MASSIVE A-10 Warthog V2 by FMS (They Fixed Almost EVERYTHING!)

Welcome to Two Brothers Radio Control. FMS sent us the new A10 70mm version 2, but before we get into that, we just opened our own Discord server. The link is in the description. Come join us. It's designed to be accommodating for all types of pilots, especially those of you who watch our channel. Come talk planes with us, and we'll see you there. What's going on guys? Guess what FMS sent us. I asked for it, they brought it over in two days. The FMS A10 70mm version 2. I've been wanting this thing for a while, ever since I sent the first one to its watery grave. We put it into inverted high alpha. It did amazing flying like this. I had it flying like this, no problem, and I screwed it up. It just had so many issues that I knew that the version 2 were going to address, and we talked about that. I'm like, FMS, you got to send me this thing, so we can do justice by this thing now. We're going to do all sorts of crazy stuff with it, but first we're going to go over all the features and details of this thing. We've got hinged ailerons on a carbon fiber rod. We've got hinged flaps on a carbon fiber rod. We've got hinged elevators on a carbon fiber rod. We've got carbon fiber rods all the way down on this thing, except on the rudders. We don't have that. That is a regular foam hinge, but it'll be fine. They did upgrade the servos throughout this entire model, so I remember what mine used to sound like. I compared them, because I still have them, to the ones that are in this. The wing ailerons are way better sounding. I think they're the exact same ones in the Extra 300 from eFlight, which FMS also makes. The nose gear has been upgraded a little bit. Looks like it's stronger metal. I did some adjustments to it. Didn't have to worry about it stripping like it did last time. I changed out all the wheels. They are now using Dubro low bounce wheels. Two and a half inch for the back, two inch for the front. Had to do some drilling to get it to fit in the front, but it still worked. We got some nice FMS 70 millimeter fans in this thing. It's gonna howl and scream, and it's gonna be fun to fly. I also set it up with differential thrust, and for a first with an A-10 so far on this channel, we are flying with an SMC 5500 lithium high voltage pack, which is a, if I'm not mistaken, a 75c pack. So these are the test packs that Danny sent me. The normal packs you guys can get are 6200s and 5300s, which I also have. Pops right in there. Got a good center of gravity on this thing. Let's go ahead and show that off real quick before we fly it. We are balancing slightly nose down, about halfway through the wing, just in front of the wheels, so we don't get that whole soul plane thing going on where the plane bounces down the runway. So these two fingers here is what we're balancing. Perfect center of gravity. Let's go ahead and swap over. All right, so let's do some ground handling, see how it works on the ground. These new wheels, super quiet. It's got a nice turn radius, but it is unfortunately a little small for where we fly. So with the help of differential thrust, they've got a little too much rudder. So before we take off, I want you guys to know this is one of the heaviest 70 millimeter jets I've ever flown, so it has a very high wing loading. It's got some heft to it. I bet we can see the wheels compressing just from the weight of the jet. Yeah. All right, here we go. It definitely feels way less squirrely on the ground than the A10 version 1 did, and that's because of the wheel upgrade, I'm thinking. Look at that thing. It looks phenomenal up there. It is not trimmed, so I need to trim it. This thing's got power to spare. I think we are almost level. Let's check, make sure. There we go. That little pod up front I thought was the gear being stuck out of it. It's actually just the pod. Very nice. Key to this plane is being nice and gentle to it, unless you put it into a snap roll like this. Holy cow. You hear the sound of the air hitting the elevators? Yes. That's what you're hearing. The elevators hitting the airflow of the jet. Let's put it into a hover upstairs. Well, as much of a hover as I could get it into. Let's try again. It's a big heavy jet, and it needs to be flown like it's a big heavy jet, so take up as much air space as you need to keep this thing up in the air. Let's get the voltage callouts going. Plenty of power. Again, this is a lithium high voltage pack from SMC. Let's see if we can get it a knife edge. I actually broke the airflow over the vertical stabilizers and lost control. It actually popped out of it. I got to be very careful doing that. And here's our convenient wind gust. You know what? Let's go have some fun with it. Because we have differential thrust, we're going to go up nice and high. I think you guys who've been here for a while know what we're about to do to this jet. Just flat spun an A-10, guys. How many people have done that? I would attempt it. It was a 64. I mean, you can do it with a 64, and you don't need differential thrust to do it. But this thing is just so agile for being as big as it is. Yeah, that was really beautiful. Thank you. Let's go up and throw sticks to the top left. It's agile, man. If you treat it right, it'll do all sorts of cool stuff. It's also capable of going very slow, too. So let's go ahead and bank off to the side. And then we'll keep an eye on our voltage. And then we'll do some touch and go's with it. See how those low bounce wheels hang out. Dropping the flaps coming in. See how she handles. And then we'll do some touch and go's. Get some slow flight in here, right in front of you. Nice and slow. Look at that. Well, when you pull those flaps up, you got to make sure to give it some elevator input, too. Oh, one other thing, too. Let's do the test to see if they fixed the thrust line, because the version one would nose down. So we're going to nose up real quick. It does have a slight nose down, but it's nowhere near as powerful as the V1. So we're