RCU Forums - View Single Post - First CL plane in 30 years and it's electric
Old 05-12-2006 | 07:46 AM
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jerichod
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From: Los Alamos, NM
Default RE: First CL plane in 30 years and it's electric

yea, let us know how it comes out, particularly the flying characteristics.

i just finished a conversion from my own designed plane, originally for a 0.15, to a PJS 800E outrunner. I worried about the line drag issue, and wondered greatly about the right 'watts/lb" rule of thumb to use for control line, taking into account the lines.

I simulated the plane in MotoCalc (great program, well worth the $ if you push electrons to fly) and set up the airframe with lots of drag (e.g. said it had floats, lots of strut wires, rought fuse, square profile, and 3 degrees static AOA). That added lots of drag to the plane to try and account for the lines.

Bottom line - must have done pretty well. i only have one flight on it, but the lap times came out slightly faster than predicted speed in motocalc, although the static current draw is just about right on. flew on 52' 0.015" lines.

BTW - my plane is 21 oz RTF (with the electron tank full :} ), and the power system is delivering about 110 Watts/lb. for an rc plane this would be getting up towards 3D (22 oz thrust on a 21 oz plane) but for control line seems to be pretty sedate. about like the glow one.

rmw00, if you have motocalc run the numbers for your foamy? if not contact me off-thread and lets chat about the numbers?

r.