enyaengine

I'm quite tempted to get a Cox .049 Babe Bee for use on a freeflight. Would this be possible? The freeflight only has a wingspan of 546mm, so it's small. I'd go for the 0.01 or 0.02 if it weren't for the price. The .049's are cheap enough to replace if the plane does something random.
Basically, the plane has a little electric motor in it as standard with a rechargeable battery. I reckon if I removed those and bolted the little Cox engine onto the front, the extra thrust provided would give enough speed to lift the extra weight. What do you reckon?
how much do these little Cox engine weigh?
may thanks.

BTW, this is the freeflight:

Japanman

I think Sky demon would become a very appropriate name!
My guess would be that the best thing you could do would be get a good pee wee020- then the weight should be about right. They come up on ebay all the time for quite cheap prices- but to give you an idea my r/c version could climb out of site twice on one tank of fuel... similar wingspan but loaded down with r/c gear... An o49 version would be too fast to fly free flight in my opinion- it would very quickly get out of sight and then keep going goodness knows where!
But I am no F/F expert... BMathews, sir , where art thou?

J.M

Andrew

The Babe Bee weighs approximately 1.75 oz.

Your freeflight has a wingspan around 21.5 in. -- I suspect that it will be significantly overpowered with the .049. However, there are a number of COX experts on this forum that will be better able to evaluate its performance.

the "other" Andrew

Lynn S

I think a .049 on that plane would make an excellent Weed Eater.
You need a plane with at least a 35 inch wingspan.
If you want a easy cheap FF, use one of those Large foam gliders and mount the engine on the nose.

enyaengine

How about this brief:

Perfect easily assembled sport aerobatic model.

• Compact, lightweight slope or thermal glider
• Highly aerobatic with aileron & elevator controls
• Pre-covered in tough pre-printed film

SPECIFICATION:
Wing Span: 1.32m (52")
Weight: 0.62kg
Motor: None
Build Level: ARTF
Skill Level: Beginner

Required to complete (Not included):
Minimum of 2 channel radio with 2 mini servos


do you think that with .049 on it (i.e., powered as opposed to just a glider) it'd be able to support a pair of standard servos? (I've got a spare ACOMS 2-channel kit you see).

Lynn S

.62kg= 22oz so that should work, I'm not sure about using standard servos but otherwise it sounds good!

BMatthews

Your 52 inch model option sounds MUCH better. But is this your very first model airplane? It sounds like an ARF slope soarer and if it is then you'll want an instructor to help you out during the first few sessions. And the .049 should work very nicely on that model with the wing area and overall weight. It'll climb moderatley well but once at altitude putting the nose down to pick up a little speed will provide the abilty to easily do some of the basic maneuvers like loops, rolls and combinations of these. As a bonus you should be able to hunt some thermals once the engine dies. Or if you climb to a speck during the run you can do a whole bunch of neat glider aerobatics on the way donw. But rather than a Baby Bee for this model I'd suggest a Black Widow. Longer run times and a fair bit more power. It would be better with smaller servos but using the standards won't be that much of a penalty as long as you can use a smaller batter pack to minimise the weight as much as possible.

The Babe Bee in that little foamy free flighter would have been a bit of a disaster. There's some tricks you can do to reduce the thrust like putting the prop on backwards and adding a large disc just behind the prop but in the end the torque would have made trimming this beast a tough nut to crack. If you want to persue it I would suggest a PeeWee 020. You can then control the run time by adding small glass necklace beads to the fuel tank. Fill the tank and then try it. The beads should fill enough volume so that the run is less than a minute. Get the engine started and tuned for the first run and then fill it and start it and toss it at the right time. For the test flights you just get it going and hold it for long enough that it only runs for 5 to 10 seconds.

Good luck.

enyaengine

It will be my first plane. I've got a friend, though, who's been flying for years and is very experienced who should be able to tutor me.