Spitfire76's Build Log of Ben's XF-16

[Foamforce]

Welcome! So glad that you decided to join. Will this be your first EDF powered plane ?

Yup! And my first master-ish style plane. I’ve started bending the nose cone. Seems like I’ll need to bevel the edges near the tip to get a sharp point. Does that sound right?

Thanks for the welcome! I’ll post pics after I make some progress.

 

[Spitfire76]

Yup! And my first master-ish style plane. I’ve started bending the nose cone. Seems like I’ll need to bevel the edges near the tip to get a sharp point. Does that sound right?

Thanks for the welcome! I’ll post pics after I make some progress.

Yes, you do need to remove a fair bit of the foam to shape the nose and I didn't make that good of job of it. I did try to reach out to Ben in his original log for this older version of nose as I believe it would be easier to make and match up with the other sections.

 

[Foamforce]

Yes, you do need to remove a fair bit of the foam to shape the nose and I didn't make that good of job of it. I did try to reach out to Ben in his original log for this older version of nose as I believe it would be easier to make and match up with the other sections.

View attachment 240190

Do you think that gluing the formers in place would help?

 

[Foamforce]

First bit! It’s a tad wrinkly, but I feel fine about it for my first attempt. Bending the curves went better than I expected (I had low expectations).

Update: More progress. But I can’t figure out what to do with the intake diverter. It doesn’t seem to fit where the video shows. My guess is that I should install that later? It seems like the tabs might fit into the top of the intake.

 

[Spitfire76]

First bit! It’s a tad wrinkly, but I feel fine about it for my first attempt. Bending the curves went better than I expected (I had low expectations).

Update: More progress. But I can’t figure out what to do with the intake diverter. It doesn’t seem to fit where the video shows. My guess is that I should install that later? It seems like the tabs might fit into the top of the intake.

You did a better job of the nose than I did. Yes, install that later.

One issue I have is the lack of a battery mount/tray. I don't like to rely on just Velcro especially when it's a heavy battery and so I designed a 3dprinted one that has a strap and supported it with one of the formers, should be a photo earlier on in this log but its come away from the foam board so will have to rethink that part to have something more robust.

 

[Spitfire76]

Another couple of flights today and replacing the receiver had definitely solve the issue that I had last time.

Tried a launch with the dolly but it didn’t track straight and ended in the pit fence with a broken nose.

Nothing a bit of hot glue won’t fix

So had to hand launch it but apart from that and a rather bouncy landing it flew well

 

[Spitfire76]

I am so impressed with this plane I am going to build another one but try to make a better job of the painting and decals.

 

[ScottInIowa]

I am so impressed with this plane I am going to build another one but try to make a better job of the painting and decals.

Great! I built the MS F16 about 18 months ago, but just got the courage up to fly it last weekend! Wow! I'm hooked on EDFs for sure! Fast on 6s, but a great flier!

 

[Foamforce]

After a long hiatus, I got some motivation to work on this again. I guess I was a little intimidated by this project so I kept finding other small projects to finish up.

I have some momentum now and I got the whole thrust tube and rear fuselage assembly done. It became clear what to do with the diverter, as there are holes for the tabs on the top of the intake. The front fold gets a 60% double bevel and it fits right in. The only problem is that I think the diverter has a minor error. The top is angled to fit the older fuselage design but the new upper fuselage is flat bottomed. No worry, I just had to trim off the top of the diverter to make it flat and it fits very nicely now.

When I put the parts together on my desk, it finally starts to look like a plane. I can’t wait to get the wings on!

 

[Foamforce]

It’s getting exciting now. Starting to look like an airplane!

 

[Foamforce]

Nearly done now. The canopy looks better in the picture than in real life, but overall it turned out pretty clean.

I’m a little intimidated by the 6s EDF and nervous about whether I fastened it in well enough. Only one way to find out!

