have any of you guys removed the gear and hand launched this jet. i'm getting a bit cheesed off with the retracts as mine have not been very reliable, and it would really improve the power to weight ratio. was thinking of putting some plywood skids on the bottom for landing?

Originally Posted by jb0005

have any of you guys removed the gear and hand launched this jet. i'm getting a bit cheesed off with the retracts as mine have not been very reliable, and it would really improve the power to weight ratio. was thinking of putting some plywood skids on the bottom for landing?

Check the gear connections.....I had the same issue on one main....it worked one time then not the next time. I found the connection loose.

Originally Posted by kydawg1

Check the gear connections.....I had the same issue on one main....it worked one time then not the next time. I found the connection loose.

Me too. Once I corrected the loose connector, the gear have performed perfectly. But to answer your question, the plane is powered quite well and slows down impressively. I think it would hand-launch no problem but the bottom would need some reinforcement cause that foam wouldn't last long being belly-landed...

Originally Posted by jb0005

have any of you guys removed the gear and hand launched this jet. i'm getting a bit cheesed off with the retracts as mine have not been very reliable, and it would really improve the power to weight ratio. was thinking of putting some plywood skids on the bottom for landing?

Is it 1 particular retract or all? They have proved very reliable for me n have yet to encounter n issue, other than me over tightening the case n binding the gear. Try what the others have said, if not n $ aint an issue HL sells a solo retract w/o the strut n shock.

i have had 2 problems so far, the front retract was intermittent and so was replaced, and i later discovered a loose wire to be the culprit, so the retract itself was probably fine. the new one i was sent though did have a different design, much beefier and with metal clips holding the nose wheels on instead of the nylon caps of the previous design. great i thought!..more durable....after a couple of normal flights, i was in the process of lifting off when one of these metal clips has popped off along with one of the nose wheels and promptly made its way through the intake and wiped out every blade on my fan! i am lucky the jet rotates/lifts off at such a high speed, as i had just enough energy to get the nose down and then flare... no damage!
so while waiting for my new fan i decided to replace the front wheels with some a little bigger and put metal wheel collars back on...when i went to test my work the front retract worked fine but now one of the rear ones won't retract. as you can appreciate, at this point i'm kinda p@ssed off. so i have pulled the retract out, dissassembled and put back together half a dozen times trying different things, and it will extend but not retract. i'm thinking i'll get the fan reinstalled when it gets here and check the motor is still ok after its ordeal, and if so then order another retract if i can't get this one to work(and its looking that way). i love this jet, but my $100 t45 from hobbyking is far more reliable and easier to live with, and almost as fast now i've converted it to 4s

Sometimes the collet screws get loose causing the strut to move thus when they retract or detract they bind. I would try to retract n detract the problematic retracts without the strut n trunnion. This would eleminate those as the problem. If it works fine without the strut n trunnion then those are the problem. Just a personal view of whatelse I would do to narrow it down. If u tried it already then IDK whatelse to say.

Well I finally found a f-18, and joined the HL f-18 club.
wow inpressive jet..I havent read all 800+ threads here, so I have some question.
1. how much runway is needed to get airbourne? 150 ft? 200 ?
2. does it have 1 /1 thrust/weight ratio?
3.didnt see spare part's list like on the f-35 freewing.
4.the foam is Very soft, did yal harden yours with polycrilic??
5.how fast is it? 60-80 mph ?
Thanks Lee

Originally Posted by capt soap

Well I finally found a f-18, and joined the HL f-18 club.
wow inpressive jet..I havent read all 800+ threads here, so I have some question.
1. how much runway is needed to get airbourne? 150 ft? 200 ?
2. does it have 1 /1 thrust/weight ratio?
3.didnt see spare part's list like on the f-35 freewing.
4.the foam is Very soft, did yal harden yours with polycrilic??
5.how fast is it? 60-80 mph ?
Thanks Lee

1. Not sure how much runway this thing needs. However, having read information here and there and watching videos, this jet should lift off in very short order if you pour on the coals from the get go. I think where people may be having difficulties in getting it off the ground is that they did not disable the elevator thrust vectoring on take off. If the nozzles are rotating with the elevators, the thrust may actually be pushing the plane into the ground, thus requiring much more speed before lift off.
2. Also from bits and pieces of information I've read and from some rough calculations, it would be close to 1:1.
4. I haven't done anything to mine and don't plan on it.
5. If it can achieve 1:1 thrust/weight, it should be able to get up around 100 mph.

I've just finished mine, but still waiting from my batteries from HK. Winter is closing in, so probably no maiden till spring. I didn't buy the HL jet. Instead, I got the one from Australia in the RAAF colors. Shipping from HL to Canada is insane. HL uses UPS or USPS. UPS is not Canadian friendly ($209.00 shipping) on cross border shopping and USPS ($232.00) charges triple over-sized rates on this.
I got mine shipped to my door from OZ and still saved a bundle of money. This likely won't apply to delivery from HL to within the CONUS. Same plane but IMO, the color scheme is much more inspiring.
http://www.xtremehobby.ashop.com.au/...ion---pnp.html

Thanks for the fast response viper.

