NIGHTMARE FLYING THE TOPGUN F18!!! 

Thanks so much for sharing your struggles with this plane. As a comparatively new flyer without a lot of support; I can tend to think that I’m the only one struggling to “tame” a plane with bad tendencies. Thanks again

I admire you guys and your reviews for staying after an airplane that should have been History so many times seems like you’re doing all the manufacturers work that should’ve been done long before this point just shows me how truly professional you and your team really are truly inspiring to the RC Hobby and how far technology has really come along thanks again

8:13 WTFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT SOUNDS SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!! I want to cry 12:40 I am speechless…………. I even didn’t know a RC fighter could be so realistic in the air……. Your way to fly it is so amazing……. You’re very talented…. What a beautiful machine, this is too good I LOVE IT Big salut 🫡 from France and thank you a lot for sharing this with us, what a wonderful moment it was, I was in… !! Nothing is more beautiful and bad ass than a jet fighter. ViNZ.

Beautiful plane, flight and landing. Very well done!!!

11:03 the landing was excellent

You certainly have it flying well now! Nice job getting it dialed in!

This is absolutely stunning! Beautiful model and excellent flying skills!

Finally!! Now the world can know what tinnitus is like! Outstanding flight!! Keep this in mind . When you're gear retracts or deploys it changes the CG on the 18 more so than most other airframes!! Plus some flap on takeoff doesn't hurt. Watching your struggles on the first flight's made my guts hurt!! Then when I saw how well you ran it through its paces I understood how you were able to hang on to it!! Excellent control! I'd say beef up the gear and deal with the extra weight!!? Really want to see it snag a wire!!

What an amazing pilot! Thank you for sharing! this was impressive!!

Well done Martin, I amazed that the factory got the CG and turbine placement all wrong. Nice tip about centralising the weight. Great flight 🫡

Absolutely incredible - congratulation to this RC flight model and the mega cool video!

That servo buzz in a video isn't annoying at all... Beautiful plane though, and nothing feels better than figuring out gremlins!

This is a great video, Thanks for sharing. Beautiful fighter! Awesome flying, great job.

Increible! Cuanto me alegro de ver ese cacharro volando como debe! Grandísimo trabajo que hay detrás! Y ahora si, la familia Sepulveda, a disfrutarlo!!!

fantastic flying..... great pilot..

I was an Aircraft Maintenance Technician in Tindal RAAF Base, Northern Territory,Australia in 75Sqn and had the opportunity to see some of the most amazing flying by the squadron pilots that I have ever witnessed, including the tail walk, ballistic manoeuvre, they could do the tail walk, then hit the loud pedal and go ballistic from the tail walk, the FA18’s that were there were fresh off the assembly line, and were delivered “Clean Skins”, with no markings for Squadron or country, that was THE first job to be performed as soon as they landed.. I would really love to see you do the tail walk then go ballistic from that position if you would like to appease an old digger please mate.. You look as though you have ironed out most of the bugs looking at your last flight, so if you’re going to have a go at it, please give me a yodel so I don’t miss out.. You look like a very good pilot mate, get as much practice as possible and you can be Great.. Really appreciate your time and effort put into this project, it shows…

Never giving up led to a beautiful and amazing flight 👍💯

Bravo! Beautiful plane and flight!

Nice flying and very good video shooting, you have an excellent team!

Beautiful Jet, great flying too. Glad you got the worst bugs worked out on it. Now they can enjoy flying it.

bravo Martin , so nice to see how well you handle this beast

Such a good looking model and Top Class flying as usual from an Ace👍🏻

Your broomstick analogy, at least how it actually relates to the plane, is called the polar moment of inertia

Fantastic model! Great flying!

Beautiful plane. I love the authentic paintjob.

Awesome flying.

"ARM" & "Moment" are the technical terms your looking for! A lot of weight on a long arm from the datum, makes a huge moment. The large weight at the front & back multiplied by the large distance(ARM) make a huge "moment" force... move them inward and you reduce the force & then basically move the CG forward for stability... looks like it could come slightly farther forward as indicated by the porpoise in the flare. Definitions: CG is referenced from the Datum. Datum. A point from which moment arms are measured. Points forward of the datum have negative arms; points aft are positive. The datum can be a different places in different airplanes. Arm. The horizontal distance from the reference datum to an item’s center of gravity. Moment. A force causing something to rotate, equal to an item’s weight times its arm. Nice flight!

