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

[DCORSAIR]

Got my maiden done this morning, it flew great, ailerons and elevators all trimmed perfectly level. I don't run expo or dual rates and decided to reduce the elevator to 18mm up/dwn and ailerons to 15mm up/down, it's less than the recommended low rates but flies smooth this way, it has an awesome roll rate too so watch out on your maiden, not even going to bother with the high rate settings. I flew 3 minutes on a Pulse 5000 45C and a Gensace 5000 60C, not even warm and flew most of the time just above 1/2 throttle and a few full throttle passes. Batteries were placed about 10mm back from the front foam stop. I didn't have a tip over but I could tell it wanted to if you do a sudden turn. It lands so easy, it will hold a nice flare and touch down on the mains with ease, I used 40mm of flaps on landing and it does need up elevator/mix, I didn't have it programmed yet but it wants to dive but not to bad. Over all my kit was very nice, everything fit perfect and worked right out of the box. Decals were a pain but worth the effort, looks great, might change out the ugly foam wheels though, not very scale looking...:):Cool:

[Felixs10]

Upon removing my avionics hump , my canopy just came off. It appears the wood or plastic piece that is glued to the canopy was missing. Has anyone else had this problem? I have opened up a ticket with motion today. No madien for me this weekend :(

[T-CAT]

Upon removing my avionics hump , my canopy just came off. It appears the wood or plastic piece that is glued to the canopy was missing. Has anyone else had this problem? I have opened up a ticket with motion today. No madien for me this weekend :(

Do you have any styrene, balsa, scrap plastic pieces, etc. that you can cut to shape to use so you can get to flying your plane quickly?

[ryramZ]

Upon removing my avionics hump , my canopy just came off. It appears the wood or plastic piece that is glued to the canopy was missing. Has anyone else had this problem? I have opened up a ticket with motion today. No madien for me this weekend :(

Easy fix. Do you have an old gift card or credit card? Even a business card would work for now.

[crxmanpat]

Upon removing my avionics hump , my canopy just came off. It appears the wood or plastic piece that is glued to the canopy was missing. Has anyone else had this problem? I have opened up a ticket with motion today. No madien for me this weekend :(

There was one other report I saw of that piece coming off, and when I tugged on mine just a little it came off as well. I glued it back on and covered it with a piece of Blenderm tape.

I got 4 flights today, maiden report will be coming soon. For now I'll say I'm thrilled and it came back all in one piece!

[Pheonix]

Wow what a great job with the weathering. Did you use an airbrush or weathering solutions? I share your wishes for the Florida people. They can use our prayers now. I sincerely hope there are no lives lost. I love in Southern California and we have earth quakes to contend with. The only way I can help these people is to donate to the various agencies, which I did in my grand kids name. Let us all help. Blessing.

[Pheonix]

I am just amazed at some of the talent I seen here. I am so envious, but I do learn for all and hope to get better at building. My model is still in the box. I do not want to mess with it until I can use my hands adequately. Good luck to all.

[crxmanpat]

Some still pics of our jets and my flight report.

I decided to maiden with the Bullpup missiles on because, well, it just wouldn't look right without them! :p I also decided to reduce my aileron throws based on some other reports. I had them set up per the manual, and they were at 75% for low rate. I knocked that down to 60%. I found that the elevator has way too much throw by the book. It was very twitchy on the elevator. It was not pitch sensitive, but just way too much throw.

Definitely need to work on my landings with this one. She likes to float, especially with flaps down. I landed with half flaps on my maiden, but no flaps on the 3 successive flights. I think I like no flaps better. On my 3rd flight, she ballooned on me when I flared, but was able to goose the throttle and set her down perfectly. Had a real pucker moment there!

Even though I turned my elevator down after the maiden, it still seems to have too much throw. I'll continue to dial it down until I find what I like. Once I get the plane fully dialed in I'll measure my throws and post the numbers.

Overall, she is a sweet flyer! Alpha, Freewing, and the entire Motion team have really hit this one out of the park!

Maiden videos are still processing, will post them when they are done.

[crxmanpat]

Here's my maiden video. Bob's is still processing.

[crxmanpat]

Here's Bob's maiden.

[Bluesking]

Add another Blue Angels version, I just had to do it....
Haven't flown it yet, rotating pin on rt LG sheared on 2nd cycle... so it will be a couple more days before I can fly her....

[crxmanpat]

Looks great! Sorry to hear about the pin. Good luck on the maiden.

[Bluesking]

Thanks Pat, I was hoping to take her to the field for a maiden either this evening or in the A.M. Oh well....
Those pins are very small diameter so tapping it out would be... not very easy...
I ordered a replacement...
I have a few of these FW planes, F-18, A-6, F-16, F-15, F-86, F-14, now the A4. All of them have been very high quality and very nice flying planes. I also got the Flightline 1.6m Spitfire recently, a very nice flyer!
I'll post a couple pics from the maiden, whenever I get it ready.

Nice maiden on yours BTW, congrats!

//Brian

[xplaneguy]

Congrats Pat & Bob! Nicely done!

