Spirit of Yesteryear Dallaire Sportster - Electric Combination

[fix-n-fly]

Anyone built a Spirit of Yesteryear Dallaire Sportster and equipped it with an electric motor, ESC, prop, battery pack? I just bought one and am looking for ideas as to how to equip it... Been doing gas (or more commonly "slimmers" :rolleyes: ) for years and would like to do an oldtimer with electric.

Thanks for your help.

[Feodosia Flyer]

Hi

I've never built one , but the Dallaire Sportster is a very nice looking model and should be perfect for r/c control . I think it's an excellent choice. One of the reasons I like the Dallaire Sportster for r/c is because of it's nice straight dihedral wing. That is, I've built a number of freeflight oldtimers for r/c use and so far have found that I don't like the poly-hedral (tips bent up )wings as much for r/c control...the poly-hedral might serve some kind of useful purpose for freeflight operation but they tend to give me problems in the turns when rigging the oldtimers r/c controlled. As a matter of fact, my next oldtimer project is going to be re-designing and building a new dihedral wing for my Buzzard Bombshell, because the poly-hedral wing of the original freeflight design tends to make her real squirrley in the turns.

[Allan Wright]

Our club has 3 different people flying the SOY playboy with speed-400 sized brushless systems in them. Any electric system meant for a 2-meter sailplane will work well on the SOY old-timers.

[BMatthews]

If I was doing a SOY and the rules allow for it I'd go for a GWS 350 6.6:1 motor and gearbox with a 10 x 4.7 prop. In testing this combo I'm getting a nice 10 to 11 oz of thrust and that'll fly a 20 oz model with around 300 sq inches in fine form. The GWS motor/box combos have the advantage of being cheap and easily had from many sources. Some 1200 mah 2S Lipos would be nice but if you don't want the hassles of Lipo and the possible hazards then 7 cell x 650 mah NiMH would be a good option. 4 oz for a 7 cell pack.

The GWS and NiMH options make for a nice inexpensive and proven intro to electric.

For your ESC be sure and get a high rate type. I'm not up on the current GWS ESC's but a little parkflyer GWS one I got two years ago is only a frame rate type and those rattle the motor something fierce. More vibration than a darn glow.

[petefly58]

I have just completed an SOY Dallaire Sportster. It is equipped with a Graupner Speed 400 6V, Jeti speed controller and 8 cells. In its first and only test flight so far, I got about 7 minutes on a day which was a bit too breezy. I have yet to bring it out in the calm of the early morning. The Dallaire's all up weight is 21.44 oz. It is covered in red silk with 3 coats of thinned out dope. This all up weight compares favorably with what I have seen in several construction articles on this model. I'll report more when I have more flights on the Dallaire.

Pete