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

[dahawk]

TJ
Hard to say. Pretty thick stuff there. Looks like there's an adjacent brown area that might be better.

[dahawk]

Yeah. A twin-80 F-4 Phantom would be awesome! :)

+1 in the Phantom. Make a super scale version like they did with the A-10. I would pay extra for gear doors, lights, AB rings, ordinance, etc.

[T.J.]

TJ
Hard to say. Pretty thick stuff there. Looks like there's an adjacent brown area that might be better.

Yea that's were I did my maiden. Super rough ground. Tons of ruts I had to abort my first landing cause I was gonna hit that hill second attempt hit the roughest area. No judgement guys it was my maiden in less then ideal conditions.

[poochies]

Why didn't Freewing include the metal reinforcement plates for the gear like on the 70mm F16 and the F14? I've had the plastic crack between the screws due to too much stress when gear are pushed back on landing against the aft wall of gear housing ( like the A-4)...You'd think they'd reinforce all of their jets with these plates now...

[crxmanpat]

I had a bad day today. Was flying with my new RT 6250, and had it up about 100' checking the stall characteristics. It never really did anything like drop a wing or the nose, it just mushed around. Added power to recover and get back to flying, but it went into a flat spin. Everything I did to try and power out of it failed and it hit slightly nose down at slow speed.

I have to think that since this was the first flight with the cheater covered, it prevented me from powering out of the situation. I will leave the cheater on when I get my new fuse. The only damage was to the nose, but bad enough not to be repairable. New fuse is already on order. I hope it gets here and I get it back together before my St George, UT trip in a few weeks.

[TomPatton]

Why didn't Freewing include the metal reinforcement plates for the gear like on the 70mm F16 and the F14? I've had the plastic crack between the screws due to too much stress when gear are pushed back on landing against the aft wall of gear housing ( like the A-4)...You'd think they'd reinforce all of their jets with these plates now...

I thought they were, but just went to the shop to look and your right, no metal plates on top of the servo mount...
Maybe since it lands so slow they didn't feel it was warranted...
Flew mine again today and even without flaps it slows way down and flares to a gentle touchdown on the mains...
Maybe I have just been lucky, but this bird lands so easy, especially for a jet...

[dahawk]

Nice job TJ ! Great split second decision to abort the first try.

[AceMigKiller]

Pat,
I would suspect that the additional weight of the bigger battery and nose forward CG were big contributing factors to both the spin and difficulty in recovery.

Skyhawks are known for dropping a wing in a stall at any speed. We don't hear of too many snaps on the Freewing model because it's wing loading is so ridiculously low in comparison to say, a JHH Skyhawk (which is built for significantly higher power and performance levels).

A heavier plane FW Skyhawk (versus the lighter pack), coupled with the nose forward CG, will stall at a higher speed than you've become used to. Also, the nose forward CG will actually "fight" you in the recovery - since gravity wants to pull the nose down, lawn dart style.

Without sufficient airspeed, pulling back on the stick may only aggravate the spin and/or induce a secondary stall. Unfortunately, 100ft. (estimated) was apparently not enough to break the stall/spin scenario and recover.

In my humble opinion, this crash was more likely attributed to aerodynamic causation versus the ability to *power out* of the stall.

Then again, I wasn't there... things tend to happen fast sub ~100ft. in advanced aircraft. Your thoughts??

Vic

[Starck Mad]

I had a bad day today. Was flying with my new RT 6250, and had it up about 100' checking the stall characteristics. It never really did anything like drop a wing or the nose, it just mushed around. Added power to recover and get back to flying, but it went into a flat spin. Everything I did to try and power out of it failed and it hit slightly nose down at slow speed.

I have to think that since this was the first flight with the cheater covered, it prevented me from powering out of the situation. I will leave the cheater on when I get my new fuse. The only damage was to the nose, but bad enough not to be repairable. New fuse is already on order. I hope it gets here and I get it back together before my St George, UT trip in a few weeks.

So sorry about that man...that just sucks. Hope you get her going again soon.

Despite all the eloquent posts explaining why the cheater isn't needed, I stand by my thinking that the designers know more than any of us and that if they put it there...then there is a good reason why. Until Alpha comes in here and says what that reason is...or that the guys that think its a waste of time are actually right...everything else is speculation. I mean no disrespect to anyone by that...just my opinion.

[Lipripper]

I've got in 11 flights so far and I'm enjoying this jet! I used Callie Graphics, they were easy to use.

[RCjetdude]

I had a bad day today. Was flying with my new RT 6250, and had it up about 100' checking the stall characteristics. It never really did anything like drop a wing or the nose, it just mushed around. Added power to recover and get back to flying, but it went into a flat spin. Everything I did to try and power out of it failed and it hit slightly nose down at slow speed.

I have to think that since this was the first flight with the cheater covered, it prevented me from powering out of the situation. I will leave the cheater on when I get my new fuse. The only damage was to the nose, but bad enough not to be repairable. New fuse is already on order. I hope it gets here and I get it back together before my St George, UT trip in a few weeks.

