ORIGINAL: TWD
Well It's over!!
Sorry me too. I can't say nothing different from guys above. I never tried stock battery. It is still on the shelf. I wonder if after these months still holds the charge. If it does, I might convert it to power my cordless phone (it uses the same AAA cells). When I measured the current required by the engine it is way to much for AAA NiMh.
Stock plane (except radio) powered by 3s LiPo. It did barely fly. I wrote it on my post (#27) :
ORIGINAL: RysiuM
I got maiden flight. The plane is way. way underpowered. For the first flight I used 3s Apoge 1570mAh. It weights the same as the original NiMh 8-pack so it balances well in the plane.
With just a bit of wind (6 mph) I setup the plane so I could use about 100ft of paved runway at Mather Aerospace Modelers field. At full power the speed was still to low to fly after 100ft ROG. I lifted the plane to the ground effect and flew next 100ft just inches above the grass. Finally I started very shallow climb. First turn with about 10-20 degrees bank - more than that and the plane was falling down. Both engines did not run even - sometimes one run faster, sometimes both slowed down just to pick up speed again. Entire flight was at WOT but I did not climb higher than 20-30 ft. On the turns in order to keep it in sight I had to bank more and let the plane to loose altitude.
After two exciting circles I set it back into the ground effect for landing. This plane is a floater. Flying 100ft inches above the runway did not want to land. The next approach I started much slower and this time after flare it landed. Not the perfect landing (a bouncing one) bot no harm to the plane. The battery was warm (not hot). recharging it at home I found in this 2 minutes flight (about 90 seconds at WOT) the plane used 385mAh. That is 15A total.
I believe this plane can not fly on stock NiMh 8-pack and for sure will not take off on 2s LiPo. I start working on BL motors for these EDF. My calculations shows 4000kv motor should be good for 2s LiPo and if I got everything right I should get two times more thrusts (500-600g) at less than 25A.
When I'm reading this now, I think I am just a good pilot
I'm flying RC planes for last 8 years that including all kind of prototype experiments for last five years. I guess this experience helped me to not trash this plane on the first turn.