RE: Is wet power a dead end?
To me it all about airplanes…
I currently have engines that range fro a .20 pet to a 35 CC Zenoah in airplanes. The planes I fly the most are powered by glow, and probably will be the ones I fly the most in the future. I am such a creature of habit that the majority of my airplanes are still covered in silk and painted so it’s not like I am one to embrace what is new all that easily.
Some twenty years ago a friend brought over his sons new battery powered airplane asking if I could help them get it to fly. One of my first comments to them was replace the toy electric motor with a glow engine. That and put some real landing gear on it, it had a spindly wire setup that could just support the weight of the airplane and probably would fold on the first landing (which it did). I told them at the time that they would be disappointed with it and it was a neat toy but by no means a real R/C aircraft.
Fast forward about 15 years and my wife decides that she wants to get into flying R/C but. She is put off by the slime that has to be cleaned off of the planes after a day of flying. Well there were a few guys at this new club I joined flying these electric airplanes, powered by some sort of lithium battery, hmmm. Where I have a background in electrical engineering I started to look into what was up with this new stuff. I set up an lt-40 with a Axi motor, a phoenix ESC and a little over a pound of A123 cells, cost for the power system $600, ouch. But you know what the plane flew pretty well on that setup although the cost was stupid. Do you know what type of engine and how much fuel I could buy with $600? At that point my mindset was yes you can build an electric airplane or two glow powered ones for the same money with new engines and all the radio gear, yea electric was clean but the price is stupid.
As time went on the prices came down and li-pol batteries improved in the power they could deliver. Soon I had a couple of .30 size electric fun flys that I kept in the car and would stop at the field on the way to or from work that I could just toss into the air and get a quick flight in. All I needed was my radio the charger and plane and could go flying. No need for my flight box with battery starter and fuel and having to clean up the plane to keep from messing up the interior of the car, neat.
For the best time I still load up a couple of glow planes pack a lunch and head out to the field.
But having been bitten by the speed bug again I am currently building a purpose built speed plane.
How is it powered by a electric motor For $59 I have a motor that will spin up to 33,000 rpm, how much would a IC engine that could do that cost me?