Peter Jenkins

North Carolina I think John.

Angels are fine as they were designed for IC or electric power. Wind S 50s were meant for electric only.

Mike I was like you. But when I got into aerobatics, not only were the electric motors more powerful than the equivalent glows, they were also very reliable and easy to use. Yes, it's a big investment in charging equipment and batteries but it is, IMHO and that of almost all who fly aerobatics in competition, the way to go. It doesn't take too much effort to get your head around this new type of propulsion. It's also a lot cheaper! I calculated that it cost me £2 per flight with my Saito 180 while it was £1 per flight with the equivalent electric setup if I got 100 cycles out of the battery. True, some packs failed at 50 cycles but some went for 200 cycles and are still going strong. There is much more variability in LiPo makes and even within the same make! I absolutely agree with Phil, the Wind will not stand up to being converted to IC. If you really don't want to go electric, why not choose something like the Crescent Bullet or how about this one? Peter

Just found the stuff I use. It's here.

Phil beat me to it!

Hi Adrian I've given up using velcro on the battery try as it can lead to a bit of a struggle to get the pack off it! I just use a bit of non-slip rubber matting and velcro straps to hold the pack in place. Cheers Peter

Trimming never seems to end! 🥴

Recently, a guy in one of the Clubs I fly at decided to give up the hobby and sold off all his fleet. My eye was caught by what looked like a pair of reduced size Chilli Breezes. It turned out that they were, in fact, Bell Hops. These are 40 in span sports electric design by Sid King for simple bell motors and 4 function R/C. It has taken me some time to sort them out and bind them to my JR DSX9 Tx that uses the Spektrum radio design. After a couple of false starts, I managed to fly both of them this afternoon. When I got to the field it looked like I was going to get a drenching but all that materialised was a few large drops of rain. So, out with the Bell Hops and check them out. I flew the yellow and red one first. I noted that the CG was towards the front of where I would have placed it. Once airborne, it needed some up elevator but no aileron or rudder trim. As I'm used to flying F3A aerobatics I found the power on this one to be a bit below par but the prop being used was on the small side so there is room to increase prop size and thus release more power. It will need a check with a Wattmeter of course and that might mean a change from the 30A ESC to a 40A one. After 6 mins of flying around relatively sedately although I did fly 2 or 3 largish loops, the flight pack showed it was still half full. So, 8 mins might be achievable with this setup. The red and blue one was next and flew a bit better especially on how the ailerons felt. But the power was well down on the first one. I will need to check the motor and ESC to see if any more power can be pulled out of them. I suspect though, that in order to get nearer to 200 W /lb I will need to change the motors and ESCs. We shall see! Talking of seeing, in the grey skies that were there for these flights, the small size of the Bell Hops made them difficult to see clearly! The biplane in the photo is a 2 m Citrin, a Wolfgang Matt design from 2013 I think. It looks fabulous, to me(!), which is why I still have it. It doesn't have quite the same aerodynamic refinement of my current 2 m mount, the B J Craft Anthem but still flies very well. The difference between the 2 smaller models and the Citrin was like chalk and cheese. Once I've sorted out the CG on the little ones they will fly a lot better but in comparison, the Citrin was rock steady in the slightly gusty conditions - you can't beat size! I managed to get in 4 practice flights with the Citrin but none of them was really acceptable. The Citrin needs a dedicated trimming session with some minor tweak to side thrust and some minor tweaks to the knife edge mix and a tad more down elevator to make the inverted spin entry a bit more positive. Peter

Hi Frank Please explain what you mean by extended time. My message was that it's OK to charge up LiPos a day or 2 days early since they will not lose any charge over that period. It's the same with LiFe and Enelope NiMH but not other NiMHs. I don't make a habit of it but if I don't use all my packs then I'll leave them fully charged for up to 2 weeks. If it's going to be longer, then I'll stick then kn my charger and didchafge to storage voltage. I've run 5S 5000 mAh 25C packs for the past 14 years and, as I'm sure you've found, some packs swell up early while others soldier on for ages even from the same label. I don't use high C packs as my flying rarely demands more than 80-85 A - that is in 10S configuration - and then only demand that for around 6 - 7 secs at any one time. That equates to around 2,800 W max demand although in my current setup the max power I've seen was 3,600 W at 98 A. That was a test early on to check with the manufacturers figure of a max 99A draw on a 23 x20 props. It did what it said on the tin! I should emphasise these readings were taken with telemetry while airborne with max/min figures stored for inspection. I no longer check max power while the aircraft is tethered on the ground as my testing showed that you can pull 25% more power out of electric motors in such circumstances. I aim for a minimum of 100 cycles per pack but have had cheap Turnigy ones reach 200 and expensive packs die at 60 cycles.

Toto, LiPos hold charge for weeks. So, charging a day or so earlier is no problem.

Hi GG - I didn't say a centre beep but a beep set at your datum power. As it happens, my datum power is at half throttle but that's a function of how much power is in my model which I use to fly the FAI aerobatic P schedule. I do have a windy setting and a calm setting as different model memories that I can switch between without hsving to rebind the Tx/Rx - a feature on my JR XG11 Tx that may or may not be available on others. However, apart from when flying FAI aerobatics I just use one datum power setting. I've never felt the need to have more than 1 datum power setting.

Toto One way of keeping the correct throttle setting is to use the facility to set a beep for your datum throttle setting. The aircraft will bebin trim at only 1 power setting. I would think that almost all of today's Tx will have this facility. With an IC engine you used the engine noise to set your datum power but with electric power it's not so audible. On my JR Tx it's called "Stick Alert" but it may well be called something different on other makes of Txs. Oh, re the procedure turn, the second turn is 270 deg. A 360 deg turn would see you heading directly away from the crowd line. Just to clarify, what you want to achieve is a 180 deg reversal of direction but to fly back along the same track. Peter

I just can't screw up the courage to stick a contact lens in my eye! To me, a procedure turn is a 90 deg turn in one direction immediately followed by a 270 deg turn in the other direction so that you reverse the direction of flight bit on the reciprocal track. The name derives from instrument flying rules in full size aviation but there are other geometries of turns.

Hmm, this is a cut and paste from the Wikipedia article link: On January 20, 1999, Handley once again got into the record books by flying the Turbo Raven from brake release to 3,000 meters in one minute and nine seconds. In July 1999 at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the Turbo Raven took three minutes, six seconds to get to 6,000 meters, and established the Turbo Raven as the fastest-climbing propeller-driven aircraft in the world. Note that the time starts at brake release so the actual rate of climb will be higher given that the time starts with the aircraft stationery. Not sure how the Lightning's initial climb rate of 50,000 ft per min was timed. By my understanding, the model is not the one that achieved the record as it was the full size aircraft that did so.

Agree that the type and colour of sun glassesvthat work for you is a very personal issue. I find a comoletely blue sky very difficult when flying at the top of the aerobatic box i.e. 850-900 ft, as I just cannot make out the wing position. Alternatively, complete cloud cover allows the aircraft to appear as a sharp black silhouette and I much prefer that. You just have to find what works for you.