ORIGINAL: calvino
I am currious why you douldn't want the motor to freewheel during flight, I hear that can help extend flight times.... since i do reember that on those rubberband windup planes, the props freewheled, and that worked good at slowing them down[8D], am I correct or wrong or what??
Some ESC equipped gliders also have folding props. That's actually the way to really cut down the drag, which is why gliders have folding props. With a folder, the brake will stop the rotation with some authority which helps the folding action.
Also, it's to your advantage with any airplane that doesn't have gear to get the prop to stop horizontally. Lots of park flyers have no gear. Landing that kind of model can be a problem with the prop windmilling. It's guaranteed the prop will hit the ground with whatever blade is coming around the down side as the plane is about to settle in softly. And you can forget about the softly when that happens. With a brake you have a 50-50 chance of the blade stopping out of the way. If it doesn't, you blip the throttle and you got another chance.