Official Freewing Twin 80mm/90mm A-10 Thunderbolt II Thread

[xviper]

Had a successful maiden today! Did you guys need a lot of up elevator trim to keep the nose up?

If you set the elevator (as per the manual) with about 3mm to 4mm of UP ELE to begin with, very little ELE trim should be needed when flown, assuming you've balanced it at the recommended CG (more or less).

[AndrewF]

If you set the elevator (as per the manual) with about 3mm to 4mm of UP ELE to begin with, very little ELE trim should be needed when flown, assuming you've balanced it at the recommended CG (more or less).

I think I forgot to se that 4mm of up trim… oops… I have the CG at 90mm so it makes sense it would probably need a little more than that too. I’ll have to measure and see how much deflection it’s at, just out of curiosity.

[DCORSAIR]

Had a successful maiden today! Did you guys need a lot of up elevator trim to keep the nose up?

Yes, the trailing edge of the elevator should be lined up with those little bumps sticking out on each side of the rear of the fuselage to start with, then it depends on your CG to trim in flight, did you add more trim or start with the neutral starting point?

[DCORSAIR]

Oops, posted after you guys did, looks like you figured it out.

[sam51401]

I believe as was mine to start with, the top of the elevator should be level, ie even with the top of the stab with a straight edge placed across stab and elevator. Another ref used is the two rear radar warning sensors, "round little bumps", elevator trailing edge pointing to those. This also goes with what cg your set at and how much trim is needed for level flight. What i have been doing to check cg is to go high and cut power then push over to a 45 degree dive and release the elevator, most likely the plane will pull out of the dive, not abrupltly but will depending on how much elevator trim is in place. I fly with cg at 85-90 depending on what batts i fly with and that can be 6250 stacked to the rear or two 8000 in same place. This with Dirtty Dees more scale nozzles has greatly lessened the bounce and along with learning to work the power and flare more. This plane IS NOT one to just cut power with a forward or stock cg and yet others have learned to manage it with plenty of practice. Hope this helps as i have become more comfortable and relaxed in flying this with these minor changes.
On another note as i make known another "mod" is for the retracts.
JP Models has a set that i found by accident, that are the metal type and are a mounting hole drop in replacement. I will report more as i mod mine and replace just the nose unit for the time being. No more play in the trunnion with this swap from the stock unit. Im using the oleo mains at the moment and stock strut on nose so oleos all around since i fly off a paved surface.

[Hugh Wiedman]

What i have been doing to check cg is to go high and cut power then push over to a 45 degree dive and release the elevator, most likely the plane will pull out of the dive, not abrupltly but will depending on how much elevator trim is in place. I fly with cg at 85-90 depending on what batts i fly with and that can be 6250 stacked to the rear or two 8000 in same place.

Slight variation on your 45 degree test, as recommended by Chris Hinson, Pres of Extreme Flight (which I have adopted as well). "After trimming for level flight, fly at about 3/4 throttle and pull the aircraft to a 45 degree up line and establish this line, then immediately roll inverted. Establish this line, then let go of the elevator stick. For a neutrally balanced aircraft, it will continue to track on that 45 degree line for several hundred feet before slowly starting to level off." I like this a little better as you're gaining altitude instead of heading towards the ground, always a bit unnerving. Of course, if you're nose heavy, you've added plenty of up trim to correct it, which will become quite evident while inverted.

With that said, CG is a somewhat personal preference and we know some like their aircraft a little nose heavy, others like it a little tail heavy, and virtually every type of aircraft is different it it's flying characteristics under each condition, so in the end, fly it where you personally feel best.

[AndrewF]

I believe as was mine to start with, the top of the elevator should be level, ie even with the top of the stab with a straight edge placed across stab and elevator. Another ref used is the two rear radar warning sensors, "round little bumps", elevator trailing edge pointing to those. This also goes with what cg your set at and how much trim is needed for level flight. What i have been doing to check cg is to go high and cut power then push over to a 45 degree dive and release the elevator, most likely the plane will pull out of the dive, not abrupltly but will depending on how much elevator trim is in place. I fly with cg at 85-90 depending on what batts i fly with and that can be 6250 stacked to the rear or two 8000 in same place. This with Dirtty Dees more scale nozzles has greatly lessened the bounce and along with learning to work the power and flare more. This plane IS NOT one to just cut power with a forward or stock cg and yet others have learned to manage it with plenty of practice. Hope this helps as i have become more comfortable and relaxed in flying this with these minor changes.
On another note as i make known another "mod" is for the retracts.
JP Models has a set that i found by accident, that are the metal type and are a mounting hole drop in replacement. I will report more as i mod mine and replace just the nose unit for the time being. No more play in the trunnion with this swap from the stock unit. Im using the oleo mains at the moment and stock strut on nose so oleos all around since i fly off a paved surface.

