9.8kg wow thats light compared to mine, mine came in at 11kg for some reason

whats the average weight for the f16 1/8? the site says 8kg which i find hard to believe and that was probably before the centre tank was included

Mine is around 10.5 Kg.
This is not a light plane. (F-16, 1/8) Basic.
Wing loading is very hight.
You will notice when you fly it.
Specially at landings.
Good luck.

Juan.

Thanx all for your replies,

as for my weight 9.8kg, well i did not install some things just to make things lighter for the maiden and then add them later on.
the things i didn't install are
1. Cockpit
2. cylinders and locks for operating canopy (just installed a hatch lock)
3. wingtip missiles and rails

Bob, thanx for your advices, ill start working on it this weekend. i checked all leaks and so far am lucky cuz the only leaks i have are on the door cylinders and its not major too. the landing gear is working flawlessly from 100psi for about 4-5 cycles.!! am using the flyeagle EV5U for brakes, doors and gears and using airpower EV2U on mode3 for main retract cylinder lock.
Wessa, maybe 8kg is for the standard version airframe only!! dont think 8kg possible on this advanced version.


am planning to use old P80, i guess 18lb thrust, is this critical?

KAON

Install wing tip missiles.
You will see it better in air.
Will not add significant weight.
With 18 # thrust I recommend use flaps for take off if you are rolling on 600 Ft. or less runway.

Juan.

Kaon, you should be ok, just spool up with the brakes on, rotate at the last minute and remember to try and keep a fairly flat climb out. With your setup it wont be a power house but will fly fine.

I am running the P80se which pushes out 22lbs of thrust (according to the jetcat site) and like i said earlier it came in at 11kgs. The strip i did my test flight off was probably no longer ther 100 meters and i didnt use brakes on spool up nor did Igo straight to full throttle from a standing start which i probably should have and also used no flaps, so i dont think you will have any trouble. Im not saying what i did was right but it will give you a good indication for your flight, they do fly really really well, this is my first turbine and Im happy to say that i was scared to fly it and had heard many scary stories about jets not to mention watch heaps of people crash/bounce them down the runway but when it came to the test flight, after the 2nd circuit Iwas actually feeling very comfortable with the model and actually began to enjoy it.

I have the standard version however thinking about whats in it, to try and work out where my extra weight is, Ihave drawn the conclusion that its probably due to the thicker heavy duty exhuast tube and the large batteries to to help balance it 3x 5200 lithium ions plus the cockpit.

best of luck

Definately fit the wing tip missiles, they weigh next to nothing but make a huge difference when flying it as they show up really well in the turns. Also make absolutely sure your brakes work faultlessly, I thought I had but hadn't and filed off most of my missiles when I landed and couldn't get it stopped (they land very fast!). Good luck with your maiden flight.

Fly FEJ F-16 (1/8) from 100 M. strip without breaking something in time is hard to beleive.
You might be rolling into 20+ Mph wind. At least.
Do you?

Juan.

hi bob, all

well i anticipate no problem on takeoff cuz i'll be flying from an actual runway so there's no limit. bob, could you send me pics for what you did with the door cylinder hinges to reinforce them.
thnx
KAON

Hey Wessa,

I did not read your maiden flight report?

How did it go in detail?


Mav

Kaon,

Here's some pictures of how I reinforced the door hinges. The first picture is from the side of the hinge and outlines the shape of the reinforcement plate that I cut out. I made it out of Polyply (fiberglass plate like G10 if you're not familiar with it), but it could also be made out of brass or aluminum sheet. Then I glued it on the side of the hinge (after removing the connection to the door cylinder, of course), and redrilled for the door cylinder bolt and reattached the door cylinder. The second pictures shows the reinforcement plate glued to the side (left side in the picture) of the hinge.

If you do not do this, then its only a matter of time before the "tab" that the door cylinder bolts onto on the hinge breaks off and you'll have to replace the whole hinge. I have yet to find *any* plastic hinges that don't eventually break like this if they are not reinforced...

