Goodlooking!!! What's the all up weight & any ground clearance issues with the 13" prop?

Mike Brennan
Club Saito #723

Rooster6- very nice job! That's a pretty Miniplane; I like the color scheme. Is that modeled after a full-size version?

Rooster6, Your SMP is beautiful! Would be interested in your electric setup details. I was considering going electric, but decided not to due to battery access design issues, so interested in how you did this. Might be useful for me if I build another one someday. Gotta get this one done first!!

Guys im just heading out the door.....I will be back home next week end and will post some more pics.....

Ok guys im back home from uni now so I can answer some questions. The overall weight of the plane is exactly 5.5 pounds with the batteries installed ready to fly. This weight could easily be reduced, as the slimline pilot is the heaviest I have come across but looks really nice IMO. Also the eflite 46 motor is not the lightest in the class and the engine standoffs are ones that I had sitting around and are a little overkill. The batteries are 2200mAh when 1800mAh would be more than sufficient so an overall weight of around 5 pound or less would easily be attainable. The prop clearance with the 13x7 prop is not an issue at all, 14" could be used but you would have to be careful. As you can see from the photos I have fitted a hatch in the bottom of the fuse to accept the batteries, this hatch uses four light gauge aluminium angles to form a box section so the batteries fit vertically. The power system im using is 4S which i have achieved by using 4S 2200mAh packs and wiring them in parallel to create a 4S 4400mAh pack which resembles a brick instead of the usual single 4S packs which are long. As i have mentioned two 4S 1800mAh packs would be great as well as you would lighten the plane and would give you 3600 mAh which would equate to about 8 minutes of flight, as it is now with the 4400mAh packs I get a generous 12 minutes of sport flying with throttle management. The plane is not ballistic by any means, my hangar consists of multiple planes pushing out more than 200 watts/pound and can hang of the prop so they are very powerful so in comparison flying this plane is similar to flying a trainer in flight characteristics.....its that solid. I have recessed the cowl into the fuse so that it fits flush and not just simply slides over the fuse. The cowl also has the mounting nuts through the firewall so there are no mounting nuts or bolts through the side of the cowl to crack later. Im not here to bash glow planes as I own one or two myself but this little machine setup electric is smooth, quite, clean and vibration free meaning the airframe should last forever and a day with some luck. Having said that a plane with this much character probably deserves a burble of a glow engine to add some nostalgia.......horses for courses. By the way i forgot to mention that the colour scheme was pinched from a full scale Pitts i have on a flight sim.

Very nice, and a great job with the electric conversion as well. Come back and give us a post-flight report, at that weight I'll bet she's super easy

Ok guys, just got back from the field. Well the Master Airscrew 13 x 6 is out, it was too slow and didnt really pull that well like I said earlier....very scale. I then fitted a 13 x 8 VOX prop (rebadged Xoar from precision aerobatics). To say the difference was chalk and cheese is an understatement. The 13 x 8 pulls the Smith along at a fair rate of knots, the vertical is not unlimited but close to it and very satifying....all in all its just more fun to fly. I am using a Castle Creations Ice 75 esc with data logging. The data logged shows the Vox prop is more efficient and spins at higher rpm and provides more thrust.....so basically its a winner all round. Landing was a non event...not a floater by any means but once in ground effect greasing the Smith is so easy. There is some history behind my model as my girlfriend now wife bought this kit for me 16 years ago....I finally thought I would build it this summer (southern hemisphere). I wish I had done it earlier...just a beauty.

Rooster6,

Thanks for the update and the setup details. Looks like a good choice to go electric with the SMP. Just curious on the flight duration with the packs you have?

BTW - I chuckled at your "history" behind the SMP as my girlfriend and now wife also bought me my SMP about 20 years ago, and last fall I figured I needed to get working on it. Keep hearing those famous words "well it's about time". LOL

Cheers,

From above

Thanks.....musta missed that from the first post!

No problem! I would be quite happy with 12 minutes... I noromally fly my Glow's for 10 minutes. If Ibuild another one I might electrify it.

