Official Freewing 80mm EDF L-39 Albatros Thread

[steven gubala]

cashmoneybrother, check wiring make sure all colors are matching from both ends, then if that is correct check blue box, and make sure wiring is correct

[xviper]

Left side landing light wont turn on at all and nav light only turns on when gear is up. Right side landing light is on all the time but gets dimmer when gear is up. If I disconnect the left side then the right side works as intended. Please help!!!

With your manual, you should have also received a sheet with diagrams of all the different kinds of control boxes that Freewing planes can come with. Find the one that is the same as the one in your plane. Check the labeling for the light pins. Move them around till you get the lights to work the way you want them to. Note polarity. I'll bet they were plugged into the wrong pins when factory assembled.

Edit: On this plane, the more specific answer has to do with the wing connector boxes.

[Radar-Guy]

Left side landing light wont turn on at all and nav light only turns on when gear is up. Right side landing light is on all the time but gets dimmer when gear is up. If I disconnect the left side then the right side works as intended. Please help!!!

The wing lights are connected to the MCB-E (Blue Box) by the two ribbon cables, not much room for errors here.
At first, check the connection at the wing control boards. See attached picture. On each board, the light connectors are on the left, landing light at very left, then Nav light. Red wires have to be on top. If that looks OK on both connectors, unscrew the wing tanks and remove those carefully. Check the connectors at both ends for correct polarity and matching labels. I assume, the fault is here. When everything is properly connected here, add a piece of masking tape or heat shrink tube to keep the connectors together when pushing them into the wing again. Take your time at this step and mount the tanks again.

[Evan D]

Something is not wired right... I see much better answers are posted, late to the party.

[xviper]

The wing lights are connected to the MCB-E (Blue Box) by the two ribbon cables, not much room for errors here.
At first, check the connection at the wing control boards. See attached picture. On each board, the light connectors are on the left, landing light at very left, then Nav light. Red wires have to be on top. If that looks OK on both connectors, unscrew the wing tanks and remove those carefully. Check the connectors at both ends for correct polarity and matching labels. I assume, the fault is here. When everything is properly connected here, add a piece of masking tape or heat shrink tube to keep the connectors together when pushing them into the wing again. Take your time at this step and mount the tanks again.

This is the correct solution. My answer was based on a Freewing plane where some or all of the lights are attached directly to the blue box. In this case, it's the wing connector that needs to be examined. I think somewhere in the manual there may also be a diagram of what plugs in the wing board does the job.

[G8dget]

Here are a couple of videos of the L-39 flying around with FPV gear, some in close formation. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/dJau72OLXZQ

https://youtu.be/eibsCTJc49c

[Jacckall]

Hello! Noob Question :). How can i easy remove or modify position of stickers on this L-39 without foam damage? Thanks for answers

[GBLynden]

I love this jet!

[xviper]

Hello! Noob Question :). How can i easy remove or modify position of stickers on this L-39 without foam damage? Thanks for answers

I believe they are water slide decals. They won't be easy to remove or move around. I suppose you could try to apply wet, warm cloth or towel and see if you can cause them to come loose and see if they will slide but I think you will tear and destroy them. Test it on a small decal that you won't mind too much if it's damaged or missing.

[steven gubala]

Jacckall, try using a small hobby type steamer, and a hobby knife to remove the decals go slow and carefully

[HangarQueen]

Last week, a fellow club member crashed his L-39. While he was doing a steep diving turn, the model suddenly yawed violently into the ground. As he is a very good RC pilot, I doubt that it was pilot error, but there is no way to find the real cause of the crash, especially since there was no telemetry on board.
As he wanted to throw the crashed model into the bin, I bought the remains from him and I will restore it to flying condition; I like these sorts of restoration projects anyway.
After some post-crash inspection, the damage is more serious than I first thought:

• the fuselage is broken right in front of the engine intakes
• A serious crack could be seen in the right wing, close to the wing root.
• the nose is pretty beat up
• horizontal stab was destroyed on one side
• wing tips were broken
• wing saddle is broken, both on fuselage side and on wing side
• several steering arms were broken

