Flying the ICONIC new RC Jet from the cockpit! - Freewing Twin 64mm F-14

Initial thoughts, what are we thinking? Let's start here. This right here is Tom Hunt, retired aerospace engineer of over 44 years, and that right there is his brand new twin 64 millimeter F14 by Freewing. Now Tom thought he would be a better fit to fly goose around than Maverick himself, so he custom fitted this thing with a full head tracking FPV setup. These companies put a ton of R&D into creating these awesome airplanes, and I like to fly them out of the box just the way a majority of you would buy them. Tom, on the other hand, always takes them and micro-tweaks everything. Just listen. I reached in there with a pencil, and I scribed the line on it, and I cut it away, and I put a 116 piece of blade of plywood in there, and now it tongs underneath there, and it holds that down. But that was sticking up about a sixteenth of an inch, about a millimeter and a half. It'll fit a five, won't go six. It won't fit a six, but it'll go. Some of my 5000s will fit, some of my other ones won't. You gotta get some afterburners in there. No, I can't see them from the cockpit. Yeah, that's true, that's true. Good answer. You gotta get, your screen's even lit up, huh? No, it's not lit up, it's just bright. I said it looks like, look at the screen. It looks like it's lit. For the first flight of the new airplane, Tom didn't want to fly FPV, but he did want to record the flight, so he set it up. Any takers? Cockpit view. Get in there. Now, I'm not on the stick, so I can't tell you exactly how it's flying. From my opinion, it looks like it's okay. It looks very nimble. The landing gear did phenomenal on that rough grass runway. And in person, I promise you, it is not as loud as this video is making it sound. Those twin 64 millimeters on camera sound way louder than it actually does in person, but it does have a nice sound to it. Now, this is Tom's maiden flight. He's taking it very easy. We're gonna call this an official trim flight. He's just getting it dialed in so that when he puts those FPV goggles on, he's not gonna have an issue or have to worry about trimming it out. With the wings open, it proved to fly slow very nicely. Now, he didn't sweep the wings back. He was waiting until he had his FPV goggles on to actually do that wing sweep, and I'm excited to see it. Now, bringing it in for a land, it looks like a nice, easy plane. And again, it has that beefy landing gear, so he has no problem bringing this thing in on that rough runway. So, this was the maiden? I joined the whip. That was the maiden. The maiden, wow. Initial thoughts? What are we thinking? Oh, man, we came at the right time, huh? We came at the right time. I think it flies very much like all the guys I see on RC groups and YouTube have been saying. It flies very well. Gyro is on all the time, because I don't have an extra channel to turn it on and off. I have my- As good as it flies, it doesn't make- Gyro, not self-level gyro. Not self-level, no, just rate gyro. It's, you know, the six functions, plus wing sweep is seven, and head tracking is eight. I only have an eight-channel trim. So, you only have- Only pan. Got it. Yeah, in these small cockpits- Yeah, you don't need it. I don't need tilt in the small cockpits like this. But the, I've got a 10-channel coming that I could add the brake if I need. I don't need a brake in this field, but it will give me ability to turn the gyro on and off. So, anyway, I like it. Looks like it flies really strong. The only thing I don't like is a gray day in a gray airplane. You know what's crazy? It wasn't as loud as I was thinking it was gonna be. No. It's probably even quieter than my A-10 264. Really? Yeah, pretty fast. The A-10 has- It definitely looks like it has some good power. The A-10 has a bit of a whine, that this has more of a whoosh. I'm not gonna do any more assessment until I fly at FPV, because it's so much easier to assess stalls and all that other stuff sitting in the cockpit, because you can see it coming a lot faster than you can see it from the ground. For those of you that are interested in the FPV setup, Tom's YouTube handle is down in the description, but to make it simple, the FPV camera gets connected to the balance lead of the battery. He soldered it in that way. And the pan servo gets connected to an extension lead that's plugged into the receiver that's assigned to the trainer port. Again, Tom could go into all details about this stuff with you guys, and I'm sure he has videos on his YouTube, so check it out. But let's get this in the air. Take it off. Yeah. Yeah, about that far. Yeah, she's a little nose-heavy. I'm not gonna re-trim it. I'm gonna leave it at half. Fully half. Okay. Actually, you know something? It gets better. Well, I mean, you can't... Come on forward. You can't... You can't change the CG in this airplane and affect the one with four wings. Yeah. Oh, it's collision-safe, yeah. And you can stop it at hand. Yeah. And then halfway back, I need a little bit of up-trim, but it folds back. I don't. I'm gonna make one pass to all, and then I'm gonna put her on the landing. Oh, yeah. There is no change in trim with half-flaps. A half-flap is perfect. Now, big thanks to Tom. Even though I wasn't the pilot, he let me pretend like I was Maverick and get this sick thumbnail. So, Tom, as always, appreciate you. And guys, thanks for watching. Until next time.