maintenance required on this bird. She still looks like new.

before cleaning


after cleaning

I could of course go pull my A4 out of its box and check but instead I’ll ask, is that the stock power unit? I figured it would be the same unit found in the other FreeWing 80mm birds, with the tapered rotor and small diam aluminum spinner.

[dahawk]

A clean fan is a happy fan ! lol

[barron06]

Sea Viper, If you fly in the morning or when there is dew or moisture on the grass this will cause what you show. I generally never fly my bottom feeder edfs before around noon... to give the moisture time to burn off. Normal summertime high humidity cause this also.. but over a longer time.

[seaviper]

Well yesterday I flew right after a rain storm....so back to cleaning. Yes barron you are correct sir.
Boots...yes that is the stock fan.

Got 28 flights on her now. I've pretty much been just flying her all loaded up with tanks and hump lately. Love this bird. Everybody always stops flying to watch her.

[Boots Whirlygig]

Well yesterday I flew right after a rain storm....so back to cleaning. Yes barron you are correct sir.
Boots...yes that is the stock fan.

Got 28 flights on her now. I've pretty much been just flying her all loaded up with tanks and hump lately. Love this bird. Everybody always stops flying to watch her.

Thanks seaviper, so just like the A-10 getting a new 80mm 9 blade fan, they brought out a 1850kv motor and lighter 12 blade rotor for the A-4. I wonder why that’s not advertised?

[RCjetdude]

1 down, 11 to go... :Silly:

[OV10]

Steve.........:Cool: Those look like Mk 82's and where'd ya get the Mk 15 Snakeye variant. I WANT SOME ;)

[dahawk]

Awesome. Got a quick sortie in this afternoon. RT 5800 35C . Backed it off the ledge by about an inch.
Flew a little musher than the Admiral 5000 50C. Only 3 minutes of mixed throttle. All cells about 3.75 v/ cell. The Admiral 5000 gets closer to 2.3 minutes . Great plane!

[RCjetdude]

Jet Hangar Hobbies...

[OV10]

I really like them but too rich for my blood just for ords :Scared:

[Jimbobtheflimbob]

After seeing sea viper's post i thought i should check my fan too since i fly from very muddy grass. I was shocked to see that the entire fan casing was covered with around 1mm of mud! it was tricky to remove it but in the end i used a toothbrush and water to clean it out. I think i might have to cover the cheater holes now since I've only got 4 flights on it so far and it picked up a worrying amount of mud.

[RCjetdude]

These thing are glorified outdoor vacuum cleaners. It doesn't take much.

[Boots Whirlygig]

Holly smokes Slimbobtheflimbob that looks like my sump pump! Cheater....BE GONE!

[TiredIronGRB]

With the center drop tank mod it seems to deflect the trash thrown up from the nose wheel.

[Jimbobtheflimbob]

For those who have covered the cheater hole, did it make much of a difference to the performance and what did you use?

Will

[RCjetdude]

I personally did not notice any difference. An FSA calculation was done by someone on RCG that determined the intakes by themselves were slightly larger than the fan and others in the know have indicated no real noticeable difference as well. One individual felt there was about a 10% loss in performance by covering it but the majority by far seem to feel otherwise. I just made a plate from sheet styrene and replaced the cheater with it. I did glue some small strips of styrene to the front and back ledges to help bow the plate more in the middle to match the natural curve of the bottom. I did not make a foam block to fill the cheater intake although some have.

[RuthR720]

Here’s a test flight with the Freewing 1820 kV in-runner. Flight time is reduced by about 30 seconds. Coming up next: Test flight with Freewing 9-blade 1900kV outrunner.

https://youtu.be/B8Dk1H9b6kQ

[crxmanpat]

I covered my cheater and lost the plane on the next flight. HOWEVER, I don't think covering the cheater is a bad thing, just don't get it too slow where you need thrust to get you out of a bad situation. I was doing a stall test with mine and it wound up spinning in from about 100' up. But it did just fine on takeoff and during normal flight, and I have seen some of these fly and land fine, even at 3000' ASL.

[RCjetdude]

Here’s a test flight with the Freewing 1820 kV in-runner. Flight time is reduced by about 30 seconds. Coming up next: Test flight with Freewing 9-blade 1900kV outrunner.
https://youtu.be/B8Dk1H9b6kQ

Very interested to hear what you think of the 9-blade 1900kV outrunner in it..