planebuilder66

My Feedback: (8)

Why is the new e-flight f15 review in this post or the heli competition in this post as well, the last time I checked, this was 1/2 and 1/8A fourm? Sometimes I hate advertising of manufactures.

skaliwag

My Feedback: (1)

"A". Because they pay the guy who ownes RC Universe dot com?

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

"B" Because they pay the guy who owns RC Universe dot com...Rog
you could advertise go karts here, as long as you pay

wjvail

My Feedback: (3)

Try and buy a Cox TD .049 today. It was the staple of my flying when I was young. Given they aren't made any more, you have to ask what have they been replaced by...? Years ago I flew an Airtornics 1/2A QT with a black widow .049. Since none of that exists any more, you have to ask what are folks doing instead.

Another thought... by definition 1/2A is engines of less than .050 CID displacement. Strictly speaking, discussions of engine larger than that should raise the same questions you suggest in the first post of this thread. There is a reason Cox made an .049 and a .051. .051 is "A" class, not 1/2A. Threads about the TT .07 should be banned... right.?.? The AME a.061 and 074 should be out also.?.?

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_67...tm.htm#6720213

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_37...tm.htm#3747976

Bill

Entropy

My Feedback: (2)

I'm new to 1/2a or should I say A since it's not under .049 but still I fly helis and ducted fan jets so I found the links informative. How hard is it to ignore the top few posts anyway? And if you do see something that catches your interest (like both of these did for me), how hard is it to hit the back button when you're done reading to get right back to this forum?

Anyway, just my opinion.

(BTW the ad's rotate so it's not always eFlite and IRCHA)

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

Are there any 1/2A specific advertisers on RCU at all?

rainedave

My Feedback: (1)

Bill, you can, at least, still get a Q-Tee kit:

http://www.aerosphereonline.com/mm5/...e=Power-Planes

David

wjvail

My Feedback: (3)

WOW does that bring memories. I haven't see one of those in years. I think I still have a few black widows upstairs and now that radio equipment actually fits these, this may be my next project!

Thank you for the link!

Bill

Thomas B

My Feedback: (4)

All those powerplants should be in here...we just need to change the name of the fourm to the "1/8A, 1/4A, 1/2A and A Aircraft and Engines"

We could call it the ".15 or under aircraft and engines" forum, but that kind of ignores the core interest in .049-.074 powerplants.

dennis

My Feedback: (90)

The rest of the world was a little more realistic in defining 1/2A. Basically any engine from .09CI is considered 1/2A, that makes sense to me.
dennis

planebuilder66

My Feedback: (8)

Yeah,... I don't care for exact size designations, to me anything under .10 is 1/2A. Pretty much the same airframes and wing sizes +- 10%, until you hit 1/8A then were talking small, and 1/4A well that's just micro, even compaired to micro electrics of today. I'll tell you what,.. if you build 1/4A R/C planes then you work for a watch company making wind up watches. That's the comment I use to get for building VW engines with webers and ceramic coated headers, a watch winders wet dream.

wjvail

My Feedback: (3)

Hmmm... Maybe I should have said this in my first post, but I am not really advocating excluding engines larger than .050 CID. My point was that a lot of the flying that was done by 1/2A's, is now done by electrics and that if we were going to be literal and exclude anything that isn't directly related to 1/2A, we should exclude a lot more than E-Flight's F-15.

Bill

digital_trucker

Electrics just plain SUCK. Outside of blobs of pre-manufactured foam (salvaged from discarded Mcdonald's Happy Meals no doubt) they're the most ridiculous method anyone could possibly come up with to power a model airplane. STEAM power makes more sense.

Here's the (short) list of electric's MAJOR shortcomings:

1) To be anywhere NEAR efficient or powerful you need highly specialized (and expensive) equipment in batteries, chargers, protective equipment in case it emulates a roman candle.
2) It's HEAVY
3) You need a PHD in horseapples to figure out how to power an airplane (after all, we all KNOW that every single airplane needs a custom-tailored powerplant - why, I can't imagine HOW people flew airplanes using a general size engine all those years...you'd think it would have been necessary to make engines in displacement increments of .001 c.i. to ever get airborne).
4) Your choice of propeller mounting is between rubber-banding it to the motor or using a nice soft ALUMINUM hub (with nothing to prevent prop slippage)
5) spinners are verboten on electric motors, and the makers ensure that by designing them so that the propeller shaft - such as it is - is too short to hold both a spinner backplate AND a propeller. This isn't so much of a problem, since the only purpose of an electric motor is the slow-flying foam plates mentioned above...no need to streamline a Big Mac container


If I sound bitter, it's only because I was convinced against my better judgement to give this lekky thing a whirl. It's become blindingly obvious to me WHY the overwhelming majority of electric-powered aircraft are either ARF or RTF, and why actual KITS and scratch-built aircraft use REAL engines...they're the most cludgy impractical things ever to materialize from from the fevered imagination of that creepy nerd who's books you continually dumped back in high school. Come to think of it, this whole mess is probably that fellow's revenge.

Electric power sucks for model aircraft, and I am now FIRMLY convinced that electric power is suitable only for a 'toy' and henceforth I shall consider any electric powered aircraft of any size or performance to be a mere toy to be properly displayed in a stocking on Christmas morning, destined for wreckage by Christmas afternoon and slobbery mauling by the family mongrel. It doesn't surprise me in the least why electric ARFs and RTFs are so cheap; that's all they're worth.