Thanks for the info! I flew it on two roaring top 5,000 mah packs, one on the lower tray and one on the upper. They were pretty close to the edge of each tray to get the CG around 90mm.

[AndrewF]

After checking my elevator placement, it was pretty much right in line, maybe slightly below, those two radar detecting bumps on the tail. Thanks for all the help guys!

[Manu-B]

Good Morning all!

This plane is really great. After a few bumpy landings (and some damages - I am so glad I read about the nose reinforcement!), I made some flights with no ordinance and very very slow speed. I am amazed how slow it can fly and how gentle the stall is. :D Really great flying characteristics.

Now the question to the community. I am left with some damage and I started to make it look better. However impossible to find the good grey colors. Any chance that some of you have found the magical brand and color numbers that can be used to repaint scratches and damages?

Have a nice day!

Manu

[Miroslav Cerny]

Revell 76 matt

[rlcamden]

Good Morning all!

This plane is really great. After a few bumpy landings (and some damages - I am so glad I read about the nose reinforcement!), I made some flights with no ordinance and very very slow speed. I am amazed how slow it can fly and how gentle the stall is. :D Really great flying characteristics.

Now the question to the community. I am left with some damage and I started to make it look better. However impossible to find the good grey colors. Any chance that some of you have found the magical brand and color numbers that can be used to repaint scratches and damages?

Have a nice day!

Manu

This is what I got from my local Home Depot. Matches pretty good.

[Manu-B]

Hi all, many thanks for the answers. I got in touch with motion RC here Europe and they confirmed freewing is not sharing the paint code at this stage. The advise was to find an hardware store that can scan a part an produce color accordingly. I’ll give a try to Revell 076 Matt to start with. Cheers. Manu

[Balsa Bob]

Hi All, Hope to maiden mine this week. 2 quick questions:

Is the preferred CG location at about 86mm (which is 8mm aft of the CG in the manual ?

Are the Elevator and Aileron control throws in the manual accurate ? Visually, it just seems like there is way too much throw/movement on them.

Thanks. Bob

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hi All, Hope to maiden mine this week. 2 quick questions:

Is the preferred CG location at about 86mm (which is 8mm aft of the CG in the manual ?

Are the Elevator and Aileron control throws in the manual accurate ? Visually, it just seems like there is way too much throw/movement on them.

Thanks. Bob

I'm flying mine at a balance point of more like 92mm, but that's just me as we know that balance is a fairly personal preference, but the manual recommended point of 78 mm is clearly way too nose heavy. Using 2 Roaring Top 6250's with more than 5 minutes of flight time and coming in with 30% remaining, so it can take the weight. I also did the 3D cockpit and JHH 1/10 scale pilot upgrade which added over 100 gr of weight to the nose so it required removing the circuit board from the back of the floor in the rear battery tray and moving it further aft on the port fuselage wall, no big deal (see battery location photos).

Regarding throws, I'm using deflections on the flaps as per the manual (32mm take-off, 50mm landing), Ailerons (L/M/H rates at 30mm/36mm/42mm), Elevator (30mm/34mm/36mm) and Rudder (24mm/27mm/29mm) which are in mid rates at the high end of the manual and on high rates even more, especially the rudder which helps in knife edge flight.

This flies so well it's scary and have never flown it without ALL of the ordinance. Only thing that can get you in trouble is landing allowing the nose gear to touch first, which will initiate an uncontrollable bucking bronco. Just make sure you slow it down enough to get the nose up on landing (a further rear CG from book will help that as well) and touch on the mains first.

[Balsa Bob]

Thank you very much for the response Hugh !

Bob

[Coconut]

This A10 is not sold with in-runners?

[Hugh Wiedman]

This A10 is not sold with in-runners?

No, the stock 80mm outrunners are more than sufficient. Grass take offs in less than 100' and all the verticle you need. More than enough speed to knife edge. Over 5 minutes flight time on 2 6250 mah batteries. Of course if you want, you can always upgrade it yourself to 90mm inrunners if you "feel the need for speed", but frankly 80mm inrunners would not improve it's stock performance significantly anyway to warrant the cost. And this is coming from someone who has upgraded every 90mm edf I have with the 12 blade inrunner and every 80mm with inrunners, except the A10.

[Coconut]

Thanks for the info.

[SanExup]

Hugh, do you have all trailing link retracts on yours?

[Ivan Marmara]

I have recently purchased the Freewing A10 80mm and currently have 2 x Admiral 6000mAh batteries installed in tandem in the nose compartment under the canopy. From a particular video posted by Motion Rc, The A10 has been flown in the same configuration and it was stated that they maintained the same CG (78mm from leading edge as the manual recommends).
My question is: was any weight added to the tail in order to compensate for the nose heavy situation as from what I calculated it needs approximately 130 grams on the tail to balance the aircraft at the recommended CG point. Or putting an adjustment of UP elevator (as recommended in the manual) is enough to compensate the nose heavy situation.

Thanks

Ivan.