Que buen piloto tío! Hermoso el avión, felicidades.

Nice to see it flying at the field I fly at , brilliant .

Great flying and excellent presentation! 👍👍👍👍

Great video Martin! Thanks for sharing.

What a beautiful model. Thank you

I was cheering!!! Thank you for sharing😊

Beautiful!!!, only one little mistake, the correct nose fuselage number for this tail decoration are 15-13.

CG+ ailerons. That is a huge bite out of the air in a turn! To scale, pilot mush

That is a beast of an airplane. Awesome! outstanding job. I noticed that you had to stay in full power throughout the flight. But when the aircraft got up on step in its dynamic range, it demonstrated real authentic scale authority in flight. The best flying scale aircraft I have seen.👍👍👍👍

Nice job Martin…good on ya!

Great flying an troubleshooting!!

hi martin love your videos amazing flying

Good landing

Excellent job in building and getting the bugs out. Impressive flight. Hope to see more flight videos.

Boy that tires Flying Like a Bird beautiful great job

good work, awesome

estol muito contente de ver que você finalmente teve conclusão no seu projeto . o passaro fez um voo completo 🏁

That is such a nice plane 💪🏻

Hi, I observed two things. First, the angle of attack is wrong during take off, and second, the vertical energy at touch-down is not absorbed by the landing gear. If you look at the original (deck) landing of an F18, the main gear folds in and stays there so the plane does not bounce up again. I mounted sloppy springs in the Yellow Aircraft F18 main gear and placed O-rings on the lower bushing of this gear to make it air tight. I put a Festo nipple on the top of the gear and put a hose into a small bottle. I filled everything with anti-freeze fuid. I so created an effective schock absorber. If You wonder how I did all of this, I was one of the AMT USA guys in 2000 and Terry Nitsch flew our Yellow Aircraft F18 with the AMT Olympus engine. Yust want you to know how we solved the take-off and landing problems with a heavy F18. Regards, Han Jenniskens.

Superbe finition. Bravo monsieur.

Your persistence paid off. Congratulations. Saludos desde La paz BCS Mexico.

What a machine! New subscriber. Nice flying

That thing has a gorgeous paint job.

lovely noise in the background

This stuff absolutely blows my mind! All the ingenuity in something like this is just mind boggling! It will certainly capture the hearts and attention from all who witness it. They will be hooked and likely end up getting into RC in one shape or form. They will lose their minds at the cost of something like this. But hopefully their curiosity leads them down the right path. Because theres so many awesome affordable RC Airplanes out there! Idt people realize how difficult it is to design something like this! To make it able to hold up to the heat alone from the engines. Then to be able to withstand the g forces applied to all surfaces, as you perform all those tight fast maneuvers. Is absolutely amazing! People dont realize the forces that these recieve from such fast maneuvers. Then to balance between ridged and weight savings to allow it to be able to be light enough to fly and strong enough to not disintegrate on the very first tight turn or climb etc etc. Im a geek when it comes to things like these! I honestly think they are almost more mind boggling then the real thing. Just because of how much smaller everything needs to be. Thats what fascinated me with Nitro rc cars as a kid. Now compared to Electric, its honestly a messy waste of time. But if u are a gearhead, u will love it! One could argue that nitro buggies are every bit as competitive as their electric counterparts. But we all know, it takes less effort for the electric to do what the nitro is doing... Im going off topic, ijs this stuff is absolutely amazing, intriguing and its definitely doing its job in growing the rc community! Awesome job bro!

I am glad you were flying it as most people would have crashed that on the first flight ,,well done Martin

Congratulations, success is yours to enjoy

FPV it. Be brilliant. Thanks for the upload.

What an educational physics program with just a limited time ⏲ 💯👍, at it's best 👌 this is a serious jet

I like the way you fly it, realistic. Even taxiing you make it look like the 'real'. Some time its hard to say if it's model or 1/1. You got that secret ingredient if realism which is to sit on the pilot's seat , like. Congratulations

Excellent job! 👌🏽

Amazing Aircraft 🤯

The next time you go to balance a plane like this.. try the Vanessa balancing system. Look it up, you make it yourself.. It is a very accurate way to balance any aircraft.. But what I see on the video is an example of fine flying and engineering problem solving.... In a word. COOL!!!

