That was awesome, Adam, outstanding video. I wish I had more folks at my field who would like to have this much fun. There's a couple of us but we'd get yelled at. 😂
Very impressed with your flying, creativity, and the fine engineering of the tail hook. A few in our old club did something a little similar several years back. Our 'Navy fighters' were some old tri-gear sweet sticks with a curved wire rubber banded to the tail. I took an old Zebco reel to the field and suspended the fishing line across our grass runway. I had a little drag on the reel initially, but found that was too much stopping power. It ended up being the best to just let the the line free wheel with no drag at all. I can see again one landing that caught the wire with the plane just above the grass. It slowed and set the plane down with a nice soft landing and hardly any roll out. Ours was not all that Navy like, but this hobby is all about having fun - right? Also, I love the realistic jet engine sounds I hear at times in your video!
Nice work Adam! You might have had an easier time going without the gear reinforcement and using lighter 4000 packs. Some of those stalls are nasty and much easier to get into with the extra wing loading from the platter system.
Thanks Jon! Appreciate the reasoning, but it was operator error for the most part. Bad conditions on that first day, and we let getting content shot cloud our better judgement. As you well know, it can be tough coordinating everyone being available and good wx.
@@ModelAV8RChannel Yeah, tell us about it. The weather lately here has sucked. Tomorrow's upload was shot at near dusk which was the only open time we had available, and even then the wind was junk. You take what you can get though. Nice work overall!
Absolutely fantastic stuff there Adam! I really enjoy watching you and Justin at the field; these simple, somewhat raw "you were there" videos show just how fun the brotherhood of RC really is. I also like the fact you are including any flubs or foibles that happen. Some folks may think expert RC pilots don't have crashes or hard landings, and that simply isn't the case. We all have our little bumps along the way! Great video work by Heidi, as usual! Keep up the great content my friends!
Thanks brother John! Yeah man somehow Dustin, Steve (who is usually involved), and I always seem to find a way to push things a bit past the limit. Fun though...and we learn from the doinks.
You knew I would be chiming in at some point Im sure lol. My setup is a little different and I suspect my flap settings are a little steeper. I love the fact that he did this and his catch wire idea is simple and ingenious. You guys did a great job, carrier landings catching a wire or not aren't easy! Congrats on the success!
Thanks David! Yep, I knew you'd be interested in this one! I was SO surprised how tough the gear on it was. We knew we'd be putting it to them, but we did that more than we intended on several occasions.
I could hear Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone... and the tower guy saying "sorry ghost rider the pattern is full". Yes Maverick, it is never a good time to buzz the camera operator. I do think you need a action figure LSO with some paddles standing next to that fishing reel.
Now that is awesome.. So much fun to watch. Great job camera crew.. What a clever system for this setup. Dustin is a sharp cat for sure... Next he needs to make some sidewinders with estes rocket engines and shoot down some Migs. Thanks for making this video, really enjoyed it with my hot morning coffee... 🙂
Great video, Adam. Hope you and the family are doing well ❤ I have always thought that flying in high winds was always a needless risk to take. What was Dustin's reason for taking this risk in damaging his plane? A calm day comes tomorrow, a new plane may take months to reacquire (if it is written off and you have to buy a whole new one)!
Hey Nick! How ya been? Hope all is well with your family as well. If you want to get good at flying in the wind...you have to fly in it. You fly, you learn. You'll never know what your limit is unless you reach it on occasion. This is one of the ways both Dustin and I became high level pilots, but...we'll never be perfect. With every mistake comes a lesson. We learned something we wouldn't have if we stayed home...
This "old" Naval Aviator loves your FCLP videos!!! (Field Carrier Landing Practice) Clever concepts, engaging narrative, and great comradery... Thought I'd throw some "help" your way with Naval carrier terminology clarification. A bolter is a missed arrested landing when the hook fails to engage a wire after control crashing into the deck. This is also the reason the pilot throttles full power at touchdown, so the engines spool up in the event of a bolter. The "go around" in civilian aviation is actually a "wave off", with carrier ops. When the deck FSO (Flight Safety Officer), waves you off, he's determined you're out of safe landing parameters, and this maneuver may or may not result in contact with the deck. Would also be fun for carrier landings 3 video, to fly into the landing pattern "break" clean, break left, be configured dirty by the "180", gear, flaps, hook, and proceed through the approach phase and, don't forget to "call the ball" ! Great job again boys! "Buckeye Ball" ....
