Nice flying! Makes a guy want to take his F35 out and do some tumbles.

Originally Posted by johnbone

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I still get a lot of fun out of her at the local park.

How have Your landing gears held up flying off/onto, the grass ?

Bille

I just flew mine today for the first time...what a thrill. Mine is from Hobby Lobby, but I am sure it is the same as the FreeWing. One issue I noticed was that the foam around the nozzle wasn't put on straight so I removed it and re-glued it in the correct position. I am using a DX-8 so I was able to slow down the retracts to keep them from banging into position. The retracts do look like they will break if landed too hard... I greased my first one, got lucky.

Question on the VT...the manual said to use the rudder mix for the left/right on the nozzle. I set mine up to mix on the aileron. Is there a reason it is suggested to mix using the rudder? The first time I used the VT really got the heart rate up...what a kick!

You did what?
YAW is rudder. The F35 has a single nozzle at the aircrafts cg axis so mixing it with roll will add a yaw action where may only want roll.
Because the model doesn't have rudders they instruct to have the TV assume rudder control as long as power is being applied. You see this in the majority of the TV models setups absent of rudders.
You're basically are flying Mod2 trying to get roll from yaw. This an old school kind of thinking and unnecessary if you actually have the control given to you.

So! You have it Y'd to the wrong controls. It should be Y'd to the steering.
Its not going to crash you but its not going to allow you to control it correctly. That said it does assist in a crabbing configuration.

That makes sense...I changed it back to Rudder.

Originally Posted by BilleFly

How have Your landing gears held up flying off/onto, the grass ?
Bille

I changed them to servoless units long ago. Mains were ok but the stock front gear collapsed from day one.
John

Originally Posted by 19000rpm

Nice flying! Makes a guy want to take his F35 out and do some tumbles.

Thanks. The hard part with these small cams with slight wide angle lens and no zoom is keeping the plane in close so it doesn't look like a speck in the sky. Easier to keep a blowfly buzzing your head
John

Originally Posted by johnbone

Thanks. The hard part with these small cams with slight wide angle lens and no zoom is keeping the plane in close so it doesn't look like a speck in the sky. Easier to keep a blowfly buzzing your head
John

So true. A common short fall of many head cam vids you avoided.

I now have about 15 flights on my F-35 and I am having a weird problem. My nose gear doesn't always extend all the way...takes a couple of cycles to get it down and locked. It always works on the bench...only fails in flight. I have removed the gear and made sure it isn't hanging up somewhere, the servo seems strong and doesn't show any signs of broken gear teeth. Has anyone just replaced the nose gear with a servoless nosegear and still used the stock mechanical gear on the main landing gear? I have a set of E-flite gear...not sure if that would be the best choice. Any suggestions??

I'm in the process of that now. I just can't find a good way to get the steering connected.

I just gave up on the steering and put reg. servoless retracts in 4 mains and nose. Works pretty good. I just line her up when I put her down, n' wot it into the sky!

Originally Posted by DXStickman

I now have about 15 flights on my F-35 and I am having a weird problem. My nose gear doesn't always extend all the way...takes a couple of cycles to get it down and locked. It always works on the bench...only fails in flight. I have removed the gear and made sure it isn't hanging up somewhere, the servo seems strong and doesn't show any signs of broken gear teeth. Has anyone just replaced the nose gear with a servoless nosegear and still used the stock mechanical gear on the main landing gear? I have a set of E-flite gear...not sure if that would be the best choice. Any suggestions??

You can try changing the endpoints on the gear channel. I use a DX7 and set the extended position at 137%. That seems to work. It locks and doesn't fold. At least on smooth surfaces.

I think the Eflites are too big for this plane. Check back a little in the thread and you'll find a link to some HK nose and main retracts. They are just the right size. I'm going to use them in the F35 and Su34.

I haven't done it yet, but I think the strut on the HK steerable nose gear can be modified to fit the stock oleo and steering mechanism.

Thanks for the suggestions. Today I took the nose gear apart and didn't see anything that would cause it to hang up. I replaced the pushrod with a straight piece of wire. I did reset the end points to ensure a full lock on all gear in both the up & down positions. I am using a DX-8 so I am able to set the speed of the gear servos...I did have them slowed down quite a bit, so I increased the speed just a bit. I will fly it again tomorrow and see what happens. Next will be a servo replacement, and if that doesn't work a complete re-do of the gear to servo-less retracts.

Yesterday I discovered the cause of my nose gear problem. The pushrod for the nose steering needs to be secured so that it can not move sideways when the gear is raised or lowered.

On my second flight today I had an in-flight failure of the right outboard horizontal stabilator hinge...it pulled out of the foam. It caused an uncontrolled roll, followed by a vertical dive into the ground from about 100 feet. I saw the tail come apart in the air. Plane is totaled, electronics seem OK. Cheap Chinese glue doing it's magic once again.

Yeah, I even replaced mine (as is highly recommeded) with different hinges and they are constantly coming out! I've reglued them in several times... I check them before every flight now. Sorry about your loss