Hi all,

I've got a Thunder Tiger J-3 Cub arf still in the box. I originally bought it a couple of years ago for electric power. I finally decided to clear the bench and get started on it. However, I have no background or experience in configuring electric power other than my electro-streak (doesn't really count for experience). I was hoping someone could give me a few pointers on determining a power setup for this plane that will provide good "scale" performance and decent flight duration. No need to over-power, it's just a cub. I've got plenty of gassers for high-power flying.

My intended use for this cub is when it's calm or very low wind conditions. I used to fly a cub that belongs to a buddy of mine at the end of our flying day when the wind dies. I had a ton of fun with his except for the mess to cleanup from the glow fuel. I figure an electric would be perfect for this kind of flying.

The specs on the plane are:

Wingspan: 82.7"
Wing Area: 850 sq"
Weight: 6.5 to 7.5 lbs
Engine: .46 to .61 2C, .50 to .91 4C

I did some searching and reading in the forums here and found quite a few references to the AXI motors. After digging into the specs, I believe the 2826/12 or 2826/10 with the JESAP40P (Jeti 40 amp ESC) might be a good choice for this cub. The manual for the cub recommends the largest diameter, lowest pitch prop I can get on it to produce some prop disc drag since it's such a floater. Can anyone chime in and tell me if I'm on the right track here with the AXI's? Also what kind of power source should I look into? Are LiPo's better in power-weight ratio than NiCad's? What about Nimh's? I do have a field charger (Triton) that should work with any type of power source. Any additional information on charging rates/times would also be appreciated. I'd like to be able to recharge at the field for additional flights.

Your help would be much appreciated.

I would go with the AXI 4120/18 with a 5 cell 6000 to 8000 mah LiPo pack and a 14X10 prop. This will give you plenty of power especially if you decide to use floats later

Thanks JP.

With the advice of some others with a similar setup, I decided to go with the 2826/12, Jeti40P and 4s2p 4000mah LiPo. I don't ever plan to use floats and I want scale performance, light weight and good duration. Motocalc also shows this setup to be adequate for the type of flying I intend to do with it. The cost is certainly reasonable as well.

I also invested in a DPR-100 power recorder. With this device, I'll be able to fine tune the prop size and pitch to get the most efficiency out of the system. I'm looking forward to putting it all together.

Peter Rake did an article on converting the Cub some time ago. He used an inexpensive Speed 700 geared 2 to, and 12 round cells. Very scale like in performance.

Steve