just finished mine, man am I tired. painted all red, red and white striped bottom wing. Some detail work to do still but am going to head out in 5 or 6 hours and maiden it at the local school yard. Was my first scratchbuild and it was a lot of fun. Used electronics I had laying around. Will report out how the maiden went later tomorrow. Thanks for all of the great information in this thread. Even if she goes down in flames, it was a fun experience starting with nothing but parts and foam sheets and producing a plane.

Maiden went well despite teh 15 degree temps. I'll need to add adjust the control horns a bit to increase throws on the aileron and probably try my BP 2212-10 motor instead of the 400XT that is in there now. Could use more power. I suspect cold weather also impacted power I was getting from my battery (1300 mah 25C 3S). Nowthat I know it flies, I'll finish up painting a canopy and some odds and ends. That may have to wait, if I keep ignoring the family to work on my plane, I'll be sorry!

Conrats and welcome to the F&L club!

Jim

Getting packed for moving next week, so I cleaned out the workshop. If you remember, I had a bad crash with my pusher F&L ("Orbiter") a few weeks back. So regretfully, I striped it of all equipment, and junked a good half of the airframe (the smashed fuselage, vertical tails, elevator).

I'm keeping the wing and tail booms for a possible rebuild once we're at our new place. The wing will need some serious work -- I'll probably trim the tips as they are pretty ripped up. WS will drop from 42" to 40", still plenty to carry it along. Tape will take care of the dings on the leading edge. I might convert it to a standard tractor, as I had serious problems hand-launching it with enough force without risking my fingers! (Ideas welcome...)

As for my second F&L, it's going on the backburner again, unless I can secure some work space and a place to spray paint (we're going to be living in a condo in downtown Toronto -- no workshop for the next twelve months ). Too bad -- I got a nice three-blade prop for it, looking forward to trying it out!

My UM F&L is on hold because my green dot vapor brick is having servo issues; so I am swapping in an AR6400 with AP05 BL motor; which may mean i'll have to redesign a few things up front.

Stay tuned

Here are some onboard flight videos of my SPAD F&L made from Corroplast.

I do believe I've finally gotten the CG dialed in. She's heavy, but flies well.

Thanks for a great design !!!

Budd Cam - Funder & Lightning (2 min 3 sec)

RC IFR into fog - onboard camera (2 min 16 sec)

Made from cellfoam88, BP motor and Eflite 18 amp esc, GWS HD8X6 prop. Trying to figure out how to get the word FUNDER in big yellow letters on the top of the wing. Could hand paint it but that would not look so good, printing the letters on white decal paper may work. Should be able to fly it tomorrow (I hope)!

Cincy...

Kinda looks like the one sitting behind me!

Looks great. Keep us posted on the maiden. Have FUN!!

-Lee

Yeah, when I'm not working with military type planes, I tend to paint my planes red. Brightened up the booms with yellow acrylic. Attached a pic of the bottom side too. Will figure out how to add the word FUNDER in yellow across the topside of the wing. I have already flown it using a 400XT motor and different prop. I suspect this set up will be a good deal faster.

Thanks for the design and all of the info.

I'm playing with a new design fellas. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with the flight characteristics of the current design...but I've always wanted to push the nose forward a bit like the real "Lightning".

Nothing extreme. The nose has been pushed up by 1.25" while the canopy has moved by 2.5". The belly has more area up front too.

I'll give this a try on the one I'm building for dog fighting and let you know how she flies.

-Lee

Originally Posted by cincy

Made from cellfoam88, BP motor and Eflite 18 amp esc, GWS HD8X6 prop. Trying to figure out how to get the word FUNDER in big yellow letters on the top of the wing. Could hand paint it but that would not look so good, printing the letters on white decal paper may work. Should be able to fly it tomorrow (I hope)!

Cincy, I think I got a big sheet of letters and numbers from Michael's hobby shop here in town. Just peel off the letters and then maybe put some WBPU over them to hold them in place.

Don

Originally Posted by beemerdon

Cincy, I think I got a big sheet of letters and numbers from Michael's hobby shop here in town. Just peel off the letters and then maybe put some WBPU over them to hold them in place.

Don

Great, thanks for the tip. I'll check it out

Lee,

I have always added 1 1/2" to my funders since the first one.

Look forward to seeing this built out!!

Originally Posted by yarsmythejr

I'm playing with a new design fellas. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with the flight characteristics of the current design...but I've always wanted to push the nose forward a bit like the real "Lightning".

Nothing extreme. The nose has been pushed up by 1.25" while the canopy has moved by 2.5". The belly has more area up front too.

I'll give this a try on the one I'm building for dog fighting and let you know how she flies.

-Lee

Coming together nicely. May have it completed before Friday. Now...what color to paint it??

Well, I've done it. I built a 40" FL. My first.

I did a bottom wrap KF wing, 6 layers of foam on the bottom side to store the 1300 lipo "inside", 2 layers on top. CF wing spar. Spruce square tail booms. 9g TP servos.

My AUW is 18 ounces with a TP2409-12. Power will not be an issue, but this is no light weight.

Not very "pretty" now that it's done.

Lousy weather here in the NW now, but hope to do a maiden soon. Will report then.

Thanks to all that have posted and provided thoughts on this project. Quite a change in styles from my Zagi wings and P51 type planes. A bit concerned about landing but the prop saver will hopefully "save" the prop and plane.

Blade