Kinda wondering how many have made or are making the change to Electric Pattern?
Steve Maxwell

Steve,

Last Nats. give you another source of information. Of course conditions are changing almost every day. Here the link to equipment used in all classes at the Nats. Clearly, the numbers are heavily dependent on the class flown and high % of pilots flying electric appears to be sponsored.

http://www.nsrca.org/competition/Nsr.../equip2005.htm

Vicente Bortone

I wonder if electric and glow will someday be in different classes. Seems the price of the
E setup excludes a lot of people who might want to compete in pattern but feel they can't
without the latest and greatest. I get that comment sometimes when people ask me about
the cost of my glow airplane. I don't want to start a discussion about the cost of pattern, but
I think everyone agrees electric power for pattern is expensive. Nevertheless, I think there
is going to be quite a few electrics in District 6 this year.

tommy s

Pattern is expensive, but I would not agree that an electric set up is always the most expensive. I would put up a new set up for electric, including motor, esc, batteries, and support gear against a new YS set up with support gear and fuel for the year... and mine would be likely be cheaper. You'd be surprised.

But I'm not using Hacker, or some of the bigger names... but my performance is sometimes better, and I can document it.

I still love the sound and smell of a big YS on a pipe, and I don't think they will disappear from pattern completely, nor should they. If you have having good luck with your glow set up, and most of all enjoy it, why change? No reason to. At the end of the day it's still the pilot, look at who won the worlds for example. You could put a glow set up in the hands of any of the top 8 at the NATS who were flying electric, and let the guys who flew glow fly electric instead, and the results would not likely change at all.

Given all that why did I switch? Reliability. I know how my set up is going to perform no matter where the contest is, nor how hot or cold it is. I never have to dink with a needle to get it keep from dying in the middle of a sequence at a contest (when it never did that before). The planes will last forever, no vibration, the servos hardly ever wear out.

Before you say batteries don't last... I have two sets of batteries that I used from June of last year until now with over 250 cycles on them combined. No problems...

Anyway, that's just my viewpoint. I just cringe when somebody says that electrics are too expensive. They aren't. My set up can't beat an OS over the course of a year, but I'll bet I can beat or at least come close to a YS.

FWIW

Tom Messer

Tom,
Ive heard that to be successful in pattern with no chance of not being ready for the next
round and to be able to practice enough, you need three, possibly four sets of batteries to
be safe. Since you've been using them for awhile what do you say ?

tommy s

I had two sets of batteries all last year. Actually, I only flew electric from June on... and I started with, and ended the season with just two sets of batteries... the same sets of batteries.

It's not a bad idea to have three sets, but it's not necessary. If you lose a set, or a cell within a set rendering it useless until it's repaired or replaced, then you can still practice with your other two. You only need one set for a contest really... A friend of mine did it for one contest, and was always ready for the next round without difficulty. The only problem he had was that his practice time was cut short... waiting for the battery to charge before each practice flights.

I have heard all the stories about people burning up a pack or two at each contest... and they are just that, stories. I along with a few others here in california did just just fine with just two sets of batteries.

But, three is preferable, though again it's not mandatory.

Tom 2 sets is all I'm planning on having and has been my plan along, having to many pack can actually be bad because you don't use them enough and that adds the time frame into the equation, so now they not only have to last so many cycles but then years also. The other thing knowing the pattern community the way we help each other if you needed to borrow a pack at a contest I'm sure more than 1 person would be willing to help out.
Steve Maxwell

Tommy, et al.

I think it depends on exactly what your needs are....if when you go to the field you have say an hour (lunchtime for instance) and you want to get in 4 flights....you are going to need 4 packs as there is no chance of getting anything charged. For me this is often the situation, so I have adopted a practise of less field charging and more packs. Everyone is going to be different....I know some that have two packs and go do 2 flights in the AM, charge then 2 more in the PM...so two packs works for them. Contests usually have enough time between rounds that you can generally charge between them......if you remember of course!

As the packs improve, now 2C charging is coming around. I do this with some 2100 Prolites that I have for my T-rex, 35 minutes to a full charge on my Schulze 330d. The new TP charger will do 2C on a 5000 mAh battery. From the looks of it the degredation from charging this fast is quite low and will probably come in handy when you really need that last flight and dont want to wait long! On my 2100's the charger is going to CV mode in 20 minutes

Things move fast in the e-world....there are more companies now coming with packs to challenge the TP 5300 standard....at good prices. As tech improves the cost will drop...bad for TP maybe...but good for pattern. I think in another year we are going to see e-setups that are less expensive to run than a YS 160DZ.....and a boatload more reliable as well

Steve makes a good point about the cycles with pack numbers....that should factor into the equation when you buy packs. If you plan on doing 800 flights in a year you should have at least 4 sets....while if you fly 100 flights in a year 4 sets is just going to be a waste

Anyways, back to sanding [>:]

With two sets it takes me about 4-5 hours to get in six practice flights. That time has gotten a bit shorter lately due to the fact that I'm not taking as much as I used to out of the batteries... but it was a good rule of thumb. With three sets that time could have been cut almost in half. Time isn't that big of a constraint for me, so that's why I have only two. I do have a third set now actually, but it's a different battery than I have been using and plan on testing it to see if I want to go that direction.

As for charging the batteries, I have two Astro Flight 109 chargers that cost about $130 a piece retail... and I use a 12V Deep Cycle battery bought at Costco for about $50. Others use portable generators and power supplys. Very nice set ups, but it ups the cost considerably. I can buy another set of batteries for what the gen would cost!

What does need to be said though... is if you are going to get into electrics you have to do your homework! Find sombody who had good luck with them and ask them questions, watch what they do, and model your set up after theirs if at all possible. If you don't have anybody out there who flies electric, ask your questions on here... It may not be the most expensive way to go, but it can get there quickly if you make a mistake and fry a battery. These things aren't like the nicads we used to use on R/C cars or boats, you can't abuse them... You must make every effort to take care of them and monitor them.

Steve and Chad are absolutely right about time. Figure a shelf life of about 2 years... whether you fly them or not they aren't going to last much longer than two years, and you might as well get your money out of them right? Four sets at your fingertips doesn't do you much good if you only get 25 cycles a year on them each... you are just wasting money at that point as Chad pointed out.

This unscientific polls shows about what I thought the #'s would be. Last years Nat's was about 15%.
Once again I would like to thank Jason for being a pioneer in successful electric pattern, yes there was one or two before Jason but never had the power or technology to be competitive.
All this has changed in 2 1/2 years after Jason showed up at the world's 2003.
Again as one that was skeptical of Jason's move to fly the world's with an unknown to most of us an electric !!!!! He put his name in the history books it wouldn't surprise me if they want his plane for the Smithsonian.
Some others that have made a big influence is Tony Frack, all the Canadian team and others that I really don't even know.
Thank You gentleman and especially Jason.
Steve Maxwell

I would like to point out that though Jason showed us it could be done without sacrificing performance... others namely TonyF showed us HOW to do it, and that's maybe even more important!

I think that the true pioneers of electric pattern are those who not only had a competitive combination, but shared their information... their success and more importantly their failures and what they have learned from them!

The book hasn't been written on this yet, but I'm sure we all know a few names that deserve to be on top of that list.

Electric pattern is here to stay... but in order for the average pattern guy to be successful with it, those of use who have already dove into electrics need to share our stories. Successes and failures... like those who have so far pioneered the efforts in e-pattern.

Tom M.