Mini F16 Thunderbirds

[FPVSteve]

I was thinking that when I saw your video mate - I'll try to get some video of this one once the wind dies down (not much luck lately!)

[Sheldon Holy]

I was given one of these a while ago. The guy went HK mad and bought loads of stuff. He got one of these and he said it was too small and would I like it?

Of course.

So I got him to give me an Rx too, and then I got a couple 800mah 3s packs from Giant Cod and we took it on the plane to America in a bin bag... Customs people were fascinated.

I flew it at on the top of a mountain in Topanga State park in California (I will post pictures soon), At Yellowstone - at some remote car park place and we found a deserted bit of pristine beach on Yellowstone lake... Was simply stunning there, and of course flying something made it 102020293821% better, and a few other places (I can't remember right now). But it met it's demise when It crashed and a wing broke off... It broke at the glue joint so I could have glued it back on. My mum moved it and then by the time I found the wing I had ripped the electronics out. A shame really. It flies very nicely and handles wind beautifully.

I also re did the linkages so it had 'tailerons' - elevon mixing on the elevators. It worked so much better than the stock setup. A shame I was dumb and destroyed it as it was great to fly.

[FPVSteve]

It has tailerons/elevons anyway

All four control surfaces move whether it be up/down/left/right :)

[Sheldon Holy]

Disconnect the ailerons. Just have the tail surfaces moving. Then tape the ailerons still. It flies infinitely better.

[FPVSteve]

Say again? Surely it'd have less roll authority?

[Sheldon Holy]

Nope. Just have plenty of throw (and lots of expo) and it flies brilliantly. I believe I also programmed in some differential. E.g. in a roll to the right, the right hand elevon will deflect upwards more than the left hand one deflects downwards. This causes more drag on the right hand side so it aids the turning. It makes the rolls more 'barrely', but it rolls so fast that it doesn't matter on this plane.

Really, do it. You will not regret it. This really is a brilliant little plane. It's really fun to fly and is perfect for taking on holidays. Just break off the vertical stabilizer and then glue it back on with super glue when you get there. The super glue allows it to be broken off easily, but in flight it will be fine.

So just get rid of the crappy ailerons, and it will be really good.

Sheldon

[Sheldon Holy]

Ok here is a picture in Topanga state park in California:



Excuse the sunglasses and the odd pose. I had just launched it and you can see a large amount of deflection on the right hand 'taileron'. Also the left hand one appears level since I was also using up elevator

And wind is no problem at all for this - as you can see by my clothing, it was blowing a gale up there and was about 8000ft density altitude. It worked like a charm.

Sheldon

[richie967]

I bought a phase 3 ef-16 a few years back and have only flown it  a handful of times, was considering making it a fpv plane, super fast, 80mph straight out of the box! need to master the skywalker first!

Good Luck