going to go ahead and actually we'll bank in, and then we'll break and do some touch and go's. Not the most graceful bank I've ever done. We may have to land without flaps, depending on how this wind crops up. We just got a 15 to 18 mile an hour headwind that just popped up. With these A10s, especially the FMS ones, you need to be careful with the thrust line. So don't throttle up instantly, because you can push the plane right into the ground, because of the higher engine offset. That way I gave it a little bit half throttle first, and then throttle all the way up and pulled out of it. You can hear the intakes of the ducts hitting the air and then making like turbulence behind them. It's really cool. It's like hitting different air currents up there and going... Throttle down, pull flaps all the way down, keep the nose pushed down, begin throttling up as we get close to the ground, start flying level. All right, this thing is a dream, man. You don't even hear it rolling on the ground. That's why I put those low bounces on it, man. You don't even hear it rolling. I also greased them up too with some of the super lube that I use. I had that stuff back when I worked at Radio Shack, and it was like... I think it used to be called Radio Shack Precision Application Lubricant or something, but it's made by Super Lube. You can see it on the bottle. It's one of those things where they put their name on it, but they didn't really make it. When you go to Publix and you get Publix branded stuff, but it's really made by Rice Krispies and Kellogg's and stuff. Same thing with Super Lube and some other stuff in this hobby too. E-flight stuff is often made by FMS. Look at this thing just glide in. Once I get more confident with it, we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna start doing some wheelies. But I think, checking the voltage, that we probably should get ready to land here in a moment. So let's go ahead and put her up into another flat spin because we need that Instagram content, yo. By the way, we just had 100,000 subscribers on Instagram. I can't thank all you guys enough for helping us get to that point. It's got a really graceful glide too when it's unpowered, the way it just spins. So my first A10 64 versus 70 was done in the hat cam era of this channel, and I think I need to get the 64 back out and compare the E-flight 64 versus this because they're both made by FMS. You can tell just by the way they're constructed. Or as I like to say, you can tell by the way that it is. You can tell by the FMS EDF in the back. Trying to get it to wheelie, but it's so heavy up front it's just not going to happen. But I mean, look at that. You can't even hear it rolling. Those do roll low bounce wheels. It's like a $20 upgrade to a jet that's this heavy. Let's see if I can get her to turn around without having to go get her. I may not be able to, but I think we got it. We got it, just barely. We got to goose that throttle around just a little bit, just a little bit. Look at how good that looks. That is a beauty of a plane. But this thing flies incredible. It's not as agile as the 64mm A-10, but it's nice. It feels so planted in the sky. There's almost no bad tendencies. All the issues that I hated about the 70mm A-10 version 1 have basically been addressed with this jet. I did not really find anything really to complain about with it. I'm not going to go out and say it's a 10 out of 10 jet. That's just not who I am. It was sent to me. I have to keep that in mind. But at the same time, this thing's a solid 9 out of 10. Could it be better in some aspects? Yeah. Should I have had to replace the wheels? No. I think the wheels should have come with those Dubro low bounce wheels off the start. I think that's what it should have actually come with. I think that would have made a big difference in how it flies and how it lands specifically. I do recommend for you guys who do get this jet, we're going to fly it again in a little bit, but I'm going to recommend that you take the PCB that is connected right... there's like a little board that sits... if you sit up a little bit, you'll see this screw hole that my finger's pointing at. There's a board that sits right there. FMS likes to do this. They'll put their circuit boards on a connector right there, and they'll screw them in. If you unscrew that, you can pull the whole thing out, and then you can get the circuit board back there off of that, and then you can push it all the way to the back of the airframe to help get your center of gravity to a point where the battery can sit more secure on the strap. And then you can actually, you can avoid doing the soul plane thing. What I meant about soul plane is like, like when this thing would go over the pavement here, it looked like it was on hydros bouncing down the street doing this. Like that's pretty cool. Boom, boom, boom. Give me some reggaeton music. And like you get that, you get that set up right, but if you push that battery too far back, watch what happens. Like you've got to be careful with this too. Like because my mods to this thing allow me to shove this battery as far back as I want. Watch this. Now with that battery shoved into that pocket right in front of the PCB, see how it wants to balance? Like the CG is so far aft now that the jet can easily fall back and damage the tail strut. So I did put black electrical tape on everything that could be damaged. So let's pick that up and have you guys look at that real quick. See those little pieces of electrical tape right here. Nice and shiny compared to the rest of the black paint, which is more matte. That's a quick and easy upgrade that'll help protect it. If it ever gets ripped off or damaged by dragging it on pavement, all you got to do is just cut another piece, slap it back on. Nobody will even tell the difference. Scotch 3M super 33 plus, I think is what that stuff's called. I got every color they make it. I got a gray, black, green, blue, orange, red, yellow. It's, and I have this other stuff from warrior wrap