Hello,

I’m preparing to get my first electric powered bird in the air and would appreciate some ideas on how best to proceed. The plane is a plans built home brew designed by a fellow club member several years ago. It’s a 1/2A powered 2-channel bird with a flat-bottomed, high-mounted wing. Span is 40 inches, chord is 7.25 inches, yielding almost exactly 2 square feet of wing area. All up with a Black Widow .049, two HS-55s, and 4 AAA receiver batteries, it weighed about 16 ounces. The bare airframe weighs 8.7 ounces. It’s stick built and very sturdy, so I’m confident it will handle the extra weight of the conversion. I know there are lots of options out there and my head is swimming in them, which is why I’m here asking for help.

I’m guess a 2 or 3 cell lipo pack in the vicinity of 1,000 mah would provide a reasonable flight time, but I’m lost on motor selection. Should I go with a conventional motor, motor/gearbox combo, or one of the outrunner models? How do these compare in terms of power, service life and flight duration? What about an ESC? How many amps would a motor this size draw? 10 to 20 is my best guess, but that could be way off. I’m looking for very specific recommendations as well as the reasoning behind them.

I’ve done a lot of reading, but it seems the more I read, the more options I find….which is probably a good thing, but for an electric rookie like me, it’s been somewhat frustrating. Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have.

Edited to add: This plane is a relaxing, slow flying bird and does not need screaming performance. I'd be very happy with enough power for a strong climb out and a flight duration of 10 to 15 minutes.


Regards,

Erik