I ordered a spare horizontal stab, as I don't want to take any risks on this critical flight control. Also ordered a spare plastic part of the front wing connection, and a complete set of steering arms.
As I will leave the wings on permanently, I will eliminate the Blue Box alltogether. This will not only eliminate a possible point of failure, but it will also eliminate the long delay on gear operation. I might still use it to switch the wing lights on/off, which I could also easily program on the radio.
I already straightened the nose with some hot water, and repaired the crack in the wing by drilling 3mm holes along the crack line. I then injected expanding PU glue into the crack via the drilled holes, and glued in a 4mm carbon strip perpendicular across the crack.
All servos seem to work just fine, I will test them some more, just to be sure. Rudder servo seems to make a bit more noise than the other servos (prime suspect of the crash so far)
I will install a Frsky RB-10 to provide dual power supply (adding a 10A SBEC and receiver battery) and current protection on all channels (I seem to have read that the retracts can draw considerable current when they are impeded in any way), a FAS-100 current sensor for battery consumption telemetry, and add a capacitor across the power supply input of the receiver.
That should take care of most electronic/power supply glitches.

[fvu@sbcglobal.net]

I just finished building my new L39 camo, this is my first Freewing Jet, all my other Jets are E-Flite, and after comparing the two, the Freewing has E-Flite beat internally, blue box, wiring etc, but externally not happy with Freewing at all, I have learned to always check, and tighten everything on a plane before I will fly it, and I also put three coats of minwax Polycrylic over paint, first off the decals are garbage, who the hell uses water type decals on a foamJet, second thing, I took off EDF cover, and when I did the paint peeled write off, it wasn’t even adhered to foam, and the whole plane is like that, it peeled in several areas, I know what happened they did not clean the foam off, before painting it, you have to wipe the foam down, before painting it, so I got some touch up paint and started to touch it up, then I thought to myself, that this is ridiculous, brand new Jet, and paint peeling everywhere, so I contacted Motion, they told me to fill out form online and take photos, which I did and the idiot from customer service said doesn’t look like peeling paint to me looks like a chemical was put on it, so I sent him a reply explaining I had to put polycrylic over the the foam to stop it from peeling, and he basically said their was nothing they could do, and to be honest with you this is the second plane I’ve bought from Motion, I never had any issues with my Old Crow, but I have dealt with Motions totally lack off customer support, on receivers and stuff, Horizon Hobby would have replaced plane no questions asked, Eflite has Freewing beat hands down on paint and decals, I still would probably purchase another Freewing Jet, but since their paint and decals are horrible, I will check the paint before I i ever started assembling, and I will be going back to Horizon for everything else, Motion idea of product support is a joke, I have only had a issue with one of HH planes I purchased, it had a big dent in foam, but they looked at my order history, and after seeing that I have spent a lot of money with them, they sent me out a new plane, and said just keep the old one for parts, when I purchased my L39 I also bought one of their Admiral 690 receiver/gyro, and it bound and then it quit working permanently, I called Customer service, and he told me I would need to fill out a return request, and return item, that part I was ok with that, but here’s where I had a issue, I asked him if he was sending a replacement, he actually told me that I had to wait until they received my receiver and evaluated it, so basically this idiot thought it was ok for me to have a $500 Jet that I now can’t fly, over a $30 receiver, so I I explained to him that this is ridiculous, he started to get rude with me, so I just said forget it, after seeing gyro/ receiver, I wouldn’t trust it in a expensive, Jet very cheaply made, soil purchased the best receiver made the Spektrum AR636, Motions receiver/ gyro is not a true gyro, you have to adjust each control surface separately, the biggest problem with theirs is there is no way to set up priorities, what priorities is in a real gyro is as I move my stick away from center, the gyro reads it and the the further I move my stick, it starts to shut of gyro, that way if your trying to turn and burn you don’t have a stupid gyro fighting you in the other direction, plus if I know from experience, they don’t require me to send back anything, or fill out a stupid form, or even send a bunch of stupid pictures, because they actually trust and value customers like me, hell they even send me every year on my birthday a $10 credit voucher, so Motion you only really have one reason I will ever purchase anything from you, and that’s because you have a much larger selection of Jets, and internally Freewing is a better built Jet, but I have been seeing HH coming out with more and more Jets,

I do agree with everything mentioned above...

[Tenncharlie]

I agree with you 100%. Their "customer service " is a joke. They were rude to me and completely ignored evidence I sent them. It was a full video that plainly showed the receiver to be defective. They had a stupid remark for everything I told them.