[crxmanpat]

Thanks Tony! She is a sweet flyer for sure. Forgot to mention that on my 4th flight I finally nailed the landing. Just set up a good decent path with no flaps and used throttle management all the way in. Slight nose high attitude crossing the threshold, then increased slightly until touchdown.

[seaviper]

Maidened my A-4 today! Lots of wind and she flew just fine. I set mine up per the update as recommended by Pilot Ryan. Plenty of power to get off grass and require NO TRIM!
Thankyou to Motion RC and a big thanks to Pilot Ryan. People like him make this hobby great.

I am now starting to think I might do an aggressor scheme instead of the VMA-121. I don't know.

[ryramZ]

Maidened my A-4 today! Lots of wind and she flew just fine. I set mine up per the update as recommended by Pilot Ryan. Plenty of power to get off grass and require NO TRIM!
Thankyou to Motion RC and a big thanks to Pilot Ryan. People like him make this hobby great.

I am now starting to think I might do an aggressor scheme instead of the VMA-121. I don't know.

I'm glad it went well for you! I'm up to 13 flights on mine. I'm loving it!

I want to credit everyone involved with the update. We all came together Tony, Jon, Alpha, management and Freewing to come up with a solid starting point. The goal of course to give everyone the best possible start. It's a remarkable flying jet, probably one of my faves. Our media sample was a real bear until we got it dialed in. We are super happy everyone got together to really nail down the best possible starting point.

Thanks for reaching out Patrick!
Salud

[EDFjetpilot]

I hope your bringing that next week!!!!!! Please!!!!!!

Yep...that's the plan!

See ya soon!

Sean

[themudduck]

I maidened mine yesterday at Terry Nitsch's E-Jets event at the TORKS club near Columbus OH, had a great time. The TORKS field is at a state park and they have a beautiful paved runway, electricity, tents, the works. (I also flew the F104 and the A-10 and a few others).

We were dealing with a crosswind all day, which made me nervous with the Scooter but everything went well. I think I it flew three times in all.
Some things that I did to prepare:
a) I installed tiny skids on the wingtips to prevent road rash on tip-overs
b) I reduced aileron travel to 50%
c) I reduced elevator travel to 70%
d) rudder at 100%
e) 40% expo on aileron, 35% on elevator, 50% on rudder (I am not using dual rates)
f) flaps set up with some up trim as the manual suggested
g)no ordnance installed yet. (I'm waiting for those decals!! LOL)

With these settings, I found that the aileron was not too sensitive but she rolls quite fast (and axial). I didn't have any issue with the elevator or rudder. It is extremely easy to land, just drive it in and its very easy to flare. With the flaps out and slowing down on final, it just sits down with the nose a little up, and I steered it in with the rudder for a couple of really nice landings. On my very first landing the wind pushed me off the edge of the runway and it tipped over to one side - and bent the fueling probe. I think I will just modify it into a "cranked" version and it will be fine. There were at least two other Scooters at the event and we all had a great time. This is a sweet-flying little jet and I love it!

By the way we did notice with one of the other fellow's A-4 that the back end of those big fuel tanks will strike the ground when the jet is flared nose-high for landing. In other words, you can't do a big nose-high flare with the tanks installed.

[TomPatton]

I maidened mine yesterday at Terry Nitsch's E-Jets event at the TORKS club near Columbus OH, had a great time. The TORKS field is at a state park and they have a beautiful paved runway, electricity, tents, the works. (I also flew the F104 and the A-10 and a few others).

We were dealing with a crosswind all day, which made me nervous with the Scooter but everything went well. I think I it flew three times in all.
Some things that I did to prepare:
a) I installed tiny skids on the wingtips to prevent road rash on tip-overs
b) I reduced aileron travel to 50%
c) I reduced elevator travel to 70%
d) rudder at 100%
e) 40% expo on aileron, 35% on elevator, 50% on rudder (I am not using dual rates)
f) flaps set up with some up trim as the manual suggested
g)no ordnance installed yet. (I'm waiting for those decals!! LOL)

With these settings, I found that the aileron was not too sensitive but she rolls quite fast (and axial). I didn't have any issue with the elevator or rudder. It is extremely easy to land, just drive it in and its very easy to flare. With the flaps out and slowing down on final, it just sits down with the nose a little up, and I steered it in with the rudder for a couple of really nice landings. On my very first landing the wind pushed me off the edge of the runway and it tipped over to one side - and bent the fueling probe. I think I will just modify it into a "cranked" version and it will be fine. There were at least two other Scooters at the event and we all had a great time. This is a sweet-flying little jet and I love it!

By the way we did notice with one of the other fellow's A-4 that the back end of those big fuel tanks will strike the ground when the jet is flared nose-high for landing. In other words, you can't do a big nose-high flare with the tanks installed.

Congrats on successful maiden!!! I couldn't make it yesterday due to unforseen events... My wifes job got in the way... Anyway, we are going down on Monday, not sure how many will be left, but want to try the Skyhawk out on the pavement...
I was wondering about flights with the ordinance, mine do not seem all that secure. Not sure i like the magnet attach points. Not as secure as the A-10's rail system. Has anyone had issues with the ordinance in flight?
Thanks