manuel frias

Yea I have and they wont do any think the warranty stops when you throe it out of you’re hands and start flying and you wont need to buy new electronics all the parkzone electronics are crap. Well you get what you pay for and 26$ wont get you to far in this hobby

gundamnitpete

just thought i'd share my FW-190 experience....


bought the planea few months ago as my first RC aircraft, after hours reading here on RCU i decided it was the better plane, over the mustang (my first choice).

i spent a little time on a simulator at the hobby shop, and took the plane for a flight.

first flight went great, i got a little over board with it tho, flew for a lil to long and the motor cut off at a not so good time. landed the plane on it's belly, no damage whatso ever.

second flight, also great, until i got disorented, got inverted about 10 feet off the ground, and pulled up right into the ground, broken inner structure.

replaced the structure, and went for a third flight. it went well, until some wind knocked the plane over, and again, went nose into the ground.

just replaced the fuse, and gearbox, and flew it again today.

the plane flys like a dream, i honestly find no downsides with to what so ever, aside from the motor pinion, which slipped in flight today, i was able to glide the plane down fine tho.

it'll loop, roll, fly inverted.

all in all, a VERY good buy for 180$, just wait for a good day to fly it, my most expensive repair was from being impateitn on a non calm day.

mezd

I had simmilar problems with my FW, i also had the same thing with a Hobbyzone Aerobird extreme.
In both cases i have been very lucky, my local hobby shop is the importer for PZ & HZ and both times they have swapped the reveiver over for me - no questions asked.

I can only assume that it is a very common problem - however like someone else said, you get what you pay for.

All this asside - i love my FW, think its great fun!

mezd

Hey Pete,

Good to hear you doing so well - did you say this is your first plane? How was the addrenalin on you first launch?!!

gundamnitpete

haha, yes my first plane, and i'm very much into the hobby, tons fo fun!

bad news tho, yesterday i took the plane for another flight. the first one went okay, but at the end the motor cut and i didn't have enough power to avoid a tree (entirely).

plane clipped a small branch and did one cartwheel on the ground, i went and took a look, and it was fine, to my eyes anyway.

we rechared, and went for another flight.

apparently, the wing suffered major spar damage, because on the second flight, during a split S, the right wing folded.

the plane lawndarted directly into a tree. lucky, ALL the electronics were fine, and i had a spare fuse (i ordered one a while back, and it was damaged at the LHS, so i got a new one and the damaged one free).

so today, i swapped all the eletronics over to the spare fuse, and bought a new wing.

took the plane for a flight today, and it flew beautifully. perfect flight and perfect landing.

tomarrow we will see how things go

mezd

Yes i have just finished rebuilding mine after a.. lets say radio glitch! Was doing a full throttle bank turn and the stick went dead - so i watched it do a beautiful nose dive!
Put a new internal structure into it, glued up the fuse and put in a new receiver ( off other plane).
My front cowl is now held together with clear packaging tape, but i dont want to put a new one on until im sure she's ok!!

Wont get her out until the weekend now though!

rleed

Wow[X(]..Horizon replaced my wrecked FW-190 no questions asked! I had a radio glitch that resulted in its destruction, sent it back and they replaced it. Hats off to Horizon, this kind of service is becoming very, very rare these days. On another note, has anyone ever considered/attempted to add a couple of degrees of dihedral to the wing of the FW? I think it would be pretty easy. Simply split the wing and re-attach it with ca and some fiber mesh material with spacers under each wing tip to get the desired angle. If more strength is desired you could insert a couple of sub spars into the foam at the joint. I think this may add some inherent stability to this plane and make it a little easier to fly. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks, RLeed

gundamnitpete

flew again today. the plane flies great, although i did notice a big tendency to snap roll when pulling hard G's (pulling up from a high speed loop)


i've found the plane flies best with the CG about 1/4 to 1/2 and inch forward of the front line of the "CG box" on the bottom of the wing. even with this setup, the plane wants to climb at full throttle, and flies extremely gracfully at 1/2 throttle.

one word of adivce, when banking, keep the nose down, the plane will tip stall very easy, i find that banking into the turn, and then givving it a little bit of out alieron works well.

mezd

Yes mine climbs as full throttle, i have mine trimmed to fly straight at just above 1/2 throttle.

I usually use quite a bit of elevator when i bank mine - but i like pulling the turns tight... thats just me.