I was thinkin the same......have to get the first one done first though!

Congrats on the successful maiden flight! Enjoy that Smith, not too many people have one [8D]

Guys as I get more time on the Smith and get used to how many milliamps are going back into the packs I will be able to give some definate flight times. I flew for 12 minutes yesterday and put 1400 mAh back into each 2200mAh pack....so the efficiency of the 13 x 8 VOX prop looks like it will allow longer flight times over 12 minutes. By looking at footage of different SMP on youtube the power looks comparable to .46 - .60 glow. I will keep you posted on flight times and will also try an get some video organized....although the missus is a little wild on the video camera, so dont expect a Speilberg production, lol.

Hey Rooster6, Know there is a difference with a "hot" (fully charged) lipo, but at 2/3 empty are you experiencing any noticable loss of power? Do you feel like with your style of flying you could probably get 15 minutes flying time? I've got a Power 46 & was planning to put it in a Rascal clone off the bay, but haven't gotten to it yet.

T-man49
Club Saito #723

I haven't noticed any drop off in power, planks are much easier on Lipos than helis. My helis are high power, high amp applications and require a set head speed for the duration of a 5 minute flight....so very hard on packs, and a slight drop off is noticable at around 4.30 minutes. Planks allow you more throttle managment especially on down lines and sunday cruising so the thirst for power from the packs is less, unless you only know one speed, lol. The performance of my Smith at the end of my flight is the same as the beginning which is above what you would expect form a typical .46 2 stroke....remember I am using 13 x 8 prop so plenty of thrust and torque is on hand. As for getting 15 minutes it could be possible but i use the 80% rule with my lipos so it may not be in the best interests of pack longevity. As I get more flights on the Smith i will experiment with flight time and keep you posted. If you are using an eflite 46 I cannot stress how good a match the 13 x 8 VOX (xoar) is.....perfect match of thrust and efficiency.

Thanx for the input Rooster6. By the way, are you using a 60 amp esc with that 13 x 8 prop?

T-man 49, im using a Castle Creations Ice75 lite. These esc's have an inbuilt data logger that show exactly whats going on with your setup.....rpm, temp, watts, throttle input, battery voltage, amps and a few more. The eflite 46 and 13 x 8 VOX has been logged by my speed controller to only push 40 amps at full throttle, so a 60 amp esc would give you plenty of head room, I just like castle products because I have about 6 of them with never a problem but they dont do a 60amp esc......just a 50 and 75 suitable for the smith with a data logger. The 75 was only $10 more expensive so i figured why not go for the larger one, not much of a weight penalty either so it does the job without a wimper.

Do have a CC Ice 75 esc, but had plans of using it with a Skyshark Lightening 75 motor in a chipmunk. That's the biggest electric I have. Do have couple of e-flite Pro 60 esc though, & they should do fine with the 46 motor. Not really up to speed on all the data logging capabilities, mostly bought it (the ICE 75) for the BEC capabilities in trying to save a few ozs.

T-man49 in Alabama
Club Saito #723

T-man 49, if you buy a "castle link" you can connect the esc to your computer through the throttle lead and all info is displayed in a graph.....really quite straight forward but as a bonus you can access the bec output and set it to any value....mine is set to 6.0V to the receiver . The eflite 60 esc will do just fine in fact I would say perfect for this application especially if you use this prop as I have already told you what the load is, so its all goood. Sounds like you have some great projects in the pipeline.

Dredge.

Just wanted to check and see if anyone had made any progress with their miniplanes. Flying season is upon us!

I am stalled as busy at work and have some home reno projects that are taking priority. Had hoped to have mine done for the spring, but now looks like the fall. Pretty much all framed up and ready for covering.

Rooster..
Absolutely Gorgeous!
The mini is on my shortlist.. it just moved up a couple notches

My fuse is built up and I have the bottom wing about finished. I moved it off my building table to build my Primo 40 so once that is done I'll go back to the Miniplane and her to done.

Gearhead... a builder.. good!
I get around moving projects by having two tables !