Jolly Roger

Lazy circuits and bumps until sunset 😊

I’d echo what Leccy said about wheel size and also add that minimum landing speed is a factor. So for example I can lower the flaps on my Cub and happily drop its 8” wheels onto very rough pasture, but I wouldn’t even dream about this with a fast EDF jet on 2” wheels 😆

It does take a while at the beginning John but I think it’s well worth sticking with. My first simple plane took a day to program into my X20 but now I’m down to about an hour… even with all the mixes needed for a six servo glider wing. And I am a really slow learner! 😄. I love my X20 now 🥰

Lovely Tiger Moth puttering around our house (flown by a friend of our neighbour).

Holidaying in SW Ireland, I just “happened” to find a glider in the boot. Weird, I know. 😉 Warm sunshine and a waft of wind on the 5m - 8m high dunes were enough for two hours of fun, mostly scraping along the edge at beach grass height. I do love power flying but there’s something very special about the way slope soaring allows you to explore every bump and crease of the landscape, working with nature to earn every inch of height, and often against a backdrop of beautiful scenery. 🥰

And a couple of glider pilots - a 1:3.5 chap from Pete’s Pilots in my Ka6 and a 1:4 scale Thingiverse 3D fella in an own design glider. I think gliders are often so streamlined that they are short of the fussy little details that bring a scale model to life. The cockpit is a rare chance to add some visual interest 🙂.

Thanks Leccy. A misspent youth on Airfix kits!

Meet Albert, downloaded free from Thingiverse and 3D printed by my brother-in-law. DIY foam body, clothed by my wife Beccy and installed in a 1/3 scale Super Cub. I spent hours faffing around painting him and making seat harnesses etc, but isn’t that the point of hobbies 😂

Happy Birthday Pat! 🤗

…or just set the motor with down thrust 😆

Hi Andy, that sounds like a fun project. Yes about 5-8 degrees down should do the trick. Much less and it will rear into a stall under power. I don’t bother with side thrust. Funnily enough there’s a couple of Miris from my childhood currently insulating the loft. You may have just inspired me to pop a prop on their noses for some lazy evening circuits ☺️ Hope your conversion goes well and please do share an update 👍. Details of the powertrain would be fab. Rog

Hi Mark, I know you’ve had lots of good advice already but thought I’d add a few comments because I’ve just been through an almost identical experience. Similar to your (utterly classic) Multiplex Pilatus, I just finished motorising a 2.7m span, 2.5kg warmliner - a Simprop Solution. Like your Pilatus it has a fibreglass fuselage and veneered foam wings. Also like you I wanted to run it on 3s LiPos because I have plenty and also I don’t aim for higher power in a glider. I juggled around with motor kV and prop diameter/pitch on ecalc and also got advice for this set up from George at 4max: 35/47, 1190kV motor 11x6 folding prop 60A ESC This delivers 520W, or 95W/lb (funny the mixed metric/imperial units we modellers settle on!) 😆 To be honest I’m used to much less power, happily hand-launching 13lb models (at 20oz/ft^2) on less than 60W/lb, but it’s quite fun to have near-vertical performance for once. Doing it again, I’d drop to 11x5 to lower the current. Even so, my motor and esc are only radiator-warm after the 30 second bursts I typically use. As others have said, finding the kV of your motor is a key step that will help determine your prop. Hopefully it’s around 1000-1200 kV.🤞 Hope this helps and have fun!! 😃 Rog

Thanks Chris. I should have mentioned that I fly mostly glider-type models off the slope so the powertrain is non-essential and runs at fairly low currents. So I’m lucky to have a low risk way to get some more useful life out of packs that have had very little use. Some day I may try prop-hanging or get an EDF 🤩 (but not with my rescued LiPo) 😉

Thanks again for the input. Quick update. The cell appears to have recovered fully. 😃 I balance-charged then “ground-flew” my model through a realistic throttle regime, tracking the individual cell voltages through the battery checker. When the timer sounded all cells were close to 3.75V. I repeated this test with an identical pack bought at the same time and got essentially the same results. I’m going to leave it a week then repeat the whole test again. If I get the same result I’ll fly it in a powered glider (with a separate rx supply). Thanks again 🙂

Looks like a great project! I’ll be interested to see how it flies. Good luck with the final development/tweaking 👍