Nick Vescio , 11 September 2024
Had the chance to maiden the V2 90mm F-16 today and the weather couldn’t have been better for doing so. 
Overall, this bird is amazing and you can easily see all of the well thought out improvements made over the V1. By sheer coincidence, another fellow pilot at the field had the 80mm E-Flite out to fly. Because of this we were able to compare both birds against eachother. 
Overall, we noticed that the lighter 80mm was quicker to recover airspeed lost over the heavier 90mm. That said, the 90mm’s weight helped it lose less speed and naturally, helped build speed during dives. The vertical performance is slightly in favor of the 80mm thanks to less weight.
And that is the crux of this 90mm in a nutshell…the bird is a prime example of trade offs. Because of the amazing scale improvements, it’s heavy. The added plastic, (which the E-Flite/FMS has too) makes this 90mm significantly heavier than the other 90mms I have flown. I do have to give my hat to the Freewing folks though for making this porky bird fly have the performance it does though. There’s some fantastic engineering on this bird without question. 
Now for the data…
I conducted seven flights today with the F-16. Five flight with standard SMC 5000s and two with standard SMC 6000s. I initially started with a 5000 up near the front of the battery tray and while it CG’d fine, it flew significantly nose heavy. Over the course of my flights today, I have started to dial in the correct battery location. The picture provided is where I’m currently flying with my 5000s. The 6000s are slightly further back.
First flight was with a 5000mah pack and was flying level while doing some minor trimming. I forgot to charge my GPS speedometer last night but was able to get one reading of 107mph during this flight before it died on me. I’m honestly very impressed by this since I wasn’t pushing the bird too hard and simply getting it trimmed out. I believe it’s easily a 115-125mph bird with some more aggressive flying.
Flight times were 2.5-3 minutes on 5000s and 3-3.5 on 6000s. I did have one flight with a 6000 on board where due to a go-around, was a 4 minute flight with significant throttle utilized throughout that extra minute to climb and maintain speed into turn for final. This pack came down with 3.6s and 15% left on the pack. While a testament to these SMC standard lipos, I don’t recommend 4 minute flights just yet. This is unfortunately on negative side effect of the extra weight of this bird slightly diminishing performance.
Now with that said, this bird is absolutely gem and I highly recommend it. Especially if you love scale flying and scale features, there’s absolutely no F-16 that compares on the market. I plan to try 8S on this bird at somepoint but she’s already a porky bird so not sure the added weight is going to be enjoyable to fly with. Maybe Charles D Linear will be able to share soon the comparisons of this V2 with a modernized V1. My bet is the V1 has an overall higher performance ceiling due to less weight and same power despite different ducting. 
So in summary, this V2 is everything I expected it to be and I’m absolutely loving this bird’s looks and performance. She’s not a speed demon but she’s absolutely gorgeous. I had so many folks at the field today checking it out and taking pictures of it…and speaking of pictures…my good friend Robert Saul was out there with me taking pictures of this lovely bird and I look forward to sharing those with y’all soon!
Happy flying y’all!