Thanks Carl! Good to know the correct usage of the terms. We'll get it right next time! Maybe with your F-14...lol. I have to say...I want to do an A-4 with a hook.
Great traps guys! You demonstrated why I designed those plates that way. I designed the wing platter reinforcements to not only exceed the strength of the gear itself, but to maintain the structural integrity of the fuselage, as it is extremely frail in that area without the added rigidity. One bad landing and the fuselage can get distorted/bent and interfere with the wing sweep mechanism & thus trashing the entire fuselage. The additional weight is negligible. The stock aluminum main wheels are stupidity heavy.... save weight by using FMS A-10/SCORPION WHEELS & they are more scale looking:) Full span flaps on this model are great for calm days, but in some wind, the flaperons can cause control problems & using no ailerons can make roll control less than ideal in wind. The plane lands beautifully with just the inner flaps & normal aileron control. Its not scale this way, but its better to have control of the wings at the tips & not be constantly changing the camber of the wing tips at slow speeds.
Thanks Rich! Yeah man the plates work great, and we tested them way more than intended. Nice job on the design. I thought about that after watching the footage. That is the way Kara Hultgreen crashed her F-14. Funny thing is we know better. Both of us love to do STOL landings and when you're dragging in a Super Cub you have to make the big corrections with rudder to avoid the off camber situation. Juan Brown does a great job explaining that in one of his videos. We'll do this again for sure...
@@ModelAV8RChannel Are you guys actually catching the wire between the main gear and hook, or do you sometimes touch down prior with the mains rolling over the wire first, before the tail hook grabs the wire?
We cheat it for sure sometimes, but the goal is to hit it as if it was the three wire on the ship. We actually nailed it more on our first carrier landing vid with the F-4. There is a slo mo in this video when I'm talking about the first vid and on that one I hit it perfect. That is what we want every time, but it's hard to get perfect more than one in three attempts. We'll keep working on it! Lol. My brother roasted us (in fun). He flew A-4's for the Marines...and flew off of the Lexington 16. Hearing him talk about actual carrier landings is captivating.
Hey Rich, (I'm Dustin) I'll second that the gear re-enforcements helped this one a lot. Some of those "mishaps" did do some damage to the gear, but I haven't noticed any damage to the aircraft itself yet. With the full span flaps in the wind you definitely have to fly the approach carefully and keep it a bit above stall speed until its basically on the ground, otherwise you risk that stall you mention. I do have some aileron even when full span flaps are down, less down deflection than up though to try to avoid the increased camber causing a stall and rolling over the wrong way. I do need to get the lighter wheels, that plane could use some weight reduction. Great flying plane overall though and you cant beat the look of it in the air. Thanks for your work and setup videos on it.
@@grcvid Hey Dustin! The metal & rubber Wheels are ridiculously heavy! I may have saved about 2oz replacing them with the FMS Scorpion/A-10 wheels & tires.... Also, the new wheels look fairly scale! I intentionally extended the plates AFT because one bad landing would badly warp/Distort the fuselage just below the swing wing. That distorted "HUMP" would protrude upward into the swing wing area and bind up the motion of the wings, destroying the fuselage. This prevents that form happening:)
Love this video, Cross winds can be a bear, The afterburners looked great. To bad you didn't put a camera on a tripod to get footage from the line area to get a closer view of the hook catching it. 👍
Lived it so much… i watched it twice! Very innovative Adam, Heidi & Dustin. I bet the larger Tomcat operated better than the new small one eh 😁😄 Great Bonus flight. Many thanks mate
Thanks Noel! Actually...I like the three wing positions on the smaller one better. Fully swept on the big one is pretty useless and it doesn't have the mid swept option, which is my favorite with the 40nn now. The presence of the big boy though...awesome.