[HangarQueen]

Well, my repaired L-39 flew!
I acquired a crashed model from a fellow club member and repaired it. I replaced the horizontal stab, straightened the nose, glued the fuselage and the wing saddle and replaced a couple of steering rods.
On Monday, I took the courage to fly it, and I was pleasantly surprised by its flight characteristics, even though I noticed that something was wrong: it keeps pulling to the left (which of course worsens when the airspeed goes up). When I release the stick at high speed, I quickly get a bank angle of some 40 degrees. I have to fly with a right stick input to keep it straight. I didn't trim it yet, because I wanted to study this behavior first. As there was quite a bit of wind during all of the flights, it is hard to draw solid conclusions about that.
Landings were very uneventful; I was prepared for endless floating above the runway, but I never had this problem, using full flaps. I always touch down around or before half-runway, and the grass does enough to stop the model in time.
After five flights, I decided to check the model to try and find the cause of the pulling to the left. When I measure incidence angles in different locations, I get about half a degree of difference between both wings, which would give me a roll to the left. But half a degree....
I noticed that the right flap doesn't retract fully (I replaced the steering rod, so it is possible that I didn't rig it correctly), which explains the half degree difference. At the wing tips, I measure no difference in incidence angle, so the wing isn't really warped from the crash.
I will check all control surfaces again, for correct centering, then do another test flight.

[steven gubala]

Good luck let us know how it goes.

[HangarQueen]

After measuring everything from all angles, I found quite a list of things to fix.

• One landing gear leg was shorter than the other, and didn't retract fully anymore because of that. Apparently, there was excessive friction in the "bending" joint of the wheel arm.
• the other landing gear was pointing outward, explaining the excessive pull to the left during the takeoff roll. I had to grind a correction to the indent in the pin to correct it
• flaps weren't deploying symmetrically, because of a difference in length of the steering rod. I remember noticing that I flew the last flight with full flaps inadvertently, and the difference in flaps being over 5mm could explain the serious roll tendency at higher speed.
• checked all the rigging of all control surfaces again making minor corrections to the ailerons
• added the Blue Box again only for the lights activation, and added a triple-flash white LED behind the cockpit, on top of the fuselage.
• added the RB-10 and an extra 10A SBEC, for a 3S890mAh receiver battery. If ever anything draws excessive power now, I have current protection on all channels and redundancy in power supply.

The weather's expected to be awful for the coming days and week, and so I'll have to be patient to test fly all my fixes.

[subhan.nasir]

Hi guys,
Just curious whether anyone ever added a scale 3d wheel hubs to their L39? If so, could you kindly share stl file.
Thanks in advance.
Nas

[cashmoneybrother]

Just posted this in the Black Horse L-39 thread, very embarrassing, I'll try it here instead! I typically buy one airplane a year (you know- time, space, MONEY) and this Xmas was the L-39, which arrived Jan.31st. I've been taking advantage of the unusually mild weather (as my shop is poorly heated) to do the re-paint first, and here it is- sort of a Thai AF scheme. Graphics from Callie, of course, and my thanks to the person who first requested them. Planned are main gear doors, an opening front cockpit, and speedbrakes (going to steal Corsair Nut's T-33 design for the latter, lol). I ejected the kids from the cockpit with their little waving mittens and will be using a JHH 1/10 figure flying solo.
Tom

[cashmoneybrother]

Just posted this in the Black Horse L-39 thread, very embarrassing, I'll try it here instead! I typically buy one airplane a year (you know- time, space, MONEY) and this Xmas was the L-39, which arrived Jan.31st. I've been taking advantage of the unusually mild weather (as my shop is poorly heated) to do the re-paint first, and here it is- sort of a Thai AF scheme. Graphics from Callie, of course, and my thanks to the person who first requested them. Planned are main gear doors, an opening front cockpit, and speedbrakes (going to steal Corsair Nut's T-33 design for the latter, lol). I ejected the kids from the cockpit with their little waving mittens and will be using a JHH 1/10 figure flying solo.
Tom

[Low ‘n Slow]

Gents,

would the L-39 be a good first EDF..? I'm a new RC pilot. Been flying for about 7 months consistently. There is a brand new one never flown in our club for sale. $235........

thank you