Bought a Thermal Eagle.

[AustinTatious]

Just got the beauty, Good price and a good plane. I spent a fe hours last night gettin her all set up. I used a 2 cell 1100Mah LiPo battery with a Voltage regulator (BEC ESC) I am excited to go fly her, the plane will really suit my agressive flying style. With the Rg-15 it will really get moving when i want it to. I had a chance to test fly it before I bought it.

Sadly, Very Sadly, I must sell my Art Hobby Thermik to offset the cost. I will really miss that airplane. I cannot say enough good things about it. I have been able to Compete with if not beat some VERY nice unlimited ships with it. The Only area it Lacks in is Launching. Mine was beefed up and could take a pretty hard zoom, but it jsut will not get the height that a bigger ship will. Sometimes that was a factor, others it was not. Anyway, The Thermik is a great plane and When I can afford it , I will buy another.

[SoarNeck]

Good luck with that model, it's a nice ship. I would reconsider that LiPo pack, however. A dork landing or two might cause you to have a warm nose! I still use nicads in almost all my models w/RX packs. Even a hard day of F3B flying only uses up 500-600mah through 6 servos (4 cells, Volz servos).

[Ollie]

I agree with SoarNeck. there will be metal cased, 1.25 AH ( aprox A size) LiPo's comming out in a few months that will provide the case strength necessary for your application. these cells are reviewed in the latest issue of Quiet Flier. Until you can get the metal cased units, use NiCads. You need the weight up there any way. You are going to have to fly that ship for a long , long time to use the LiPo's full charge. Four of the LiPo's in 2S2P should be good for an 8 hour slope flight if you don't stir the sticks too much. Some receivers and servos can take the exrta voltage without the voltage regulation of a BEC.

[AustinTatious]

well, it is an 8.4v pack, so i decided to limiti it as to not fry my 150$ PCM reciever.. I have been using this same setup in the Thermik and have had REAL good luck with it.. Point taken about the case, I will ensure that there is suficient foam to protect the battery from the bumps. About needing the weight.. The CG seems jsut fine with this pack, and I fly my planes a bit on the aft cg side anyhow. This pack is not TERRIBLY lighter than an AA pack, but it is shaped such that it fits well. TO use an AA pack, it has to be in a diamond and then worked in carefully, this jstu sits there with plenty of room.

[AustinTatious]

Well I seemed to hav emade a slight oversight. I have been running this setup in an art hobby thermik for quite a while now with 0 problems. However While talking to a friend about this setup, he asked me if i was sure that the limiter i was using ( a GWS speed control with BEC) ws capable of supplying all the servos with appropriat voltage under load... I tested this by hooking a voltmeter up to the limited side of the bec and Basically Held my two flaps and one aileron in place while going full deflection and stalling the servos. The voltage dropped to 3.1v and the little BEC ESC gt pretty hot pretty fast. I dont know if this is a realistic load that the Bec has any chance of actually seeing in flight, but I am motivated to buy a real current limiter, or jsut go to a 4 cell NiMh pack and forget the current limiting. I guess the only reason I want to use this setup is that I will have a constant current goin gto the servos, and thus they will perform the same always... Im probably jsut being sily and it realy wont be noticable anyway....I hear Fry's has 10 NimH 2000Mah AA cells for 10 bucks.... Ill prolly jsut get those and forget the fancy crap.

Austin

[jrgospod]

Put your Li-Po's in parallel and you have 4.2v @ 1100 ma for a full day of flying. I run this in several planes and it works fine with a 555 RX and JR241’s.

[AustinTatious]

hehe, actually i would have 2200 Mah!!! Im jsut gonna go for the 2000MaH NiMh's easy and more fail proof.

[target]

It'd be a real bummer if you new plane went up in a ball of flames after a forced landing! Be careful, and good luck.
Is the Thermal Eagle the same plane, but a lighter fuse lay up, as the Eagle that was popular years back in MOM slope racing??

Curious,
Target

[dephela]

The Thermal Eagle is a different plane from the F3B molded Eagle. The fuse is basically the same but with a different layup. The TE wing is a bagged RG-15 or 7037[both were used], most were only a twin taper[I think].
The F3b version was a different span, triple taper and all molded consruction using glass/Rohacell/glass skins on a carbon/balsa/carbon spar. The originals were made by Mark Allen, the last ones came from RnR.