Thrust Vectoring F-16

[19000rpm]

Right here Gabe. www.generalhobby.com/fighting-falcon-vector-thrust-aerobatic-fighter-plugandplay-p-286.html

It was $30 cheaper on sale last night when I bought it. It might go on sale again Black Friday, but I was taking no chances.

[Gabe]

Wow! $160 for a plug and play jet. Not too bad!

[19000rpm]

It's a really good looking and excellent flying plane as well as inexpensive. Looks much better than the pictures indicate. It performs like a much more expensive jet. Flies like it is on rails. Very precise aerobatics and will slow down to a crawl in high Alpha. I may kick it up to 5S.

OK. I'm also going to get one of these: www.hobby-lobby.com/eurofighter_arf_w_360_thrust_vectoring_electronic_retracts_oversize_1034290_prd1.htm 90mm, electronic retracts, etc.

The Eurofighter is the sister plane to the F/A 18 I've got. Uses all the same electronics as the F/A 18. And, with the canards, its flight envelope is just unbelievable. Check the video out on the HLI webpage.

Edit: Holy Carp! The F-16 shipped already and they upgraded my shipping at no cost!

[Gabe]

I didn't realize it was flying on a 4S. I bet that's a heckuva plane! I bet that 5S makes her scoot too!

[19000rpm]

The 4S flies this plane with authority. The 5S, and probably a 60A ESC, ought to be awesome...got the tracking number.

[19000rpm]

The TV F-16 arrived today when I was out flying. Opened it up and it's just like the original. Boy, am I happy.

Now the wife gets to wrap it for Christmas. "You don't expect me to wrap that big box?" she says. Mock horror in her eyes. I say, "Yes, I do." She says, "Well, OK." Like she'd just agreed to scale a huge mountain, or carry a 21 cu. ft. refrigerator on her back in a snow storm.

Little does she know I've got a few more big boxes coming for Christmas. I may have to wrap those myself...After, I wrap about a dozen of her "small" boxes

[akent]

Fun toys!
I love it!
Kent

[Gabe]

Lol! That's so typical of us RC guys. "Santa" mysteriously delivers a few extra boxes!

[19000rpm]

Santa can be one sneaky SOB.

[19000rpm]

I've had this plane together for a while. Waiting for good weather and to slot it into the maiden rotation.

There's only a couple of places close to home to fly these jets. One is the high school parking lot and the other is the high school track.

A little earlier today I maidened the BH F/A 18. That went well and with the weather getting better by the minute, I decided this would be the right day to maiden the new F-16.

The control check, taxi test and range check all went well. I am always mildly surprised when that happens; as in some cases all the bench checking doesn't yeild the expected results at the field.

The plane runs true as an arrow on the roll out. No adjustment just full throttle and a bit of up elevator puts it in a nice climb.

I hadn't balanced the fan on this model. The fan was a little noisey and the thrust, just mildly down, from the previous model. It flew well enough though. Trimming was a bit more than the old one also, so I spent a few laps getting it dialed in.

Once trimmed the plane flies very nicely. Both stable and agile. With the TV on it is just a blast. High Alpha, flips and spins are a snap to do. Recovery is just a matter of letting go of the sticks.

Somewhere down the line I'm going to balance the fan and add the 60A ESC and 5S. Right now I'm going to enjoy the reunion with the TV F-16, stock. I missed flying it. I missed looking at it on the shelf. It's good to have her back!

[19000rpm]

What I ended up doing was putting an Eflite fan and 32 motor in the F16. A nice step up in performance.

Yesterday as I was taking off, I usually opt for a nice scale like rotation, this time I decided to do an airshow rotation and go near vertical. It looks really cool. Boy, was that a bad decision.

It got about 15 ft in the air and the motor started sputtering. I pushed the stick forward hoping to get it level with the ground so it would glide. That almost worked. I still had a little power but not much. It got level and just kind of hung there for a second, and then stalled.

It kind of pancaked, slightly nose down, and when it hit it broke the nose off, broke the fuse at the wing strakes and crushed the intake bending the LG. Also, my hand made motor cover, I'd lost the original a number of flights ago, popped off. Other than that, most of the plane was undamaged except for the huge gouges the running track surface makes on foam where they come in contact.

As it turns out, the 4S battery chose the rotation moment to lose 2 cells. I balance my batteries almost every charge and the last time all cells were within 2 hundreds of a volt.

Maybe I should have load tested the battery. I might do that more often with the EDF batteries. This was the first time I'd ever had a battery completely collapse in flight.

Now there will be lots of light weight spackling to do. I'm really lucky that the foam didn't explode like might have happened if it had stalled from a higher altitude.

I'll also use the down time to make some nice new rockets out of basswood and plastic.