3DFoamy.com F-5 park jet maiden
12-07-2008, 01:48 AM
#1
Senior Member
Thread Starter
3DFoamy.com F-5 park jet maiden
Here's the latest addition to my fleet, a 3DFoamy.com F-5 Tiger II. I used to fly a 3DF F-14 but it died last year due to the GWS receiver going Tango Uniform. I loved flying the park jet around after a good day of flying, and decided to replace with F-14 with a T-38 kit, converted to an F-5. I'm not the best at painting but I loved the idea of a Tiger Meet scheme, so that's the scheme I went for. I think it turned out pretty well; just need to print up a tiger decal for the tail. Got four good flights in today and I'm happy to report that the F-5 flies very well. It has much more "Go exactly where you point it" flight characteristics versus the F-14. Part of that I would attribute to the low, small wing with little sweep and part of it would be the fact that my F-14 was a bit more nose-heavy than this airplane. Rolls with the F-5 are "on a wire" axial and inverted flight is much easier than the F-14. Speed with the Hacker A20-20L was pretty good at around 50mph. Being a lightweight foam pusher with a flat plate airfoil, it slows down great and lands gently in a space of about three feet. I think a new set of batteries and potentially a different prop from the Slo-Fly 9x6 may get a little more speed out of the plane. One thing about hand-launching this plane is due to the small wing, it torques over a lot more than the F-14 until it builds some forward speed. Easy to correct for by simply launching it at a 45 degree nose-up angle. By the time it torques over, it's already climbing through 50 feet. The lighting conditions weren't that great for photos today, especially considering we were just using my compact Canon PowerShot 800, but I think the pictures below do a good job showing how she looks in the air. If you are tired of flying the same old stuff at the field, I would highly recommend one of the park jets from www.3dfoamy.com . I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun with this one!
