Official Freewing MiG-29 Fulcrum Twin 80mm Thread

[kallend]

Today is 14 knots gusting to 23 knots when thermals are passing. On base at about 200 ft....flaps and gear down at about 30% power. I hit a thermal gust that almost instantly pitched the nose up.

Applied elevator....nothing / applied power....nose not dropping. Recognized as being in a deep stall, so chopped the throttle, nose dropped, then eased in the power below a tree line which was hiding the MiG.

Eased in the back stick and she rose above the tree tops....flying as if nothing was amiss. Whew!

Apparently a gusty day bears watching for pitch-ups and immediate correction. Lesson learned!!!!

-GG

The kind of day when a good gyro comes in very handy.

[GliderGuy]

The kind of day when a good gyro comes in very handy.

I’ll drink to that. Ended up making 35 flights in 4.5 hours....Took 1/2 day of time bank.

27 MiG
8 P-38

Rest of the week will be too windy.

-GG

[Airguardian]

I hit a thermal gust that almost instantly pitched the nose up.

Applied elevator....nothing / applied power....nose not dropping. Recognized as being in a deep stall, so chopped the throttle, nose dropped, then eased in the power below a tree line which was hiding the MiG.

Eased in the back stick and she rose above the tree tops....flying as if nothing was amiss. Whew!

Yep, the MiG does that. Not a fan of how Freewing/MRC designed the stock thrustline on this one.
It allows to do post-stall aerobatics without vectored thrust (as demonstrated) but that's not quite how the jet is supposed to be. :/
Results in you needing to fight the jet at many points where you really shouldn't.

Espectacular! Volando asi quien necesita la TV.

Gracias Hugh! :)

Looks like it flew even better with the lighter packs and CG further back, landed so smooth at what seemed the perfect AOA. Your using Tailerons, no?

Yes, I'm using tailerons. And haven't tested the jet with the light packs that much yet but the most noticeable change is climb rate. It's over 200g of difference, so quite noticeable indeed. The packs come back hotter than the Panthers though, and puffed (Panthers don't!).

And why does it always seem that when you fly, it's nice and cool out and that wind sock is straight down, that's just not fair!

There's a trick to that... I use a forecasting app, and plan my trips to the field when the weather is going to be better, which is pretty easy here anyway because we have marine wind currents and the wind almost always goes down at sunrise and sunset. Hence why I'm so much of a sunset flyer too. :)
It's not that I never fly in windy conditions, but I do take much less 'risks' when performing maneuvers if the weather isn't helping, so in order to record videos, which clearly benefit from the jets flying lower and closer, I favour no-wind at all. On the other hand, wind (as long as it is reasonably aligned with runway and not extremely turbulent) usually helps me bring down the jets more easily without overshooting.

Airguardian Is your runway more gravel (tiny rocks) or dirt (micro rocks)? Does the Mig inhale the runway at all?

Almost all my jets suck the runway up and need replacing rotors from time to time.
The Eurofighter didn't suck it up though, as the intake was ahead of all the landing gear and it had no cheaters.
The MiG seems to fare much better with it though, as it sits taller compared to my other jets.

Edited: I see the photos now, it's kind of in between what I'm calling gravel and dirt. The nose gear is so close to the front intakes. Do any of your jets vacuum it up?

Yep, it's a mix of both. The 'dirt' part seems to work better than the 'gravel' though. Too much loose pebbles make it draggy in the extreme. To the point I haven't been able to take-off at all. Not kidding. I bring the broomstick to the field from time to time to sweep out the excess. And yes, that's easily is a 1-4h op.

[radfordc]

I hit a thermal gust that almost instantly pitched the nose up.

Applied elevator....nothing / applied power....nose not dropping. Recognized as being in a deep stall, so chopped the throttle, nose dropped, then eased in the power below a tree line which was hiding the MiG.

That sounds familiar. Probably a better chance of recovery if you have more than 20 feet of altitude.

https://youtu.be/l22ftmf2qK8

[GliderGuy]

That sounds familiar. Probably a better chance of recovery if you have more than 20 feet of altitude.

https://youtu.be/l22ftmf2qK8

Ouch....painful to watch!

Repaired OK? Hope so.

Perhaps keeping full power and Saber dancing to the ground might have been less of an impact. Hard to say.

-GG

[mshagg]

Yep, the MiG does that. Not a fan of how Freewing/MRC designed the stock thrustline on this one.
It allows to do post-stall aerobatics without vectored thrust (as demonstrated) but that's not quite how the jet is supposed to be. :/

You can imagine how much pitch trim the plane would need on the horizontal stab with a more neutral thrust line though (I have TV and have tried it lol).

