Originally Posted by crazysccrmd

i ended up getting an eflite park 250 brushless outrunner (14g), eflite 10amp brushless ecs (10g) and a small 7.4v 300mAh lipo. total weight combined is only about 1.5oz, so not too bad. went ahead and spent a little more money figuring that these will be used many times in small scale models

might be a touch small for your application. You may find a better match with the 300, there is quite a difference between the 250 and 300. The 250 is closer to the 180 and you were saying this one will come in at about 14oz. That puts you over by 2 ounces on the 250. With the 300 you would get some pretty snappy performance.

I know it's probably too late but ailerons are going to be needed.

And the last little bit of my 2 cents worth. Don't build it to crash, build it to fly! All that planking is not necessary and won't help if you pound it in anyway. It is not a foregone conclusion that you are going to trash the plane simply because of its design/er. Just build'em faster then you can crash'em

im planning to do my next one with ailerons, might even do one of their WW1 biplane kits. they are smaller so better suited to my motor size and are laser cut now.

be careful what you choose. My experience with a SE5a was that it was a little too heavy to be practical. But then again my skill at building light are still developing so who's to say.

Looking forward to your next one! Cheers.

P.s. I'm kinda partial to the Focke-Wulf 19 kit 502. built one when I was a kid and it flew on the rubber motor. That 250 should be perfect for it.

Originally Posted by ocminimoto

might be a touch small for your application. You may find a better match with the 300, there is quite a difference between the 250 and 300. The 250 is closer to the 180 and you were saying this one will come in at about 14oz. That puts you over by 2 ounces on the 250. With the 300 you would get some pretty snappy performance.

I know it's probably too late but ailerons are going to be needed.

And the last little bit of my 2 cents worth. Don't build it to crash, build it to fly! All that planking is not necessary and won't help if you pound it in anyway. It is not a foregone conclusion that you are going to trash the plane simply because of its design/er. Just build'em faster then you can crash'em

1.5 oz. is the airplane and electronics?

Originally Posted by Parkk

1.5 oz. is the airplane and electronics?

1.5oz is the motor, battery, esc. electronics total weight is probably 2.5oz maybe. i dont have a scale so im not sure what the auw of the airplane is unfortunately

Gotta get a scale. If you were close by, I'd give you my old trusty rusty postal scale. Worked fine, until I found a newer one in the house. I only finally got a 0-7oz digital scale for component weights for micro building. Set at zero though, I found that weights could be determined from the old postal scale, within 1-2 grams. Not too bad.

On the SE5A, mine is certainly not light, but I'm convinced many just don't set the CG far enough forward to get these planes to fly well, along with well set wings, etc. These planes will handle more weight than many seem to think, once properly setup. In general though, they are more difficult to get to fly well at higher weights, but I think they are dismissed at times due to weight, when they actually could fly well.

Originally Posted by ocminimoto

might be a touch small for your application. You may find a better match with the 300, there is quite a difference between the 250 and 300. The 250 is closer to the 180 and you were saying this one will come in at about 14oz. That puts you over by 2 ounces on the 250. With the 300 you would get some pretty snappy performance.

I know it's probably too late but ailerons are going to be needed.

And the last little bit of my 2 cents worth. Don't build it to crash, build it to fly! All that planking is not necessary and won't help if you pound it in anyway. It is not a foregone conclusion that you are going to trash the plane simply because of its design/er. Just build'em faster then you can crash'em

Agreed that the 300 class outrunner has proven ideal for these planes. It would be difficult to build light enough for the 250 to balance the plane, and possibly power it well. I wouldn't worry about the added weight of the 300 either. This plane with 1 sq=ft of wing area is not a heavy flyer at 14oz, as 14oz/sq-ft is not terribly heavy. I'm convinced it could easily handle another ounce, from flying it at 14+. I certainly won't argue that being lighter helps though. What isn't often discussed is that the plane simply becomes less tolerant, as weight increases, i.e. the CG, washout, overall straightness, thrust angles, etc... must be closer to ideal. I'm convinced many folks don't put enough effort into adjusting/reworking these planes until they get a decent flyer. Very tall grass can be a useful aid in this process.


For all practical intent and purpose, you do need ailerons, but not mandatory. My FW190 flew rud/elev, but admittedly was a test, to see how gently one could be on the controls, and not much fun until adding ailerons. I'm convinced the Spitfire would have flown rud/elev, with the correct thrust angle, but by that time I had already added ailerons to it also.

It's never too late to add ailerons, but it is certainly more practical to add them during the initial build. He may still end up doing it, as I did. Here's one method below:

im considering tossing the spitfire off my 3rd floor balcony just to see the glide path...getting annoyed waiting on this battery charger i ordered to show up. wish i would have realized ahead of time that my charger cant do 2s lipos

Originally Posted by crazysccrmd

im considering tossing the spitfire off my 3rd floor balcony just to see the glide path...getting annoyed waiting on this battery charger i ordered to show up. wish i would have realized ahead of time that my charger cant do 2s lipos

What can I do to talk you out of that?
I lost interest in glide tests and chuck gliders, when I realized that they don't simulate heavier/powered flight well. This is especially true with rudder control. Probably shouldn't have said that, as I don't to turn your thread into a test glide/chuck glider debate, but it's been my experience. I do have respect for rud/elev warbirds having done them, as it forces you to build a straight flying stable plane, where aileron trimming can otherwise make many other planes flyable.

haha, i didnt do it. i ended up taking my old 2 channel out to the park right next to my apartments and tooling it around for a little bit...not as fun obviously but it kinda helped the itch to fly