Fun facts. Top gun uses f18 super hornets, meanwhile spain uses F18 hornets. Super hornets have rectangular air intakes and larger LEX (leading edge extension) and more. Now you know how to identificate both

Very cool! To ride as top of bucket list!

Top Gun F-18's are the Super Hornets, not the legacy Hornet. Strange report considering I've seen these in person.

Thoroughly enjoyed the video and the piloting. Love the Hornet and the way it fly's. My only slight recommendation is not to use the slats and the air brake when landing....yes. Its heavy and you can't float it in, but drive it in and let a slight head wind be your lifting buddy.

Amazing!

Vrooooommm! Marine call in,, BOOOOMMM!

Wow.. impressive 👌

This is amazing!!!😮😍👏👏👏👏👏👏

¡Qué maravilla de modelo... ! Los F-18 suelen ser quisquillosos, también a menores escalas pero por lo menos este, una vez ajustado aguanta bien el high alpha. En escalas más pequeñas, en modelos sin flaps de borde de ataque, los vórtices de los LERX pierden energía antes de hora y la cola pierde autoridad, impidiendo el vuelo estable pasados los 15-20º de ángulo de ataque. Viendo el high alpha que te has marcado antes de aterrizar parece que al menos con este, eso ya no es un problema. ;)

Nice work Martin!

I purchased, a, icoy system, it works fantastic for the center of gravity location, also it gives you lateral readings as well. Would strongly recommend. Today is October 19th 2022.

Outstanding video. OMG off the hook. 🎉. I’m so so jealous

job well done congrats

Muito bacana.....que perfeição 👏👏👏👏

Nicely done!👍👏😤

Maravilloso!!!!.

WOW far-out mate 👏

I would anytime handover my precious model to you Martin as there aren’t probably many pilots that qualify in the category jet test pilot and construction engineer at the same time. Beautiful plane.

Nice!!! Well done curious what jetcats did you use in the Skymaster..I currently have three of these models I’m building at the moment two C models and a Super hornet. But if would let me know on the turbines. Thanks

Well done.

Nice!

The McDonald Douglas F18 Hornet has the LEX ( Leading Edge Extension ) wich is a lifting surface & adds more to the wing aera. It's good that you relocated the turbines farther closer to the cg in wich makes your horizontal stab - control surface more softer & more controllable. Good job of getting it fine tuned , flys very good inverted ( upsidedown ) . Good job ...

Yyyeeeeeesssss. Let’s fly and dance baby. Let’s Race

WWooow! 🐝🐝 ALA 15 !

HI, All in all Nice flight. Can you share the details of all what you've done so that other soon to be owners can make some changes based off of what you've doe??

Nice landing

She's fast and looks good! Twins sure put out some noise to.

Se me han puesto de corbata cuando las ruedas tocan el suelo y ese ángulo de inclinación tan acusado. Bravo Martin!

Bad ass F-18 and great flying😳

Wow. A lot of work to get this CG right. Good thing nothing bad happened during all that. Beautiful plane. You must have it tweaked in by now over the last 10 months since this video.

Thanks to your maintenance this Super Hornet is now ready for dogfights ! Happy Landings and have a Good Day !

Nice jet i love it 👍

Well done mate - you surely put in a heap of effort to iron out the most important bugs. Having CofG issues are the worst, and having the manufacturer's settings being wrong on a plane like that must have been an absolute nightmare - that is one of the areas that has to be correct out of the box. It's not like you can just invert it 30% from the leading edge to check! Cheers mate.

Liked the high alpha slow flight! Very realistic

I was on wheels watch at NAS Oceana when the two prototype F-18s came in from sea trials on the Nimitz and I watched as one of them did a ground loop as the landing gear folded on landing. This has never been included in any documentary on this aircraft.

Great flying but landing was a little sketchy. Beautiful scale F18...best I've seen.

I have a BVM 1:7.5 scale F-18 and I want to set up the control surfaces to scale like yours. Is there any issue with elevator/elevon/aileron at all with the full span flaps/flaperons and rudder toe in? I looks like yours handles great!

Amazing job 👏 🙌 👌 👍

The F/A-18 used on the Top Gun 2 were F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets, the one you are using is a EF-18 Hornet. Not saying that It is bad, but the contrary, It is awesome! Just trying to tell more about the difference between aircraft variants

Thank you!!!!