Hi Nate,

I'm glad to hear the status of you B-17. That's really a big and complicated airplane.

With regard to your questions about wire sizing, I can only plead insanity about all things electrical. You have already plumbed the depths of my electrical I.Q. But the good news is that I get all my electrical/electronic help from a friend and fellow modeler in Moorpark who is an EE. I've already spoken to him and he said he would be happy to talk to you about the B-17. His name is Lane Tufts and he is at 529-2359. Is it possible that you once worked at Mugu? Lane thought he recognized your name from some time back before he retired there.

Although I'm an electrical layman, the question of long wires has intrigued me because of my B-24 project and of course the P-61. Here are some random thoughts that I've considered for my very similar project:

1. No matter how large the wires, you will get at least some voltage drop over the 30". The loss in wattage will be I(squared) X R. You can make R pretty small by using a big wire size, but you will pay a price in wire weight. If you save weight with smaller wire, then you will need to make up for the loss in power by installing bigger batteries and bigger motors. So no matter which way you go, there will be a weight penalty to be paid. In round numbers, you will probably need about 14ga. wire. You could at least check out the weight of the appropriate amount of 14ga. for estimating purposes.

2. You might choose to reduce current by installing smaller motors in the outboard nacelles. Then compensate by installing larger motors in the inboard nacelles, where the wire runs would be shorter. This has other operational advantages in the area of reducing thrust assymetry, but it offends my purist desire to have four equal motors, just as Boeing did.

3. As I understand it, you need to put the batteries in the fuselage for CG purposes. Are you certain this is necessary? Maybe the heavy leads out to each nacelle (and the slightly larger batteries and motors) would weight more than the ballast that would be required in the nose if you carried the batteries in the nacelles? I went through this trade-off with the P-61 and ultimately decided to put the batteries in the nacelles. My batteries amount 16% of the weight of the airplane, so they strongly affect CG. Also, the batteries weight the same on takeoff or landing, so you don't have a "zero fuel" CG to consider like you would with gas engines. As it turned out, my CG came out OK with no ballast required. Even if you do need to install some ballast, a lighter plane will require less lead for a given CG adjustment.

Hope these thoughts will serve to stir your imagination. Don't hesitate to call Lane. He's a very practical electrical guy and also very much of an airplane enthusiast.

Dick