Giant Cessna 185....Thinking about going electric

[kingair301hc]

Hi Gang-

I'm rather new to giant airplanes and eletric stuff as a whole. I have a few small foamies, other than that I've always had glow airplanes.

I'm currently in the design process of a 1/3 scale cessna 185 that I am thinking of going electric vs. gas. The plane will be 7'-7" long and a wingspan of 130" and a projected weight of 25-30 lbs.

As of now I plan on putting a DA-100 in it. I'm still not sure how much power it will need, but I'm sure the DA-100 will be plenty. As far as electric goes I have no idea what power system I'll need to fly this big bird. Of course the Hacker 100 or 150 will work, I'm just not sure that I'll need that much power.

Obviously I won't be doing any 3D flying, so I don't need 3D power. I want enough power to fly it scale with decent speed at about 50-70% power. I also want enough power to support floats.

Does anybody have suggestions on what power system I should use? Can anybody give me an idea of what the minimum power of a model this size might be?

[GordonTarling]

OK, a DA-100 delivers 9.8HP, according to the DA website, so you need around 7350 Watts of power. That's a high power level for electric, but not impossible. You'll need around a 14S battery pack, of high capacity and an ESC that can handle 150 Amps at that sort of voltage level. As for motor, you're looking at either that Hacker 150 or maybe a Plettenberg Terminator. You MAY get away with a lower power level if you only want scale-like flying, so a Hacker A-100 would probably suffice. Hope you're feeling spendy!

[kingair301hc]

Not sure how spendy I am feeling....it sure is clear that going gas is the cheapest way to go here. I'm just not sure if I need DA-100 eqev. electric power. I guess I need to get it built, weight it and go from there. I've been talking to many experienced flyers about this power issue and several people have told me that 50CC would be plenty.

Gordon, Thanks for your comments!

[kingair301hc]

I've decided to scale this model down from 33% to 25%. The new wingspan is 107.5" vs. 130" This will make the model significantly smaller but still very large. By doing this I can reduce the overall cost from building supplies and power plant.

I'm thinking of using the HXT 80-100-B, will that be sufficient power?