There's clearly a complex set of compromises afoot in the design of the battery area, ability to shift CG aft, elevator trim and thrust line. The true test is probably flying smaller packs and a more extreme CG, but going too far aft probably won't help with stall recovery either!

[kallend]

mshagg's implementation of the 3DP TV nozzles for this MiG.

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=46604771&postcount=6128

Link to the STL files:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4769774

[Gringotuerto]

That sounds familiar. Probably a better chance of recovery if you have more than 20 feet of altitude.

I'm curious what happened. Did a bump pitch it up too suddenly, or something else? I'm wondering if this plane is just really risky on takeoff, because once the nose pitches up past a certain point, the stall will suddenly deepen into this kind of unrecoverable situation. I suppose any plane can stall on takeoff, but this plane might warrant more caution than most.

Anyway, I was just curious what learning you gleaned from this (assuming it was your plane). I was hoping to learn the same lesson a bit more cheaply :)

[GliderGuy]

Anyway, I was just curious what learning you gleaned from this (assuming it was your plane). I was hoping to learn the same lesson a bit more cheaply :)

I have only operated off hard surface, so haven’t experienced an uncommanded pitch up on take-off.

But, I have experienced the deep stall a couple of times not on purpose. I’ve done it many times ON PURPOSE for practice.

1) When I had a few flights and was high....AND the deep stall was still “new” to the pilots. Got into it by doing a vertical climb and almost didn’t recover. It was WAY OVER THERE AND DOWN LOW when I got it flying. Range check at a distance down low = done!
2) The thermal edge gust (no gyro) that pitched the nose up yesterday...almost instantaneously pitch up....while I was about 200 ft on base.

#1 recovery was by luck...now I know what to do.
#2 recovery was successful....but more of a challenge because the MiG descended below a tree line. I couldn’t see it. Recovery was by instinctive control inputs.

So, watch Airguardian’s excellent videos. He shows how the recovery is done....expertly. Cheapest training you’ll ever get on the deep stall recovery.

Chopping power is the ONLY way to get the nose down and the MiG flying again. CAUTION ....ALTITUDE IS REQUIRED!!!


-GG

[Airguardian]

As far as design-wise goes, the lesson is to design jets with a proper thrustline, lol.


I also had a scare myself the other day when I landed off-road, hit a bump and went back into the air, pretty sharp.
Since I was going slow-ish, going full-throttle may have backflipped the jet so I added pitch-down correction and slowly got the throttle back up, so the jet could gain speed and not getting locked in high alpha. This allowed me to go around and land normally.

Chopping power is the ONLY way to get the nose down and the MiG flying again.

Pretty much!

[Evan D]

Unless you have TVs...

Chopping power is the ONLY way to get the nose down and the MiG flying again. CAUTION ....ALTITUDE IS REQUIRED!!!


-GG

[Evan D]

So sorry to see this. The deep stall is so dangerous with this. The only way out (other than not getting into the situation) would be to have TVs.

That sounds familiar. Probably a better chance of recovery if you have more than 20 feet of altitude.

https://youtu.be/l22ftmf2qK8

[GliderGuy]

Good point....related to a Go Around and no TV

Bring up the power smoothly and not so much as to cause a back flip or high alpha lock either of which will be disastrous down low.

-GG

[Airguardian]

There goes my first proper 'music video' of the MiG-29!
(The FPV one doesn't count!)

[GliderGuy]

There goes my first proper 'music video' of the MiG-29!
(The FPV one doesn't count!)

That’s some SMOOTH stick work! Nice flying and video work.

-GG

[Airguardian]

Thanks GG!
As far as smoothness goes, I'm hoping it will get much better with VT in there as I will no longer have to fight the thrustline! :D

[kallend]

Thanks GG!
As far as smoothness goes, I'm hoping it will get much better with VT in there as I will no longer have to fight the thrustline! :D

Video unavailable
This video is not available

[Airguardian]

Thank YouTube and the record labels for that. They reversed policy AFTER publishing the video. A-holes.

[crxmanpat]

You could always use one of Eric's free tracks that he creates for our videos.

https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc-airplanes/hobby-squawk-community-photos-videos/1797-free-music-resource-for-your-videos

[Airguardian]

Wow, thanks! :D
Now that's helpful!

Although I usually struggle to find 'free-to-use' music that I really like for my videos but I will certainly give it a listen and see if I find anything!
It always helps to have some material to go through, so, indeed, very much appreciated Pat! :D