Pat, were you trying the RT 6250 for the first time as well?

[Jimbobtheflimbob]

Maiden done! (maybe the first in Europe) The A-4 flew excellently although my landing was a little hairy, as i had the drop tanks on anf i flaired too much due to the high descent rate meaning the tanks came off, and also it hit a bump and tupped forwards, breaking the refuelling probe. However the oleos did a great job on the rough grass i fly from. IT was pretty wet and muddy but i was still able to take off in around 60m without flaps. I had my rates a little too low as i had reduced travel to 70% and had 60-75% rates but i was ver pleasantly surprised by how well the A-4 flew.I flew for about 3.5 mins with a zippy flightmax 6s 5000 30c full forwards, with no trim needed at all. This was my first flight with a EDF with landing gear. i have flown a Durafly sea Vixen once without gear and a habu UMX but other than that i have only flown warbirds and this was a surprisingly easy plane to fly.

I dont think i have ever heard so many oohs and ahhs before! 3 other club members said they wanted to get one and if i had a penny for every time i heard peopl say it looked or sounded like the real thing i would be able to get a mig 21 to go with it!

[seaviper]

Congrats on your maiden Jimbob!

Sorry to hear about that crxmanpat. Sounds like the battery needed a few cycles on it before flight. Same thing cost me a T-45 last year and almost did the same this year. Now I make sure I have 4 or 5 cycles on a new battery before I launch.
How much does that RT6250 weigh? I think the new 6S 5000 Admirals weigh similar to the older 4000 so they may be a better alternative. I agree with Acemmigkiller's post above.

Looks like you and I both are members of an exclusive club now. Welcome aboard sir!

On a lighter note, UPS got me all excited when they upgraded my Motion RC delivery to Friday, then never showed up. Nice

Lipripper...that is one nice runway you have there!

[bill34207]

Just wanting to make a note for Aros or whoever does the spare parts pages. (I kept thinking someone would catch and fix it, but so far it has not happened)
The A-4 and the A-10 do not use the same boards and connector ribbons. The ones on the A-4 are even smaller than the ones on the Avanti. which is also smaller than the A-10. https://www.motionrc.com/products/fr...trol-board-set

[crxmanpat]

Pat, were you trying the RT 6250 for the first time as well?

Yes, first flight using the RT 6250. After installing I rechecked the CG at 195mm. Did not fly with missiles or tanks this time as I had left them at home by mistake. I may move my CG forward to 190mm. Even with the elevator turned way down she still seems a little sensitive on elevator.

[Rosytime]

Well I maidened mine today after it sitting for a week while we cleaned up hurricane debris. It took off our Geotex runway in about 100 feet with no flaps. After trimming it out, a few flybys with flaps down too see how slow it will go. We had a good headwind so it really slowed down nice. I will say that the big rudder gets blown around and with the slight crosswind we had today it bounced the jet around. Since we fly off a hill I set up for a landing but I was too low over the threshold of the runway and a down draft got it and pushed it down too soon. The nose hit and the jet flipped over. The only damage was a squished nose, slightly bent gear, and a bent refueling probe. Bent the gear back in place, removed the probe, and put another battery in. This flight used the grass to take off and it was up in about 100 feet with takeoff flaps. After a few fast flybys and putting the final trim to it, time to set up again for a landing. This time much higher over the threshold to prevent the turbulence. When landing this way at our field, to the west, the runway gently slopes upward so a little more up elevator is needed. It settled down nicely with full flaps. Mains touched first and then the nose gear. Everyone oohed and ahhed and commented on how fast it flew. Another winner by Freewing. Now to order a new nose and repair the fueling probe.

[Bluesking]

Well, I got the replacement rt main LG this past Thursday, installed it Friday, and took it to the field for the maiden this morning. I didn't get any video but I did take some stills with my phone. Did the maiden plus 2 more flights.
Ailerons (low rate) set to about +/- 3/8", elevator set to about +/- 0.5", rudder set to full. 5000mah/40C battery pushed all the way forward to the foam lip where the control board is mounted.
Rotation was perfect, balance in turns seemed appropriate considering a delta wing, not too twitchy in rolls or steep banks, flare seemed about right as well. I'll continue to fly with the battery all the way forward for now.
Even with aileron throws set fairly low, she does snap pretty quick. It is certainly responsive to elevator input at medium to high speed, but for me, it needed the extra elevator throw coming out of base to final and then just before and during the flare through touchdown. I had the elevator set to +/- 3/8" on the maiden but re-adjusted to +/- 0.5" for the 2nd and 3rd flights. This gave the extra elevator authority that was missing on the maiden, so I'll leave it there for now as well.

Another great Freewing jet from Motion RC!

here are a couple of pics from this morning.

[EA-6B Geek]

Received my graphics from Callie. Still need to add some detail on the refueling probe, and also going to paint the appropriate portions of the landing gear white. Flights soon.

[MANFRED]

My latest effort. Thanks Callie!

[MANFRED]