Barry W

I don't know if this is of interest but there is an Air Race at Sherburn Airfield near Selby  Yorkshire on the  8th and 9th May. The Percival Mew Gull which belonged to Alex Henshaw (London to Capetown fame) is sheduled to be there taking part in the race. It might be anopportunity to have a look at the real thing. There will be other interesting aircraft taking part.     

Here in southern France at the two clubs I have been a member all the French folks seem to  fly mode 1.

Hi BB.   You are right it is me and my new Windows 7 computer. I now have been able to open the link . Barry

Timbo The "over here " link does not seem to work, is it my computer or a problem with the link? I am curious to find out how the charging mechanism works especially the equalizing part. If there are any circuit diagrams I would be interested in looking at them. I am sorry I posted the request to Ed on his excellent propeller thread. Barry

Wow Ed this is all great stuff at least for me. You must be the American version of Timbo or perhaps you live in a Holiday Inn Express! I have a question for you do you have any documents that explain in some detail how the LIPO battery charging and equalizer works? I would like to understand how the equalizer arranges for each cell to be charged to the same capacity.

Hi Ed, It was interesting reading you post on RC gliding in the US I used to live in Sunnyvale Ca. and got back into RC flying with a Gentle Lady. We used to launch this with a high start from a school playing field.  In the US school playing fields are often quite large with well cut grass, a bit like a UK cricket field. However I now live in southern France and the model aircraft club has a field which appart from a hard surface runway is mainly scrub. This makes it impossible to use the hight start as it gets tangled up in the weeds. I have recently returned to RC flying for the third time and have converted my GL to electric as it is a great calm weather thermal glider. When I lived in Sunnyvale we used to fly from a school field which was in a large housing project like most of silicon valley. No one seemd to worry about the risk involved. We uesd both high start and winch launch. One day the wings came off a fiber glass glider and it went down like a Barnes Wallis bomb straight through the roof of someones garage! Here in France RES does not seem popular as I have never seen anyone apart from myself flying one. What is very popular is the Multiplex Easy Glider Pro when fitted with an electric motor.  There is also some aero towing of gliders which are multi function and usually from 10 foot to 20 foot wingspan. However this is out of my range and far to complicated to build and operate. I am still using my US Airtronics Infinity 600 RC system which is on 72 Mhz and allowed in France but not in the UK. If you know of a source of Rxs for this system please let me know.

There is a saying in the US concerning aircraft. If its ugly it is British If it is bizarre its French If it is both ugly and bizarre it is Russian

Age 67 Electric gliders and airplane Age 10 KK ruber power

I am in the process of building a Ben Buckle Super 60.  The plane can be built either as a 3 channel or a 4 channel model. As the plans that come with the  model are quite adequate one could build 2 sets of wings one with the ailerons and one without. The aileron version has half inch dihedral under each wing tip and the 3 channel version has a 2 inch dihedral at each wing tip.  In this way anyone learning with an elevator and rudder only system could easily advance to an ailerong system by changing the wings. 

Hi Peter Have you ever thought of making a plan for the Vans RV12. It also has an all flying tail. It has a straight hershey bar type wing with flaperons. It should be quite an easy model to build. Their are a couple of full size ones being built in the UK at the moment  and will no doubt be approved by the LAA.  

I don't know if this video has been posted before on the forum. If not you may enjoy the demonstation.   http://mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/VideoAbspielen?id=188   Barry

Many thanks both Timbo and Peter for your advice. Don't say I didn't warn you about me asking questions! Have you any particular recommendation concerning the make of Watt meter. I can see it will be useful in seeing what is gong on with the battery and ESC. Since my unexpected success in converting the Gentle Lady to electric I am all charged up (sic) on this electric business. In fact just today I had two splendid flights with the GL one lasting 22 minutes as it has been a sunny day with some thermal activity down here.    Barry

Many thanks Timbo for your prompt and detailed reply. I will buy the motor and prop you recommend and will keep you posted on the way it works out. It is interesting this electrical business and a great learning experience. Be prepared I may be asking some more questions later on.   Cheers   Barry  

I have a question for Timbo or some other specialist.   I am building a BB Super 60 4 Channel. I am now at the stage where I need to buy an engine. the Super 60 is specified for somthing like a 2 stroke OS35AX. However I am thinking it may be worthwhile trying an electric outrunner motor. I believe the model, which has a 64 inch span, will weight in the region of 4 to 5 lbs but there is no weight specified with the instructions.   The questions I have are thefollowing.   1) Would an E-Flight Power 32 650 watt motor be sufficient or will I require an E-Flight power 46 of 800 Watts?   2) What would be the recommended LIPO battery size either a 3S or 4S and how many milliamps capacity?  I would like to be able to get a flight time of say at least 10 minutes with some very gentle aerobatics . 3) What would be the recommended prop size for the motor on this slow flying type airplane.   I would just like to say how useful and friendly I have found this forum. I am starting  model flying after several year layoff and things have moved on quite a bit since the 1980s. I live in France and you are quite lucky in the UK, in spite of your weather. Here we don't have a similar forum to this one neither the model shops that you have in the UK with such a diversity of products.   Barry 

The Easy Glider came with a Multiplex BL-27/11 Brushless Controller (ESC) and is what I fitted to the GL. It has a max continuous current of 27Amps and the physical size is 36*24*11 mm. The weight is 23 grams. BEC voltage 5 volts.    

Hi Delta Whiskey, I built a Gentle Lady glider in the late 1980's when living in California. Over there we used to fly these types of gliders with an elastic high start.. Since being retired and now living in France near to Toulon I decided to convert the glider to electric power. I was reading Simon's blog about his build and waiting for his experiences. However his progress seems to have stopped for the moment. As last year I had build a Multiplex Easy Glider Pro with an electric motor it seemed to have more or less the characteristics recommended by Timbo. Hence the other day I removed the motor, prop and ESC then installed it in the Gentle Lady. The only build problem was there was not much room as with the outrunner motor the wires are at the front and I had to make a sort of cowl with a speed bump to pass the wires aft. The motor I have used is the Multiplex C2816-1220. I use a 1800 mA 2S battery. The mottor drives a 10*6 prop with 1220 RPM/Volt Max current 25 amps for 10 sec..  Anyway the good news is that today I went out and flew the GL and in spite of a slight Mistral wind the glider flew very well and I am much chuffed. Back to the building board as SELEC has posted me the required glue and I can continue my Ben Buckle Super 60 4 Chanel while waiting for the warmer weather and a few thermals.   Cheers to all.   Barry

Here is an interesting video which you may like to watch . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6PnKUEFX8g   Barry Edited By Barry W on 17/01/2010 08:19:26

Slightly off topic but how about this film? Click on the blue button to run the short silent black and white film. It shows how an early RC modeler saved London from an early Zepplin attack during WW1. The film also has a happy ending for the ladies! Edited By Timbo - Administrator on 07/01/2010 23:11:05

I ordered last week a Ben Buckle Super 60 plus some extra bits. Kit and parts arrived today so from my first order from Als Hobbies I am a satisfied customer.