with my new Fancyfoam.com plane near completion, ive decided to do a little "modification" to the skyscooter. I just made a bet with my dad... if it flies, he pays for the equipment i need for the Electric-to-Nitro Conversion.'

As it is right now, i have a .049 cu in Cox Baby Bee. I plan to remove the 400 Speed electric motor from my skyscooter, but leave the Auto Cut-off unit, which provides BEC, installed so that i can still use the stock battery, a 300mAh 8.4v Ni-CD, which is about 4 oz lighter than the battery i was using, a 1600mAh 9.6v RS battery. So my radio is taken care of... so then i plan to cut the nose/motor cavity off, and make a flat surface on which to mount the Cox Engine. Ive had great success mounting these things with rubberbands, looping them near where the wing locks onto the fuselage (this is how the current motor is mounted).

So I need:

Cox .049 Baby Bee engine <--- Donated by a friend who crashed his plane
---------------------------------------------------------------
Hobbico 1/2A Fuel - $6.99
Glow Clip -> Standard Glow Starter Cable - $7.99
6x3 Propellers - $3.09
Chicken Stick - $3.49
Fuel Bulb - $3.69
-------------------------------------------
$25.25 <--- Yea thats right... a nitro Skyscooter Conversion for 25 bucks
about $55 if you have to buy a Cox engine.

Ill post some pics when i finish. So i bet my dad $25 that i could make a skyscooter fly on Nitro power.

Any suggestions to ensure that i dont end up $25 poorer?
(btw im experienced in nitro engines, so starting and tuning isnt a problem)

I'm really not familiar with the power output of that engine... The last glow engine I used in an airplane was one of those awful Cox plastic control line things... seemed incredibly loud and unreliable. I do have a Tamiya glow car, though.

yea i believe its in the 75 watt range... not sure though. But judging by hte fact that it swings a prop the same size as the previous motor, except without hte weight of hte battery and at high RPMs, id think its safe to say that there will be an increase in power... by quite a bit.

Ive never used a Cox engine before. I have a Nitro Duratrax Evader. It used to be a pain to start, but you pick up a few things along the way... better glow starter, the idea of holding hte throttle open, correctly priming, etc.
I dont think this engine should pose much of a problem... i hope. Lol

It is an Unthrottled control line engine, however. I just hope that with the right fuel, some fresh air, and a BIG glowstarter battery (2200mAh Ni-MH oh yea!), it should start.

With the Babe Bee .049 it will probably be under powered.

Past experience has shown me that a Cox TD .049./051 is about equal to a DD 400 electric with 7/8 cells. The Cox may have an advantage if you use a standard 4 cell RX pack to reduce AUW.

All the Cox .049 engines I've owned over the years always the best performance with a Master Airscrew 5.5 x 4.5 and 25%+ nitro fuel.

Good luck and post some pics when she's done.

Steven

By all that's holy, why would you want to do this? Besides the old saw about why a dog li... um, nevermind...

I have several Cox glow engines... i think every male in America between age 20 and 90 has some them, by law, so you should never have to again pay for a new one...... and I admit, the smell of nitromethane mixed with castor oil is a nostalgia-producing perfume... yet...

I will NEVER go back to the endless fiddling, the mess, the grease, the whacked knuckles and frozen fingers, the noise, the mess, the unreliable, unrepeatable performance, the mess... did I mention the mess?... and the heavy bulk of accoutrements to accompany the plane...

Nowadays my field box has been converted into a cooler to keep the sodas cold, and there's a cigar-box sized segment reserved for a pocket-sized car charger and a handful of packs, and LORD, I am so much happier with electric. I love my stock Sky Scooter Pro II, the performance, reliability, quiet, clean fun....

glow engines... how... 20th century! ;-)

arthog... you own a Skyscooter Pro II... if i had one of those, id never hack off its nose and try this.. however my skyscooter is the origional... no ESC... heck... i have no motor control at all, just an auto-cutoff unit with BEC. The motor is terrible. The Pro II's advertise some 50% more power and 100% more run time. Mine performs terribly, and cant break about 30ft altitude. I think my batteries just get pooped out from the high discharge rate (Radioshack AA 1600 Packs and a Stock 300mAh Ni-CD).

If a Cox engine has the same power as a DD 400 speed motor on 7-8 cells I think id see a large improvement. As it is right now, this plane BARELY flies. Seriously... i cant break 30ft, cant pull the nose up more than 15 degrees on a fresh battery without stalling. Its pathetic.

