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

[Mightywarhoover]

Very chilly 34 degree morning but we had fun with the A-4 and A-10.

[EA-6B Geek]

I'm ready to fly my A-4. I have it set with all of the factory recommended throws and elevator trim/flap mix. It balanced at the 190mm mark with the battery set full forward on the tray. I'm using a 5000mah 50c battery.
Should be flying tomorrow or Monday depending on the weather. Any motherhood out there?

[Jimbobtheflimbob]

factory throws are very sensitivs. i halved tha ailerons and added 20% expo and reduced the elevator by 6mm.

Flew mine for the 2nd time today. it took off from fairly well trimmed grass in less that 150ft with half flap. Rotated faser than most of my taildragger warbirds. There was around a 10mph 45 degree crosswind which meant the skyhawk has a bit of a tendency to rock its wings on approach but it settles down once in ground effect. Also i had to do a go around with probably 35 degrees AoA and gear and flaps down and it was able to power way almost vertically. very impressed so far.

[seaviper]

Flew mine five more times today. And I have the following observations...

It looks great with tanks but they make it a little laggy and a little pitchy on landing. Don't like flying with them.
The hump doesn't seem to bother the A-4 in flight. I did fly my mobius on the hump. Don't like it. Slows the bird down a little.
My nose gear is getting more and more loose. Looks like the pin is wallowing out the trunnion. You would think someone could make a nose gear that could handle grass by now.
I don't like having to remove glued stuff to do routine maintenance. Period. Case in point, the nose gear.
And I don't like glued in servos. I know why they are that way. I disagree and think they should have put them in plastic pockets with screw on covers.
Take offs are smoother without flaps in my experience.

Overall the A-4 is a dream to fly. It's fast and gets out of the grass in about 100ft or so. I love it.

Got a grand total of about 39 minutes of flight time on the bird. Hope to get more tomorrow.

[TomPatton]

Flew mine five more times today. And I have the following observations...

It looks great with tanks but they make it a little laggy and a little pitchy on landing. Don't like flying with them.
The hump doesn't seem to bother the A-4 in flight. I did fly my mobius on the hump. Don't like it. Slows the bird down a little.
My nose gear is getting more and more loose. Looks like the pin is wallowing out the trunnion. You would think someone could make a nose gear that could handle grass by now.
I don't like having to remove glued stuff to do routine maintenance. Period. Case in point, the nose gear.
And I don't like glued in servos. I know why they are that way. I disagree and think they should have put them in plastic pockets with screw on covers.
Take offs are smoother without flaps in my experience.

Overall the A-4 is a dream to fly. It's fast and gets out of the grass in about 100ft or so. I love it.

Got a grand total of about 39 minutes of flight time on the bird. Hope to get more tomorrow.

My thoughts exactly!!!
Nothing else need be said!!!!

[xplaneguy]

Hey Tony, what's the weight on your Turnigy Heavy Duty packs? Those are good packs for the money in my experience. Good warm up packs, especially in wind, like you said.

Hey Alpha, my six Turnigy Heavy Duty 6S 60C 5000mAh weight average is 900g, with Velcro and 5.5 bullet to EC5 adapter installed.

[seaviper]

EA-6B Geek, good luck on your maiden! Let us know how it goes. You will love the A-4!

[davegee]

I have been experimenting with adding some lights for my A-4, somewhat scale, but not completely, mainly to help me see the airplane better in the pre-dusk hours that I usually fly at my home field. They are very helpful, got the $12 package from Motion and installed them where it seemed reasonable. I didn't want to hack into the wings to put the position/strobe lights on the wings (not yet anyway) so I put the two position lights on either side of the fuselage behind the pilot. Not scale, but works fine for now.

Also, have been experimenting adding a nose gear door. After a couple failed attempts, I carved one out of thin bass wood. Hinges are temporary until I find a better solution. Using strips of strapping tape for now. The retract mechanism is similar to what Flightline uses for its F7F Tigercat, springs. I'll take it up for a couple of test flights, weather permitting in the next couple of days.

[GPJ]

Door looking good sir. I'd rather have a non scale Avanti type door on the A-4 than that ugly hole. Or same as 80mm Super Scorpion. Same with Mig-21 ugly hole.

[davegee]

Door looking good sir. I'd rather have a non scale Avanti type door on the A-4 than that ugly hole. Or same as 80mm Super Scorpion. Same with Mig-21 ugly hole.

I agree. I was disappointed that they chose to design this plane "on the cheap" without gear doors, lights, or leading edge slats like what the T-45 have. I would have gladly pay more to have these items as part of the whole package.

[GPJ]

Me too.......My worst fear is an F-4 of the same quality as A-4.

