Official Freewing F/A-18C Hornet 90mm EDF Thread

[Necroscope]

My F-18 turned up today, started the build to find that one of the wing mounts glued into the body by the factory, is either back to front, or i have two rights instead of a left and right.

That's stopped play! Packed it all away awaiting a reply from motion EU......

What i did see, did look very nice.

[T-CAT]

Hornet Howners, It's all 'baby-steps' though making progress with the paint and install of a few more 3DP bits. Having big fun as she's starting to look like something again. Somewhere in the instructions I recall reading the 'build time' was 2 hours and thinking, "that would would awesome." More when there's more. Best, LB

Looks awesome! Great progress.

[Evan D]

That's at least three I've heard of...

My F-18 turned up today, started the build to find that one of the wing mounts glued into the body by the factory, is either back to front, or i have two rights instead of a left and right.

That's stopped play! Packed it all away awaiting a reply from motion EU......

What i did see, did look very nice.

[Necroscope]

That's at least three I've heard of...

No way! Ow bloody hell what a nightmare.

Would you know how Motion handled it in those instances?

At this moment I've managed to play the best game of tetris ever and got it back in the box lol.

[Evan D]

The other two were noted on RCGroups. I'll see if I can find them.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hornet Howners, It's all 'baby-steps' though making progress with the paint and install of a few more 3DP bits. Having big fun as she's starting to look like something again. Somewhere in the instructions I recall reading the 'build time' was 2 hours and thinking, "that would would awesome." More when there's more. Best, LB

Yes the manual does say the build time is 2 hours, but it has an asterisks * for Elbee only, where the small print says with all you're modifications, it's 2 hours a day for 9 months, almost like having a baby. But she sure is starting to look FINE!

[Elbee]

LOLOLOL, Thanks, Hugh. I suppose it is a bit like waiting for "the day". Funny, I find myself opening a baggie and looking at a 3DP part(s) and thinking, "when did I do that? That's cool." or "What was I thinking." UH, it's just a hobby, it's just a hobby... Best, Steve

[Necroscope]

Motion EU CS rule, full replacement to be shipped today, with a free return label for the old one.

It was also about a 2 hour reply from them within working hours, which is amazing and straight in the face of my experience with anything Horizon related. Thanks guys.

[Evan D]

Cool. SO you lost some time and maybe some gas money taking it to the post office.

[Necroscope]

Cool. SO you lost some time and maybe some gas money taking it to the post office.

Maybe not even the gas money, as i think they will collect the return package from my house.

[Sagebrushrich]

Would the 12 blade 8s setup perform better than the high performance pnp setup with 9 blade 6s? Will 40-75 motor fit the metal 12 blade fan?

[Elbee]

Sagebrushrich, Welcome to "Hobby Squawk". I do not know about a 12S setup; however, Freewing offers a 12 blade EDF with Inrunner as an upgrade setup for this F-18C and the Blue Angels version now has a High Performance Inrunner setup. Check those out! Best, LB


1) Blue Angels: https://www.motionrc.com/collections...mm-edf-jet-pnp

2) 12-Blade EDF with Inrunner: https://www.motionrc.com/collections...inrunner-motor

[seaviper]

Maidened the bird yesterday with two great flights. I love the power and the speed. The landings were surprisingly easy. I like the way she settles in on final.

Repainted her last week. She has full span flaps with ailerons as flaperons. I did add some reflex on the flaperons linked to the elevator. I had to dial in some elevator-flap mixing as well.

[Elbee]

seaviper Congrats on your first flights and good-lookin' repaint. Best, LB

[Aros]

Nice job seaviper ! Really dig the clean camo scheme.

[seaviper]

yeah man I couldn't stand the other scheme. Now I need to contact Callie for some NSAWC decals.

[seaviper]

On flight 1, the nose gear unit would not retract. So I made flight 2 with gear down. Upon disassembly of the retract unit, it was apparent that the can motor was not turning, even without the gear case. So I disassembled the can motor and found this piece of plastic FOD inside. The unit works fine now.

Motion was going to give me a store credit for the gear, but there is no need now.

[Waconut]

Hi guys,
My plan is to maiden my F-18 this weekend, can someone save me from reading back through a hundred pages and give me a good starting point to set the CG?
Hopefully the remnants of the Hurricanes don’t make their way up here this weekend.

[seaviper]

The F-18 seems to accommodate a pretty wide CG range. I only have two flights on mine. But I am CG'd at like 85mm. However, I plan on moving that back to the book value or beyond on later flights.

With that CG slightly in front of the book value, she needed only a click or two of up trim. So the book elevator neutral point is good. If I had it to do over again, I would have just CG'd her dead on the book number.

I might have a video of one of my flights to share later. I recommend adding in a few percent up elevator with flaps.

[seaviper]

The flight filmed here was the re-maiden as the original first flight was terminated by a collision with something on the runway. This collision caused a hop and premature takeoff followed by a stall. I ended up rebuilding the bird with a new fuselage, nosecone, canopy, and nose gear. She also received a new low vis paint scheme in the style of the NSAWC birds at Fallon. On this flight, I was unprepared for the sluggish turn rate caused by a forward CG. After some intense moments, I wrestled her back into the pattern to discover that the nose gear had not retracted. This was later attributed to FOD in the nose gear retract motor. Flaps deployment seemed to cause a large nose down moment, so I opted for a no-flap approach. The Hornet settled in on final quite easily. On rollout I drifted into the high grass with no damage other than a significant loss of "cool points". A second flight was made this day with much less drama.

This aircraft has been modified to bypass the onboard "blue box" controller for independent control of all flight surfaces. She has full span flaps, flaperons, tailerons, flaperon reflex, and rudder brakes programmed. Power is provided by an Admiral 6S 6000mAh battery and a Freewing 3672-1900kV inrunner motor turning a 9-blade fan.

Overall I am impressed with speed, sound, and flying qualities of this bird. I look forward to exploring the flight envelope on future, and hopefully less stressful, flights.

My friend doing the filming is a former A6 pilot and flight instructor. My favorite quote is "why are we still at full throttle?" followed shortly by "this is going to be a horrible video"....lol

On flight two, I used the full span flaps with about 3% or so up elevator mix with good results. Tailerons worked as advertised. Both landings were smooth. This is a great grass field bird.

[Hugh Wiedman]

seaviper congrats on the "re-maiden", always nice to get her back on the ground in one piece. I really liked the comment that "the camo worked"!