Originally Posted by xviper

1. Not sure how much runway this thing needs. However, having read information here and there and watching videos, this jet should lift off in very short order if you pour on the coals from the get go. I think where people may be having difficulties in getting it off the ground is that they did not disable the elevator thrust vectoring on take off. If the nozzles are rotating with the elevators, the thrust may actually be pushing the plane into the ground, thus requiring much more speed before lift off.

I would think the opposite - TV would supplement the force exerted by the elevators to rotate the plane during takeoff.

I think something to try is to apply slight up elevator while the plane accelerates, let the wings start to generate lift, and allow it to get off the ground on its own, just like the real jet - then you can jerk the stick back for a steeper climb. That would certainly avoid any tail-scraping, too.

Originally Posted by fredmdbud

I would think the opposite - TV would supplement the force exerted by the elevators to rotate the plane during takeoff.

I think something to try is to apply slight up elevator while the plane accelerates, let the wings start to generate lift, and allow it to get off the ground on its own, just like the real jet - then you can jerk the stick back for a steeper climb. That would certainly avoid any tail-scraping, too.

It may help to rotate the plane, but downward thrust does not equate to forward thrust and hence, acceleration would suffer as soon as the thrust diverges from the longitudinal axis of the plane. I think the only way to test this is the try it both ways. Remember early in this thread, someone had a very hard time getting the thing to lift off the ground. It took up a lot of runway before it flew. I don't recall seeing what he did to resolve this but he did manage to get it to lift off "normally" eventually. I do remember reading somewhere that vectored thrust jets should take off with the VT defeated till it's in the air. This is not counting jets like the VT Sebart Mig-29, which can be held at a near vertical position and lift off on its own power. Someone who has flown this plane should try it both ways and report back.

If you pull the stick back enough to introduce as much as 20 degrees of TV deflection, you still have about 94% of the force vector accelerating in the forward direction (F x cos 20), and 34% in the vertical (F x sin 20). I am not suggesting anything near 30-45 degrees, which is what I suspect happens when a pilot prematurely pulls back too steeply on the stick, they actually reduce their acceleration in this case.

Originally Posted by xviper

It may help to rotate the plane, but downward thrust does not equate to forward thrust and hence, acceleration would suffer as soon as the thrust diverges from the longitudinal axis of the plane. I think the only way to test this is the try it both ways. Remember early in this thread, someone had a very hard time getting the thing to lift off the ground. It took up a lot of runway before it flew. I don't recall seeing what he did to resolve this but he did manage to get it to lift off "normally" eventually. I do remember reading somewhere that vectored thrust jets should take off with the VT defeated till it's in the air. This is not counting jets like the VT Sebart Mig-29, which can be held at a near vertical position and lift off on its own power. Someone who has flown this plane should try it both ways and report back.

I have that very same jet and I'll tell you right now that TV will get the nose to rotate earlier and get you off the ground in a shorter distance than with out it. I've run a mix that puts in a little tail down TV with elevator application on my jet for take off.. The 'real' jet actually does a similar thing except the rudders are used instead to give a tail down moment on take off....

There you have it ...

Originally Posted by xviper

I've just finished mine, but still waiting from my batteries from HK. Winter is closing in, so probably no maiden till spring. I didn't buy the HL jet. Instead, I got the one from Australia in the RAAF colors. Shipping from HL to Canada is insane. HL uses UPS or USPS. UPS is not Canadian friendly ($209.00 shipping) on cross border shopping and USPS ($232.00) charges triple over-sized rates on this.
I got mine shipped to my door from OZ and still saved a bundle of money. This likely won't apply to delivery from HL to within the CONUS. Same plane but IMO, the color scheme is much more inspiring.
http://www.xtremehobby.ashop.com.au/...ion---pnp.html

Well now your not telling him the whole story. Extreme wants $90 more for the Aussie scheme compared to the reg grey scheme. That & it's 188.27 to ship it to me here in Denver. HL only charges me about $25 to ship a jet here.

In fact I'd have to say Extreme is WAY over priced for most of the stuff. They want an average of a $120 more for the average FMS 1400 warbirds than what Nitroplanes, PW-RC or RCcastle charges. In fact they are over priced on the other manufactures too. Except for Parkzone & Eflite. They( Horizone) would drop Extreme & not sell to them in a heartbeat if they tried to markup the retail on their products.

If I was to get the Aussie F-18 from Xtreme it whould cost exactly $666.68 in US $'s. I'd be insane to get one. Very sad. I'd love to get one.