How is the landing experience for others? With such small wings it seems like I would have to land fast, but that’ That doesn’t seem to be the case from great videos I’ve watched. Should I be very concerned about stalling it if I come in too slow?

 

[Spitfire76]

Nearly done now. The canopy looks better in the picture than in real life, but overall it turned out pretty clean.

I’m a little intimidated by the 6s EDF and nervous about whether I fastened it in well enough. Only one way to find out!

How is the landing experience for others? With such small wings it seems like I would have to land fast, but that’ That doesn’t seem to be the case from great videos I’ve watched. Should I be very concerned about stalling it if I come in too slow?

I was told to cut power early so it glides. I left it too late on my last flight and it bounced a lot.

 

[Foamforce]

I was told to cut power early so it glides. I left it too late on my last flight and it bounced a lot.

So it actually glides ok? That wing looks so small compared to what I usually fly, I assumed it would drop like a rock. You didn’t encounter any wingtip stall at low speeds when landing?

 

[Foamforce]

It flew great! This was the maiden flight and there was absolutely no drama. Amazingly there was almost zero dip on the launch. I barely detected any stalling, even though I was going fairly slowly much of the time, and landing was extra easy. I don’t know why, but this plane flares very well on landing. I’m very happy with this plane. Now I’m going to reconstruct the canopy, which is the only part that didn’t turn out great, and I’ll decorate. I’m planning to take the skins provided by Rasterizer and cut out the important bits in vinyl using my needle cutter. Thanks @Mid7night for the great design!

 

[Spitfire76]

It flew great! This was the maiden flight and there was absolutely no drama. Amazingly there was almost zero dip on the launch. I barely detected any stalling, even though I was going fairly slowly much of the time, and landing was extra easy. I don’t know why, but this plane flares very well on landing. I’m very happy with this plane. Now I’m going to reconstruct the canopy, which is the only part that didn’t turn out great, and I’ll decorate. I’m planning to take the skins provided by Rasterizer and cut out the important bits in vinyl using my needle cutter. Thanks @Mid7night for the great design!

Congratulations on a really great maiden flight and also great videos that captured how well it flies. What was you flight time with the 6s EDF and battery ?

 

[Foamforce]

Congratulations on a really great maiden flight and also great videos that captured how well it flies. What was you flight time with the 6s EDF and battery ?

Thanks!

I used 2x 2200mah 3s batteries in series. I made my series adapter with 14ga wire because that’s the best I had. It did get a little warm. One set of batteries was an older set of Zeee batteries that were optimistically rated at 120c. The other set was China Hobby Line black label, rated at 30c. My bench testing showed that I pulled 60a (I used an 80a ESC), so that was barely within spec. Both sets of batteries were pleasantly warm when I removed them. Very nice hand warmers when it’s 40f outside. 😂

To the original question, I got 1.5 minutes of throttle time and 3 minutes of actual flight time. I was mostly cruising around half throttle.

 

[Foamforce]

Hey, does anybody have decals for this? I was planning to take the important elements from the Rasterizer skin and cut them in vinyl, but converting those is more difficult than I expected due to the complex layering and masking used in the source file. I can probably get it eventually, or just trace it, but I figured I would ask here first.

 

[Foamforce]

As a follow up, I took the skins for this plane and cut out the big simple pieces, mainly the things in red and blue. Then I cut those in vinyl with my needle cutter and applied them. Overall it turned out nice and vibrant, but it was very time consuming. Getting those big stickers lined up was hard! Also, I need to cover much of it with packing tape because the vinyl doesn’t adhere well to the FT foam.

I’m going to build another of these with my son (9) who loves it. He asked for an EDF for Christmas (just the EDF and ESC, not a plane). How could I say no to that?

Question: On my next build I’ll use the skins, but I’d like something brighter and more vibrant. Has anybody tried doing skins with a higher quality paper, like photo paper? I’ll probably end up using a laser printer for cost, but wondering if anybody has experimented with better papers. I know it will be heavier…