Freewing Hawk 70mm EDF

As a belated birthday pressie I bought a Freewing Hawk. A friend that I fly with has an Avanti S which flies really nice but the lack of scale doesn't do it for me. So reading the various reviews that said the Hawk was as good as the Avanti but with scale appearance. So I pulled the trigger and bought it from Motion RC.

The version I bought is the upgraded performance version with the 2957 - 2210kv inrunner motor and sprung oleo's. Comes complete with just the receiver and battery to supply and fit. 6S 4000mAh battery recommended.

Delivery was 5 days and is really well packaged. The model itself is well finished in Red Arrows livery, although the pilot is wearing a green flight suit, so that needs sorting. Assembly is not complicated and the instruction manual is well written, not in Chinglish!!



To pull the servo leads from the back to the front they supply a pull hook, nice touch.



Tail feathers first



Connect servos to the built in connection box which also provides power to the LEDS



goes together quickly

So with it assembled I painted the whole airframe with WBPU gloss varnish ( Johnsons Diamond Hard Floor Varnish) to give it some ding protection and also give it the gloss finish of the Red Arrows.

I carefully lifted the canopy of its base with a thin coffee stirrer and dressed up the cockpit. The pilot is secured with two small screws so he was quickly released and painted with a more authentic red flying suit. A bit of matt black for the instrument panels and some matt green for the seats.

Cockpit before



After



There has been some comments in the forums about the nose leg shimmying and someone has developed a 3D printed nose leg guideplate. So I printed and fitted that.



Some little details that are standard in the kit, gives a nice scale feel to what is a foamie EDF jet.





Finished ready for the maiden



So a long wait for the end of lockdown and a day with nice weather to maiden it.

Ralph
That's some serious nose wheel opening! Is there a door?
Made worse by the fact that aerodynamically the mains put away quite neatly.

Hi Q, no gear doors at all. The FMS version does have gear doors.

I'll see how it flies and may fit a nose gear door in the future. The plan was to fly it as it was designed, but as i've already started making changes, albeit cosmetic, I'll put it on the things to do.

It might be down the line a bit, but that is on my list for the future. I watched a video of one flying, sounds amazing. Nice looking model !

After all this lockdown malarkey I managed to maiden the Hawk today. To say the first flight was interesting is an understatement! Control throws and CofG were set exactly as per manual. The aileron response was ridiculous. The slightest touch, and I had 30% expo set, the thing (not an aeroplane at this time just a missile) took on a mind of its own and rolled around its axis like a spinning ballet dancer nearly giving me an unplanned bowel movement! :ohmy: :side: :silly: :ohmy: At least the roll was axial. :woohoo:

My second thought , after the panic, was to get it down ASAP. My first thought was just to dump it into the bushes! No trimming done, didnt even retract the undercarriage, I was more focused on getting it down in one or two pieces rather than a shower of white and red confetti. I managed to get it down with the most inelegant arrival when it twice bounced 10 foot up in the air, Skippy the kangaroo would have been proud! There was no way i was going around again. :oops: It was down and staying down, bounce or no bounce. But it survived, more than I can say for my nerves.

So, I checked the manual and my settings and they matched, ailerons 18mm up and 18mm down!!!!. So not my error. We held a conference with the rest of the guys that were flying and we decided that we would set the ailerons to what we thought looked sensible, 9mm up and down and pushed the expo to 60%. We also set a low rate of 5mm and 40% expo.

Change of underwear, bicycle clips fitted, new battery and i attempted a second flight. Much, much better. Still had a rapid roll rate but certainly more controllable. Low aileron rate didn't show much difference so I stayed on the higher rate. After 3 minutes of trimming and testing I started the landing manoeuvre. Having read other flight reports that told of bouncy landings I decided to take a very long final leg, full flaps, lowered the undercarriage (on this flight I had time to retract them!!) set it up and powered back to 10% throttle (I never completely close the throttle on an EDF, so that I have instant power if I need it). She gracefully landed with a very small bounce. :woohoo:

Took it back to the car, removed battery and packed it away in the car. Just done a full inspection and no damage other than a small scuff to the wing tips. I will have another go (flying not crashing!) tomorrow.

Well done.
An EDF maiden is always exciting and you usually more than you really want.

Well done Ralph, since you weren't exactly current did you fly something docile to get your eye in first? If the answer is no, dammit you're brave!

Well done indeed Ralph ! :ohmy: Can I borrow your bicycle clips when I maiden the Viggen ? That is if I ever get the time !

Yes Klippy, I flew a couple of 'tame' planes to get the thumbs limbered up. Flew it again today with a couple of adjustments and it seems to be much more controllable.

Crash, you're welcome to borrow my bicycle clips but they are well used and i'll need them for the Concorde maiden!!