Have you inverted yet - i find with mine that you need almost full down elevator to keep it straight...... but that just could be because of the way i have it trimmed.

gundamnitpete

inverted mine will fly level with about 1/2 stick, which kinda feels like full, haha.

what clevis is your elevator at? mine is second from the shortest, i was thinking of going with the shortest, but it's very pitch sensitive anyway.

gunracer

low wing warbirds, especially the fighters, are meant to be inherently unstable to some degree...this is what gives them their aerobatic capabilities...if you add dihedral to the wings, she won't roll, turn and fly inverted as well...the really crucial thing on this model is the center of gravity...once you get that figured out, she's solid...

gundamnitpete

lol, well i flew it directly into a tree at 1/2 throttle, accidently. luckily it was at the park just down the road form my house, it's still about 100 feet up in the air, i'm hoping for a big gust of wind to bring it down sometime today, otherwise it's spitfire for me! haha

rleed

I may get a bare wing and give it a try just for the heck of it. I had 5 flights on my previous FW till the radio freaked out. I was flying it w/o the extra nose weight and the battery located foward in the battery tray. It balanced out per the instructions this way. Now I get to start all over again. I'll advise on how it turns out and maybe post some pics of the wing mod. RLeed

gundamnitpete

rleed, while you've got the wing sperated, you might as well throw a carbon fiber rod in the wings to give the spar some extra strength.

i find the plane flies best with the prop weight, imho.


i got the plane back, the tail was ripped off, so i'm glueing ti back now, and the interstructure is broken so i have one ordered already.

rleed

That was the plan for the wing, For $35 it may be fun to see if 2 degrees of dihedral affects its flight characteristics. I can't leave well enough alone, I'll probably end up crashing another one!!

gundamnitpete

here is an idea i had for "retracts" activated by the X-port.

i've never used a "drop module" but i assume it's spring loaded, and when you press the xport it drops whatever is in it's basket??

if you epoxy a pair of spring loaded wire landing gear into the wings, and have the wheels meet right in the center of the wing, you could put the drop module there, and use it to hold the landing gear up.

thus you coudl hand launch, and when you want to land, hit the X-port and your landing gear pop right out.

mezd

I had thought of something like that, bu didnt know what the extra weight would do to balance etc. Would be interesting to see how the x-port works, could you actually wire a servo to it?

I am actually tempted to try the combat kit though!!! has anyone tried them?

gundamnitpete

i've been wanting to try combat for a long time now, up at the LHS they got aerobird extreme (possibly a firebird, i didn't get a good look) for $100.

i was thinking of buying it, and two combat modules, to play with my brother george, although i'm sure the focke wulf would have the advantage, haha

i'm betting that it could lift the weight of the drop module and spring loaded retracts, esp if you have lipos.

i read somewhere, i think on here, that the X-port works buy switching all battery power to the X-port module with you hit the switch, which is why you loose all engine and control surfaces when you press the button on your transmitter.

if you wired it directly to a servo, i'm sure it could move it, but you'd have to bring the plane back down, and push the servo arm back to it's original position.

tclaridge

Drop module is not spring loaded, it is an electro-magnetic relay. The button cuts the current, and therefore stops the electro-magnet current which releases the little loop that holds your payload. So the drop module is always "on", and holding the button turns it "off." Hope this helps.

rleed

Just got back from flying all day today. Perfect wind conditions, not to hot, and put six flights on the FW!!! I started with the extra prop weight and it was a little squirrely but was able to land w/o incident. Took the prop weight off and it now flies perfect!! Neutral trims, hands off! Loops, Rolls, no problem. Only one issue, after a quick charge the batteries don't seem to last very long. Will they run longer if charged at a lower rate over a longer period of time? BTW these are the stock batteries . What does it take to do a li-po conversion on one of these????

MAX HEADSPEED

Look at page 9 of the instruction manual. It has the info you are seeking. You must obtain and use a Li-Po charger. The lighter battery my require you to utilize the hub weight again to keep the CG correct.
We're currently enduring the 2nd weekend in a row of high winds. Last weekend included rain. Hope you sent some of that good weather that you enjoyed today so that we may have it for tomorrow. I need to fly something soon. I've been getting my flight fix on the LHS flight sim display but it just aint the same but it helps.

gundamnitpete

put one flight on my wulf today, and about 343454326534674567 on this air hogs aero ace, haha

the wolf flew perfect today tho, although i need to order some parts, it flies great the way it is, but the asthetics are all messed up big time

rleed

So you remove the jumper (J-3), get a li-po and charger, re-balance and your ready to go? Sounds way to easy.

MAX HEADSPEED

You can download a copy of any Owner's Manual of the Horizon Hobby product line from their web site.

rleed

I have the manual and I just bought the parkzone 11.1V 2200mAh 3cell li-po and charger combo today. (PN. PKZ 1030). I'm out of town most of this week for work so I won't get to try it till this weekend. It is significantly lighter than the Ni-Mh battery so the extra nose weight will probably go back on. Also I talked my Dad into the Spitfire so we will see how that one performs stock!