The F-4 could be a masterpiece if done like the other FW premiums .......... A-10, Goshawk, F-14, 8S Yak, etc..

[e4dragongunner]

Maiden today! What a rush!!!! "Break NOW Jester " was all I could think of while flying. 2 really nice flights,
Shaking like a leaf for the 1st. Had a great co-pilot! Nothing like someone with gobs of experience whispering in you ear! Breathe !! relax, !! Extend, Power , " YOU got this"!!!
Such a fantastic flying Jet!!! Very HAPPY thank you Motion and freewing!!


BRING ON THE F-4

[RCjetdude]

Got my ARF+ today. I have my Blue Angels paint and graphics. A JetFan 80 with HET 2085kV motor and HET Zeus 125A ESC as well as other items for additional mods. Will start soon on it. Another project is ahead of it in the pipeline.

[OV10]

Flightline uses for its F7F Tigershark

LOL... Damn autocorrect / proof read failure ;)

[seaviper]

e4dragongunner...she flies good doesn't she? Congrats!

This was mine yesterday!


Cmdr Heatherly below the hard deck...

[e4dragongunner]

So.... I am thinking of buying a older school video camera, one with a bigger lens than an I phone , Mobius or Go pro. I am finding it difficult to get a head mounted camera to produce good watchable footage. Finding a good camera man is also a chore.

And Yes ATC!! She's a Keeper for certain! :);)

[Boots Whirlygig]

Boots Whirlygig, that's a good idea. I was going to install the upgraded inrunner from my retired A-6 into my ARF plus. It will probably exceed the aft cg limit which would then require a heavier battery. I like the performance of the A-4 with my 4000mAh battery so I may experiment with the 9-blade fan and motor combo from the A-10.

RuthR720 please share your experimentation with us! I'm still training on my FMS SuperEZ before I'll be ready to fly my A-4!

[roys001]

I took the skooter out to Apollo Field yesterday for the second time. It was very calm in the morning which gave me the opertunity to work with the flaps again. Per a comment from this blog I tried slowing the plane way down before deploying the flaps. What a huge difference. The plane was very docile at that point and I was able to make the trim adjustments for the first position of the flaps. She slowed down great for landing on final and I was able to really shorten the roll out. The guys in the pits were sure it was going to stall but based on the behavior of the aircraft it wasn't even close.
The Blog is a great place to find these bits of treasure. Thanks everyone that contributes.
One more shout out to Callie. The graphics look GREAT. I get lots of complements about them and make sure to drop her name as much as possible.

[vduniec]

Here's my solution to keep from losing the camera. The other part of the lanyard is attached to some secure location in the airframe. Its easily removable and can be transferred to other aircraft. I then affix the camera to the plane with Velcro.

I do this on the Venom, for example, and thread the wire through the canopy. The camera and the canopy may come off, but they don't leave the aircraft.

Hey, that is a great idea!
I am doing my 2nd A-4 in the Blue Angels scheme and that should be really convenient.
Just wondering how aggressive you can get and not have the extra weight of the camera pull the hump off if you pull some negative g's...
We had a guy show up at our field a couple weekends ago. High dollar electric 3-D airplane. He was flying doing some tumbles and spins and the canopy flew off and the plane went out of control immediately, crashed and burnt.
Both 5S packs burnt to a crisp...
Turns out, he mounted a separate 2 cell pack in his canopy to operate the receiver.
No canopy, no reciever.
Oh, I forgot to mention the canopy was only held in place by magnets, the reason for my concern with the hump camera mount...
The magnets are probably great to secure the canopy, but any extra weight and negative g's and it may separate from the plane...
Let me know how this works out because I would like to use it.
The only draw back is losing my camera over a dense soy bean field...

[Bluesking]

Put a couple more flights on the Skyhawk this morning. I took the Sabre out with me as well.
I mixed a little up elevator, about 2mm, with full flaps. It helped out quite a bit.
I flew the Skyhawk without the refuel probe last weekend (maiden + 2). I had visions of a lawn dart so I played it safe. Flew it with the re-fuel probe this morning, no augers!!!
I am using Turnigy 5000mah/40C batteries pushed all the way forward, CG is about 190mm rearward from the seam where the wing mates with the 20mm cannon fairing at the wing root (reference point in manual). Aileron throw about +/- 8mm, I upped the elevator throw from +/- 12mm to about +/- 15mm for the flights this morning. This bird flies great! Picture perfect rotation, very nice axial rolls, doesn't drop the nose too much in steep turns, and with a little up elevator mixed in with the flaps, she just floats right down on the runway without any real elevator input, very nice!
Still very happy with this plane.
Hoping for a 90mm F9F Panther from Motion/FW soon! A 105mm version would be even better!