More of Mike Palko's electric stunter

Also, progression from Fox 35s to more powerfull powerplants, saw us only having to reapply the pieces of the technology puzzle that we already knew and had control of, to satisfy a new list of components.

Now that the electric revolution has begun to nibble its way into the stunt world, many, if not most of us, are learning about equipment that we don't really understand.

I'm sure that if Mike's setup was available as a package that guys could purchase and install in an airplane, quite a few units would have been sold already. As things stand,it will take a few more pioneers experimenting with various battery packs, motors, controllers and airframes, combined with a selection of better (MOre efficient.)motors and batteries, before large numbers of flyers begin to jump on the electronic bandwagon.

If it was as simple as selling off the Foxes and installing the electronics into a Nobler, there would be a raft of nice engines available on Ebay this week!

It depends on how you perceive control line flying, though. For me, stunt is something I did as a kid. I'm doing it now partly because I like the continuity of experience. Electric stunt has different sounds and smells. It may not appeal to current stunt flyers, and new folks with no memories of bygone toy airplane days would probably take up electric RC instead.

When he presses the button on the front and that prop snarls to life, its almost scary how powerful that thing is.

But I'd hate to see what happens if something shorts out-there is alot of energy in those batteries that might be detrimental to your plane!

"It's more significant than tuned pipes. It's more like flaps."

Agreed. Although I must say that a brief conversation with Howard this last weekend served only to reinforce my angst concerning the now-proven and more-coming-soon electric CL Stunt models.

A lot of you are approaching this as merely another way of powering our models, and that is fine from a sport-flying viewpoint, as the more salient issues will be getting enough spare packs to keep the action flowing, figuring out how to get good charges, switching motor on to begin a flight, some airborne means of cutting the power.

Pretty basic stuff. For a pretty basic application.

However, when we introduce some serious competition into our thinking, in my point of view this "is going to get ugly," to use a phrase I entered onto this site and never fully--or even partially--explained, there is potential to see it happen so quickly that last month's trick is today's obsolete junk.

Imagine showing up at a CL Stunt contest where operational parameters are being fed to model from a lap top computer. There are ways to measure each and every one of the "needs" of an in-flight CL Stunt model. If it can be measured, a suitable response from the electric motor(s), maybe even direction in which it/they is/are pointed, can be supplied to onboard gizmos manipulating things in ways we have not yet even thought of.

Even above might soon be quite basic, as it is (today) possible to get real-time data downloaded from model and then spend the time between rounds optimizing software instead of trying to figure out which prop to fly next or whether that needle ought be tweaked.

I mean, if Honda R&D, in Japan, can tell when Sato's Formula 1 engine is going to blow up, Sato is in the car and is clueless at time of grenading a really cool 3.0-liter V-10 spinning at something in excess of 18,500, how hard can it be to get a limited number of readings from a model no more than 200 feet away?

We'll all have to buy pocket protectors just to be taken seriously.

Y'all have fun. I'll be watching from over here on the sidelines where memberships in the Flat Earth Society are being sold.

At the risk of being labelled a Luddite, I will also weigh in with concern, but a more basic concern, since I have no pretentions to competition status... I am so far just a sport flier. Yet the headlong rush to adopt electric propulsion (should it occur, and it looks inevitable) also fills me with unease, in that I could forsee the environmentalists lobbying very quickly to ban glow engines altogether. I like the smell of castor oil, and I like glow engines. I can't imagine getting a whole lot of enjoyment out of the hobby if my glow engines were taken away. Okay, maybe the electrics would still have a similar sound (a good deal of the sound comes from the prop, anyway), and maybe they would fly the same, and there's still the building to consider, which wouldn't really change much, but I would definitely miss the glow engine if it should pass into history...

Tim

Tim,

I submit that were this the case, there would be only electric RC models in existence today. The fact that RC is still by and large dominated by glow and gasoline powered engines would indicate that your worries are groundless. Control line is a negligible fraction of the model airplane hobby and would never show up on the political radar screen by itself. The RC industry would be the logical target, and so far there has been no political pressure to force RC flyers to go all electric even though it has been a somewhat viable alternative for something like a decade. I contend that this is because even the HUGE RC hobby (as we perceive it) is negligible in the grand scheme of the economy and politics. I of course am speaking as an American, not a Canadian, but I think the analysis is valid for Canada too.

As for a "headlong rush" to electric power, I would suggest that electric CL will evolve steadily but at a moderate pace over the next 5-10 years and will offer some really exciting technology which will allow more flying closer to population centers due to clean and quiet operation. It will not replace glow power, just as it has not done so for RC.

But I really wouldn't worry about environmental protesters with picket signs at your local CL flying site, demanding that you stop using your dirty glow engines. There is far more pollution from 2-cycle lawn mowers, chain saws, weed whackers, and snow blowers, and yes, some environmentalists are becoming interested in limiting them. Model airplane engines are negligible polluters by comparison.

You can rest easy. Nobody is going to knock on your door and demand that you surrender your Fox 35s any time soon .

JMHO,

Electrics seem like a really good thing to me because they will expand the hobby. It's working for RC and I don't see why CL shouldn't get part of the action. Particularly if young people coming into the hobby can fly locally, maybe at their school, instead of having to drag their parents out to drive them to some far away club field. I don't suppose we'll ever get back to the good old days when almost every school had an aeromodelling club but we could get a lot closer.

But the rules would have to be altered if it was mainstream.. " flicked by hand starting.. " ect..

Im working on the 1st Rubber F2B model. I need a ##### long rubber band and it takes a long time to turn it enough times for 7 mins!