Alright, I have gotten a little more time on the Black Magic. I've had some interesting things going on. I had to replace the motor. Maybe a couple of weeks before the Jacksonville contest, the motor seemed louder than it had been. There were no problems with the numbers. Amps and battery usage were what they had been. When I was flying at Jacksonville, the motor started making a clicking noise when it spun around. I continued to fly it at the contest, but decided to send it back to Hobby Lobby after that. They sent me a new motor, which I installed and ran today for the first time. This thing is so quiet! I think the other one started out like this, but just got slightly louder little by little so I didn't notice it. Anyway, here is something I couldn't explain. I originally liked the 20x15 prop on the old AXI motor. This soon felt too fast and I settled on the 21x13w. When I tried it today, it felt too slow. The numbers were what I would expect from previous times flying. So, I put the 20x15 back on and it felt great again. I limited the full throttle to under 80 amps and it was spinning around 5900-6000 rpm. I usually didn't go above 3/4 throttle.

The ESC problem I was having did not show it's head. The throttle was extremely smooth and there was not any sign of the motor going out of sinc. I am running their latest software update (version 2.20). I don't know if part of the problem was the motor going bad or if there were some problems with the software. Maybe some of both? Anyway, it seemed to run very well today for 5 flights so I hope it continues.

I also wonder if I just got a bad motor, or if I am running it too hard. I still really like the way this motor performs and for the money, its hard to beat (2 year warranty also). That is if you can keep the airplane under 11 pounds.