or whatever they call themselves. That's a little bit darker gray that kind of matches this gray more than like the lighter gray that's found in other aircraft. So you can use that too. That, that works out pretty well. Now that we have an ICOM av radio, we can monitor the common traffic advisory frequency and fly off the main runway when the sun isn't too intense. This opens up a lot more opportunities for us to fly and to do things like taxi the A10 onto the runway and make it look like a scale air force takeoff. Let's demonstrate what else this jet is capable of. Starting with inverted high alpha. Almost hit that tree. I'm amazed at the thrust to weight ratio this thing's got. The A10 is rock solid stable while performing inverted high alpha. As long as you're confident with rudder, you can make this jet happily plod along at a snail's pace while it flies almost on thrust alone. Using differential thrust, it performs incredible flat spins with the center of gravity around the center of the wing. Flattening it out even further is easy if you use aileron in the opposite direction of the spin. But what if you're not like us and you're trying not to push these things to their limit? That's okay too. With the center of gravity pushed back to around the midpoint of the wing, you can float in on the backside of the power curve and nail some sweet landings. The Dubrow low bounce wheels really shine here too. Be aware that this jet is, and we can't stress this enough, very heavily wing loaded. You need power to bring it in safely without stalling. It will literally drop out of the sky without thrust while the flaps are deployed. For what it is, this jet absolutely competes with the freewing 80mm A10. It doesn't need a second battery, and it's not as big, so it's easier to transport. And to us, it looks better with scale landing gear struts and incredible detailing throughout the airframe. While the freewing 80mm will probably fly better because it is bigger, the FMS A10 deserves a spot in your hangar. And here's my final thoughts on this thing. This thing is heavy. It flies heavy, but it's so rewarding to fly. It's so much better than the B1 A10. I love it, honestly. Like, I can't believe that they've improved it so much. The motors are so powerful. This thing was able to get out of an inverted high alpha no problem. It actually flipped over itself, believe that or not. Actually, we got that on camera, right? Yes. Unbelievable. They must have put in the new 70mm fans that Hondro, also known as Air Guardian, likes to put in his SU-35. That has to be the only explanation I can think of, because the old version of the fans that I have at the house, they could not do that. It was just enough to kind of let it get out, and then it would be sketchy trying to roll out of it. So this thing, I think the servo quality is pretty good as far as stock servos go in a jet. These are actually pretty damn nice. I love the hinge quality. I wish the rudders were hinged with actual hinges and not foam, that is. I will say that the wheels do need to be replaced. You need to get these squishy wheels. It'll help with the nose gear's longevity. It'll help with the mains longevity. It'll help it roll better on the ground. It's so quiet when it touches down on these Dubrow low bounces. These are 2.5 inch low bounce and 2 inch low bounce wheels. I mean, this thing, it looks beautiful. Fisher-Price quality missiles aside, I mean, you don't even notice them in the sky. They look good from a distance. That's really all it needs to do, right? Overall, definitely, I'd say 9.5. Almost 9.5. Yeah, we'll go with that. 9.5 is what I'm going to say with this jet. It just is that good. It flies amazing. I mean, how many A-10s are you going to be able to get a 45 degree inverted high alpha with and have it be almost rock solid the whole way? This is just absurd. The flat spins you can do with differential thrust on an A-channel are some of the best I've done with any jet, and it just looks amazing when the inertia allows it to just keep spinning on its own. And it's handling these winds that we're in right now not too bad. There's about a 10-15 mile an hour gust coming at us at this point that we're talking, and the jet just does not care. Because it has heavily loaded wings, it can cut through turbulence better than a lot of other models can, but that does come with a consequence. It is easier to stall at lowered airspeeds, and if you aren't completely wings level, you're not going to stall gently like this. You're going to stall dropping a wing, whichever one was not level. The one that's inboard toward the ground is going to be the one that drops most likely. So you just got to be good at managing your approach speed, the flaps, just kind of, you know, keep that in mind when you're flying it. Other than that, I mean, it looks solid, fantastic. It's got plenty of space in here for whatever battery you want to put it in. We actually flew the SMC6200 battery in here, lithium high voltage pack. That thing is absurd. It did everything I wanted it to do, no problem. I didn't even feel like it had any additional weight in the sky more than it already does. Kind of a consequence of it being one of the heaviest 70 mils I've ever picked up. The twin 70 freewing AO37 feels like a feather compared to this thing. It's actually hurting my arm to hold it up as long as I have, so I'm going to switch and put some of the weight on my left hand. I do think you guys should get it. You can pick it up at fmshobby.com through the links in our description. It would help us out a ton. I think you guys, if you set it up the way we have with the, what do you call it, with the 150% rates, push rods pushed out to very far extents and just maybe give it that differential thrust. Oh boy. You guys need to learn how to do some of this stuff. I did have an older video on setting up the A10. You guys can reference. I'll put that in the description as well. With that, I hope you guys have a great one and we'll see you again next time.