BuzzBomber

My Feedback: (4)

My experience has been the opposite - the $15 GWS outrunner and $10 2S lipo on my KIT-BUILT Clancy Lady Bug will haul it straight up and out of sight, and do so for over 10 minutes at a time. This is far more than I can say for the $75 Tee Dee .020(NOS bought 4~5 years ago) it originally had on the nose. Same goes for my Ace T-6. That went through three different engines which never really gave me the performance I wanted before I scored a $15 motor/esc combo and put it on the nose. I still love tinkering with tiny engines, but I've had better luck the past several years in actually FLYING planes with electric power. Blasphemy, I know......I still have a Norvel .049 hanging around waiting for me to have time to build it an airframe.

Bee Whisperer

I agree with digital. What I would really like to see is a forum for gas and one for electric. I spend so much time looking for engine power ideas and when I finally find one someone pops in and says I've gotta mv15 double insulated with a 3823435gmv esc pushing 10 amps on 1400 mahs 2 cell super ding dong battery and a blah blah prop...............and ruins it all! Real planes are powered by engines and I think that the models of them should be also. Just my opinion! If people like electric, then so be it. I just think that the forums should be separated! I am building a Ladybug now to go with my Lazybee and every thread has this tech talk about motors. I want to see one with an engine!

BMatthews

Don't hold back there 'Trucker. Tell us what you REALLY think.....

We shouldn't be too harsh on the 'lekky flyers since it's due to the demands they have placed on the market that we have the current plethora of super small and light radio gear. If it wasn't for the ease of making small models fly with electric power options we'd still be trying to figure out how to jam regular size servos and receivers into our small fuselages.

And yes I COULD move all the wayward electric threads out of here and over to the Electric Universe forum but I was under the impression that you lot were fairly tolerant of any sort of small models as long as it involved actual design and building. After all, they are all adaptable to engines so it gives us some options. The currently running and seemingly popular Guillows Champ thread is one example.

So far the only stuff I've moved over on occasion was where it was a common question about an ARF or RTF or completely electric specific such as a powerplant to ESC question.

Remby

My Feedback: (3)

Yep, the old "Electric vs Glow" discussion really brings out the best in the tribe! As CP said here a while back (somthing I remember my dad used to say), "I got a real charge out of it"!

Duane-RCU

My Feedback: (5)

Around here I've seen impressive electric power. 30 pound 3D planes flying on "E" power, this month we had a new ARF get shown to us at our Q25 races, on 3 cells it was close in performance, on 4 cells, it out-ran our racers, all with a $60.00 motor, speed controller, and battery set up. I like both systems, as I do use both for different purposes.

GrahamC

Electric power is just a means to an end.

There are still those among us who think we should still be using horse and buggy and delivering mail cross country by stagecoach. Imagine waiting for the UPS horse and buggy to deliver your latest ARTA (almost ready to assemble) kit from Tower Hobbies - gives new meaning to waiting for Big Brown to deliver; pewwwww, stinks but helps keeps the flies off your food!

cheers, Graham in Ottawa Canada

Tom Nied

If you don't keep an open mind to new technologies, you're stifling your progress.

I have to add, I still like firing up a Cox .049 though.

DeviousDave

DT, I am going to have to disagree with your assertions about electric airplanes and chalk it up to a possible lack of exposure on your part to that end of the hobby as reasoning for your comments. They are different than 1/2A, and better than anything normally associated with small glow unless you bring subjective measurements (i.e. because you like the sound and feel).

Simply put, there is NOTHING that a 1/2A can do that an electric can't do better, faster, and longer for the same weight. I'm sorry.

Deadstik

My Feedback: (8)

You know guys, we fly these 1/2 a motors because we want to... it's a choice. It is also a way of paying respects to those wonderful memories we had cranking up Babe Bees and Tee Dees when we were kids. I know that's what it does for me. Despite the fact that the electric motor made for better performance on an earlier post, I guarantee you that guy can still get what he paid for it.. from guys like us... that remember those earlier times. I'm not even about to take a swing at the "mine does something better than yours" comments...'cause I flat dab don't care..... but I will tell you this...if you've ever heard a Tee Dee come screaming out of a split S doing so many turns you just knew it would self destruct, and listened to it go screaming by you...you don't need to even question why we fly them....because you know.


Dan
Carolina Custom Aircraft

proud member of the Carolina 1/2 A Crew

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

I've got a lot of Electric stuff too, but...
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/forumid_227/tt.htm


Not to mention Wattflyer...an entire web site devoted to just elec. stuff.

This forum...1/2A - 1/8A (etc. ) should be fuel burning noise makers only...IMO.

DeviousDave

The original SMALL directive was for small, unintimidating powerplants that could be flown in school yards, and electrics fit.
so does CO2, Rubber etc. I have no problem with people saying that they like 1/2A glow for whatever subjective, personal reasons they like, but it irks me to see people trash another aspect of the hobby because they personally didn't find what they like in it or met limited success after a halfhearted attempt at trying.

One of the beautiful things about the hobby is that you can find one niche and push the limit. Some people do it with old timer TEXACO type models, some do it with microfilm models, some do it with 180mph electric airplanes, and some do it with 3/4hp 1cc motors. But, for all the different disciplines, there is room for everyone. Given the close marriage of small electric and glow for the radio gear and batteries, CL and FF for their strong and light building technology etc. it behooves us to allow some cross pollination of ideas in the areas that we are comfortable with. Doesn't hurt anything, and you might just learn something.

proptop

My Feedback: (8)

I hear ya Dave...
I dig all kinds of aircraft, no matter what size, type and/or power system.
Would like to try CO2 and maybe some day get all the way back to my "roots" with some rubber power and HLG's. (just got back into doing a little C/L this year )

It's too bad that some guys feel the need to bash electrics...I mean nobody's twisting their arms to buy/fly them...and there's room for everything in this hobby, but (all I'm saying is ) WHY post/talk about "E" here in the 1/2A forum, when there are specific forums for elec. and all one has to do is click on that forum.
RCU is all about cross-over...or diversification...all ya gotta do is look around.