I have always been interested in anything that flies. As long as I can remember I would be looking toward the sky when I heard something overhead. I grew up in the late forties and really became aware of flying things in the fifties. My older brother was building model planes but I don’t remember him ever flying them. Some that he began but didn’t finish were the earliest models I ever flew. I finished building the ones he started and them I learned how to fly them. Some were ½A control line models of his own design. One I remember most was a ½A free flight that may have been his own design; I’m not sure what it was. The free flight had an OKCub .049 engine. There was an integral fuel tank on the back of the engine that held enough fuel that the engine ran for a few minutes. The plane didn’t fly well and with the short engine run-time the plane would climb and stall, climb and stall to maybe thirty or forty feet and when the engine quit the plane came down rather quickly. My uninformed, youthful logic told me if the engine ran longer the plane could get higher and stay aloft long enough to be more entertaining.
So I went to the hobby shop and bought a little metal tank, fastened it to the pylon behind the engine, hooked up a piece of fuel line and took the newly configured plane down to the school yard. I never timed the engine run with this tank so I had no idea how long the engine would run. I started the engine and gave the plane a toss into the late evening sky. It did...Continue Reading

I fly electric.

I retired at the beginning of 2008. It seemed like a good idea to get back to the hobby of my youth; flying model airplanes. I knew things had changed a little since 1960 because along the way I tried RC car racing in the 1970s and I had seen some of the earlier electrics for RC planes too.

So when I went to the Local Hobby Shop to inquire what I could get to power a small plane that was sitting, unfinished, in the closet I was amazed. The clerk pulled out something he called an “Outrunner” and a “LiPo”. “What!!” I exclaimed is this? It’s what we have now. Well that was 2008. In the few short years since then I went from the first motor, an E-flite Park 250, to my largest Power 46. I have four Power 46 size motors from four different manufacturers. I also have a smaller motor then the Park 250. I have a Park 180 also and of course the Micro Fliers like a Night Vapor a Champ and a Blade Scout.

Wow! This electric stuff is amazing! In the 1950s we dreamed of something like this and tried to make small planes but we didn’t have materials or the mechanical technology for small like there is now. And what about the radios!? That’s a whole other topic.

The reason I am writing this, however, is to put something here that could help someone understand electric theory behind all of this. I am a retired EE so it was easy for me to pick up the concept behind this electric power. During my career I either...Continue Reading