Bob

bit of an update-

A group of us went for a fly up in Marybough yesterday and managed to put another 4 flights on my F16 which im now happy to say that im starting to get very comfortable with it. The first flight of the day was a bit of a scare as i though my air system was all sorted and leak free, I certainly didnt have any issues on the day of the maiden how ever we couldnt keep air in it the entire day and the first flight resulted in the gear not deploying till the last minute and the nose wheel folding on landing causing very little damage. So for the remainder of the day we just flew it with the wheels down. By the 3rd flight i wasnt nervous at all and really started to put it though its paces, Ive even got the landings almost spot on now too. The Pylon boys were also out there and had a radar gun so for fun we even did a heap of high speed runs, with the wheels down the best we got out of it was 228kph which we rekon could easily be 250 with the wheels up as they create alot of drag whilst there down. I did get the first flight on video with the nose wheel folding, I just have to upload it so when i get a chance i will throw a link up for those that are interested

Mav,

The maiden was pretty uneventful, everything went to text book except for the landing which Imanaged to touch down in the one decent hole at the begining of the strip causing me to bounce down the runway and cracked the front former where the nose wheels bolts on to. Due to that damage it only flew once that day as Ididnt want to break the former any futher.

Juan Garcia,

mate Australia has very few places with tarmac runways, infact im not even aware of any in queensland not official ones anyway. Most flying club runways are grass and on average are no more then 150meters. The video that i got from this weekend shows a strip that is probably the best for jets within about a 4hr radius of brisbane, it would only be 150meters and with my take off i held it on the ground as long as i could to get as much speed as i could my guess would be i rotated at about the 120/130meter mark, If i needed to i could have rotated alot earlier. I have a few videos of mates flying of the strip that i did my maiden on which i will post up as well when i get the time and show you that it was only about 100/120meters in length, Igot off this strip no worries at all. I will say that your take off distance is also a variable based on how long the grass is and how heavy the model is, also keep in the back of your mind that mine thus far reading this thread would be one of the heavyier ones at 11kg dry and having the flyeagle 3rd tank it would probably weigh in at 13/14kg full take off weight

Wessa 02:

What P-80 do you have?

Thak you,
Juan.

quick update,

i tried to maiden this weekend but i got problems with my fuel system so i aborted. i got too many air bubbles in the fuel line to the turbine to the point that the UAT was 90% air!! i took it back and disassembled the tanks and found that the centre fuel tank nipple fitting was leaking (which was BVM btw!!!!!!). i put thread lock and solved the issue. secondly, i found the seams on the tanks was leaking too. so i added thin CA on it and left it to get in the seams. i tested the tanks filled them back and forth several times and all seams ok. am not sure of my tank seam correction method?? did u guys face such problem before?

KAON

Kaon,

Yes, I had this problem with the tanks on my FEJ F-15. I know you don't want to hear this, but you need to empty the tanks completely, take them out of the airplane, clean the outside with MEK or Acetone, and cover each seam all the way around the tank with 1 1/2" fiberglass tape and *good quality* epoxy. You can do it now or do it later... Trust me, BTDT...

Bob

Kaon:

Use the same or similar material of the tanks to repair them; Fiberglass with polyester resin is "Ok".
Ca. is not advisable here.
The method is simple.
1) Presurize the tank with air.
2) Spray some soap water on suspected area.
3) Sand the area.
4) Stik some F. gloth cloth with resin.

This will work for sure.
Never a problem again.
Beleive me.
I also use some kind of Epoxy but I don't know if you can find it where you live.

Juan.

FEJ Liberty S NIB for sale. SOLD
Ref post 36 of Liberty thread;

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_90...mpage_2/tm.htm

Yes it is in the FS section also.

PM if interested.

Mav

hi juan,bob,

here goes nothing... looks like i'll be doing it all over again!! 2nd time too!... fiberglass tape with epoxy. well it looks like thats more right and rigid than CA. thanx for the tip guys

KAON

Juan

As i mentioned before, I have the Jetcat P80se

also have a look at this link, there is another guy who has one of these f16's and he rekons he can get it off the deck in 90m on a 140m strip. he's got some videos as well which are not bad to watch

http://wigen.net/hobby/f-16/

Wessa:

That explains a lot, I think.
My P-80 is an older version and spooling time is monstruous.
Thank's for the videos.
Will see them ASAP.

Juan.

Hi Guys, here isa vid of my F16's second flight, sorry for the quality, Iwas in a little bit of a rush. this flight Ihad an air leak and couldnt deploy the gear properly causing the nose wheel to fold on landing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWqU0VQKklo

Enjoy

Wes

Well done Wes. You should bring it to Temora this year and we can do a twin dual flight as mine is the same scheme!

Mav

Hi Mav,

Thanks for the comments, Unless work goes stupid or my contract doesnt get renewed which either are highly unlikely I will be there, so we definetly need to do a few tandum flights.

Wes

Congratulations Wessa.
Good job.

Juan.

Thanks Juan,


I saw your video on the fly eagle site the other day, love the colour scheme, great flight too.

Wes