My wife is keen for me to get an RC plane. The F-14 Tomcat is my favourite plane of all time. But I am a shit pilot and to crash it would be beyond the ability of my remaining brain cell to cope. So I am doomed to only watching videos like this.
Check this out...if you crash you just hit the reset button...and there are a couple of F-14's in it! www.avantlink.com/click.php?tt=cl&merchant_id=953aec29-878e-4306-b620-2df85883455e&website_id=8dba204c-b65e-4b7f-95c3-89346f512d7c&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.horizonhobby.com%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.horizonhobby.com%2Fproduct%2Frealflight-evolution-rc-flight-simulator-with-interlink-dx-controller%2FRFL2000.html
Dustin, Adam, Way so cool my friends. Sure would be great to see that mod incorporated as an option on these warbirds. That was real fun to watch. Hope all are doing well your way. 🙂
I don't know how I missed this one, I was sure that I saw every upload at least once and some uploads I have seen 3 or 4 times.😁 This was absolutely AWESOME!!!!! Does Dustin have upgraded ESC's and EDF's in his Tomcat? While I have never flown one, I have a friend who has this Model and he upgraded the Speed Controls and EDF's because he said it felt underpowered. With what he has in it now she will hall ass 🤣 I could tell by him just taxing it around she has all the Horsepower. 😂 There is nothing like seeing a F-14 in the air, I don't care if it's the little one like I have or the big one like Dustins or my buddies, they are one beautiful Fighter! I really like my little one and it would be perfect if it had retractable gear but I understand it's a small Model and that would have seriously increased the price and I don't know how they could fit retracts to it with the swing wings and keep it as small as it is. Anyway the best part is it has swing wings and I just take the gear off, some clear Gorilla Tape keeps her looking good from all the belly landings. I would like to get myself a second one though, that way I can keep it perfect as a display that can fly and not be worried one of these old North Carolina Pine Trees reaching out and grabbing it out of the air 😂 hate it when that happens 🤣 Huge thank you to Mrs Heidi for her awesome video skills, your buddy Dustin for even doing this with a $700 (before mods) F-14, & to you my friend. Awesome job, awesome video, awesome people! I hope y'all have a great day! 🇺🇸👍🏼🤠🤙🏼✈️🛫🛬
Adam thank you brother! Yeah Dustin, our buddy Steve, and I tend to get into trouble when we fly together...Lol. I think the power system is stock but it has the gear reinforcement...good thing! We tested that! I love the little twin 40mm Tomcat, so much fun to fly! I'd like to see more in that size, just simple and fun. Hope you and yours have a great weekend!
@@ModelAV8RChannel Thank you my friend, hope y'all have a awesome weekend as well. Yup I have watched your Upload of the small TomCat 3 times 😄 I enjoy watching you fly, your one helluva RC Pilot! & I am grateful for all the tips and set-up's you share! It would be so cool to see some more small EDF Jets in the Twin 40's or Single 50. A little F-15 Eagle, Raptor, Mig 29, F-16, F-18 and maybe a SU-57 in that smaller size would be awesome and make for some cool small Jet Dogfights. I also wish Horizon would come out with a UMX P-47, F4U CoursAir, Spitfire, BF-109, and either a FW-190 or a Mitsubishi Zero. I have gotten now where I love to fly our UMX stuff more so than our bigger Airplanes. The little UMX has such good Stability and with a lot of them coming with Flaps make them awesome little slow fliers but having that 3 Cell LIPO power makes for some awesome power too. With whatever is going to happen with the Government wanting to track our big RC Airplanes, I may be way off base but I see the UMX Airplanes selling even stronger, but i may be wrong 🤷🏻♂️ anyway, BIG THANK YOU! for what you and Mrs Heidi do for us, have a good one buddy! 🤠🇺🇸🛩️🙏🏼🤙🏼
