Hi All

I have recently been thinking of building a firefly ship of 'serenity' for thoes who know what I'm talking about, if you havent seen it before the do a search and take a look. This is a bit of a new thing to me as I finally have an excuse to get a propper charger and electronic engines.
I am hopefully going to fix a ducted propeller on either side attached to the main body and fix a system to rotate it on its axis. I would like to put in brushless motors with about the best batteries and longest lasting I can find to get power and lasting time out of it, I realise they arn't cheap but I don't want to be broke when I'm finished.

What I would like to know is if anyone has any wisdom as to which batteries and brands, motors and if possible lifting weight atc would be the best for this type of craft and if anyone has built or knows anything about the firefly or ospry (spelling) please respond.

Thanks

I know it's a difficult model to build that will require a highly programmable computer radio (or) custom circuitry.

It won't be as simple as sticking two ducted fans on either side of a piece of plywood and watching it hover . There will be a lot of mixing involved, proper angle of attacks, as well as each rotor being controlled individually by servos. Mechanically and electronically complex, though certainly possible, if you're patient enough .


Finding Serenity was an awesome movie by the way, it's such a shame it wasn't more popular .

I was already thinking of using a pitchable blade as you mentioned, something like four tail rotor blades on either side and have the control running up the center of the motor. I have an example of this in a heli world magazine that I havent thought of reading untill now, I will try to scan it and put it up.
I also know a bit about making circuitry etc so that shouldn't be a problem. First I will start with some molds and testing the lift ability of motors and blades to base the size of the model around that but at the moment I think it will be almost a meter long.

this is the type of propeller system I am thinking of using for the engines on 'serenity', only the smaller wing mounted props in the article which are four tail rotor grips with blades and a centeral adjusting rod for pitch.

Does anyone have any experience or testing this sort of setup?

article is out of 'Model Helicopter World' :October 1993.