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

[RCjetdude]

I think it is easier to reach them with the fin removed.

[dahawk]

RCJD,

Ya, it was a beech but using two pairs of long needle nose, I got the wires hooked up.

Boots- As promised, for good or bad, right or wrong, I Macgyvered the 9B fan to fit a 3530 1800. I simply Dremeled-off about 4mm of motor shaft. It fits snug as a bug in a rug. Toight as a Toiger . LOL Before installing I set up a test rig to run it up. Wow ! Wanted to fly off the cradle. As expected, the sound is not nearly as good as the 12B but not altogether that bad either.

So, this weekend, I'll test live with 1). Admiral 5000 50C and 2). RT 5800 35C and measure the respective flight times to see if I can get better than 3 minutes. .

While I had the plane down, I went ahead and did the refueling pipe bend job per Pat's instructions. Easy peasy.

Hawk

[Boots Whirlygig]

RCJD,

Ya, it was a beech but using two pairs of long needle nose, I got the wires hooked up.

Boots- As promised, for good or bad, right or wrong, I Macgyvered the 9B fan to fit a 3530 1800. I simply Dremeled-off about 4mm of motor shaft. It fits snug as a bug in a rug. Toight as a Toiger . LOL Before installing I set up a test rig to run it up. Wow ! Wanted to fly off the cradle. As expected, the sound is not nearly as good as the 12B but not altogether that bad either.

So, this weekend, I'll test live with 1). Admiral 5000 50C and 2). RT 5800 35C and measure the respective flight times to see if I can get better than 3 minutes. .

While I had the plane down, I went ahead and did the refueling pipe bend job per Pat's instructions. Easy peasy.

Hawk

Nice! I didn’t disassemble my 1750kv long shaft fan to see if it could be shortened, and whether there would be enough of the tapped hole remaining to accept the retaining screw. This is great! And no duct tape or bailing wire!
you can’t find chewing gum like we had back in the day, LOL:P:Cool:

[dahawk]

Yeah,
Not having enough thread depth was my immediate concern. But I lucked out. Now to see how a 9B behaves with a 1800. Hopefully good. If not, still have the complete 12B waiting in the wings.

The other thing changed is the housing. The stock A4 comes with a metal housing like the Mig-21. I went with the lighter plastic housing that came with the 9B.

Well see....

Hawk

[Boots Whirlygig]

Yeah,
Not having enough thread depth was my immediate concern. But I lucked out. Now to see how a 9B behaves with a 1800. Hopefully good. If not, still have the complete 12B waiting in the wings.

The other thing changed is the housing. The stock A4 comes with a metal housing like the Mig-21. I went with the lighter plastic housing that came with the 9B.

Well see....

Hawk

Yeah as you can see the 9B fan has a shallower pitch than the MiG 21’s 12B and a lot less mass. I need to get a tachometer, I would like to just how much faster that 9B spins!
I was sold on this power system after seeing all the A-10s at NEFI, especially Steve RcJetdude and his 17+ lb beauty! :Drooling: I ended up buying 3 of the fans and 3 of the 3530-1900kv motors when they were finally listed at Motion. :Silly:

[dahawk]

We'll see what the difference is with 100 less kilavolts . Dunno. Less rpm.

[Alpha]

Enjoying a brief interval of access to Hobby Squawk...

vduniec, congrats on a great paint job! I saw that scheme in my research and secretly hoped someone would execute it on their Freewing A-4.

Pat, nice work on your "bendy thing". The cranked fuel probe really sets off the look on certain A-4s.

Is anyone going to do a -M conversion? The original prototype for this bird, a CNC'd 70mm, was an A-4M.

Boots, you're right about our EDF dev team. We're refining our approach, with new equipment and techniques over the past 15 months, and recent fans I think show the results so far are working. A wire shroud, though... I'll add that to the list of Maybes.

[crxmanpat]

Thanks Alpha!

I think Rodger Hecht is working on an M conversion.

[vduniec]

Thanks Alpha. People are contacting me about it being on the Motion RC's Instagram and Facebook pages. Thanks for the 15 minutes of fame.

[RFODOR]

How did this turn out with the jetfan? I am doing the same in my Blue Angel. Have you flown it yet.

[RCjetdude]

How did this turn out with the jetfan? I am doing the same in my Blue Angel. Have you flown it yet.

You are doing a Blue Angel as well? I am also putting a Jetfan 80 in mine but haven't flown it yet. Seems like lots of power though.

[RCjetdude]

My Green Knights ordnance load out is half full...does that make me an optimist? 6 more to go.



These things may be expensive but they sure are nice.

[Pheonix]

Where did you get the ordnance load from? Looks very good.

[RCjetdude]

Where did you get the ordnance load from? Looks very good.

They come from Jet Hangar Hobbies. They are a bit pricey but they sure do look good. They come un-assembled and are very light. Each one takes about 2-3 hours to assemble and paint. At 1/10th scale they are only slightly smaller than what will fit the A-4. The fins are a little different than the ones in the image I am trying to duplicate but thats ok.

[Boots Whirlygig]

My Green Knights ordnance load out is half full...does that make me an optimist? 6 more to go.



These things may be expensive but they sure are nice.

Put a quarter in the picture to give us some scale Steve! And how pricy are they?

[RCjetdude]

Put a quarter in the picture to give us some scale Steve! And how pricy are they?

How's this boots? They are almost 9" long and $25 a pair.

[e4dragongunner]

Spectacular work! :-)

[Levendis]

MY favorite edf.
Ammo by mig non toxic paints in premixed IaF colors
Callie graphics, plus a very special autograph!!
no other improvements!

[Alpha]

It was great hanging out with you and your Hong Kong crew, Levendis! Beautiful airfield and wonderful group of guys. I hope I didn't marr your excellent paint job.

[dahawk]

Re-maidened mine today with my experimental 1800kv 9 blade set up. The idea was to see if I'd get any better performance and possibly gain some additional flight time. My conclusion ? No. The stock 12B is going back in. Ran with a RT 5800 35C. Mixed throttle flying. With taxi time included I got just short of 4 min.with the cells reading 3.75 across the board. So figure 3:15- 3:30 actual flight time. No great shakes and the 12B performs and sounds better.

Hawk