I think its Stock 400 motor might be damaged too. I had a rough...errmm.."Landing" from about 30 ft up on my first flight. I threw it off a hill and crashed it into the ground... under full power of course... i had no choice. It bent hte shaft, but i got it bent back, and its nearly perfectly balenced now. Its gotten REALLY hot before, those magnets might be losing their strength. I could smell the burning styrofoam and epoxy around the motor.

Im thinking of actually investing in a FancyFoam.com Nitro plane. I could convert an Edge 540 to use a small, throttled engine...

Basically, i want the conveniece, slow flight, and durability of a Foamie, combined with the "Fly anytime w/o batteries waiting on the charger" plane. If there's a better way to do this, feel free share
Maybe a small, light nitro plane.. thats what i need.. lol

Atten...I agree my sky scooter pro2..is the best..what a deal for $139.00 for everything in a rtf..

heh... i paid $155 for my skyscooter origional about 3 years ago. Only in teh last two or three months have i had teh courage to fly it... thanks to, or course, my discovery of the FMS FLight Sim.

but yea... i'd like to see a Pro II fly...

snowball..out of the 4 planes ive bought/flown..the sky scooter pro2 has been {for me at least} the best flying most stable rtf ive seen,,and it includes everything for $139.00...does about 25-30 mph straight out of the box...{with a 8-cell 9.6volt battery} along with performing most of the favorite aerobatic moves {inverted flight-loops-barrel rolls-etc.} its also very easy/cheap to modify....I cannot believe this RTF plane doesnt get much more attention/praise then it currently does..but that may be becasue the 1st version of the sky scooter was not a good flyer...they defintitely worked out all of the kinks on the pro2 version...IMO...and all the compnents are industry standard..usable in other planes..what a deal... .

Yea my skyscooter cant fly inverted... not only is it highly unstable (i can handle that, it can flip over), but it lacks the power and control throws/surface area to fly inverted. I flipped it over at about 30ft up (as i as i could go) and pushed teh stick ALL the way forward while maintaining its inverted position. It fell a good 20 ft as i rolled it over, and very slowly fell the last 10 due to a lack of power to pull the plane up. It only could angle upwards about 15 degrees.... very slight upwards tilt, and couldn't maintain its speed nor altitude. If i had more altitude and airspeed, it might have worked.... meh

Yea i can imagine that its changed significantly. I downloaded an FMS model of the skyscooter and found it to be Very realistic, except for the fact that it was REALLY powerful. That model could fly inverted, roll easily, loop smoothly, etc.

A new skyscooter might not be a bad idea.
Dont get me wrong guys... i love this plane, i learned to fly on it. Its excellent... its just my piloting skills have grown and it hasnt. ok yea its had big power problems, but i got my money's worth.

I also have a firebird commander... although more powerful than MY skyscooter, it was not nearly the same experience. When i charge all my batteries and head out to teh field, i save teh skyscooter's batteries for last. The firebird is nice, slow, quiet, but lacks teh control that the skyscooter has. Maybe a Real radio would solve that, with True VTail mixing.

Well... ive learned a lot about these things though... i was glad to have both planes.... its sad to just put them away. My new fancyfoam.com model is near completion now. My dad's going to learn to fly on them now.

Speaking of learning to fly... is a skyscooter hard to learn to fly on? I dont know of an easier plane... but it seems like for some reason that none of my planes are Easier to fly than others... just different. Im sure in teh hands of a beginner, they would immediately notice the difference. Should i get my dad a slowstick or something?

the sky scooter pro2..has plenty of power with its stk setup{ except for the need to go to a 8cell 9.6 battery...the stk 7cell that comes with the kit will fly the plane..but the 8cell makes it really perform}/...I tryed the mods..like the b.b. gearbox / 9x6 slowflyer prop..and in my opinon..these mods are nothing but a waste of money..the stk gearbox..and folding prop are perfect...I will admit the charger that comes with the plane is just adeqaute enuff ..to do the job..but is defintiely the cheapest part of the rtf package...but this makes sense to have a cheap charger..while all the other components are industry standard and provide great performance..the cheap charger helps keep the price below $140 level..and most people will have/buy a new /better charger anyways of their choice..the pro2 version easily does loops from a straight horizontal flight {no need to perform a dive for accelaeration},,unlike many other RTF planes in the $100-$200 price range..inverted flight is also very easy...

inverted flight easy? yea maybe its time for a new skyscooter... if only i had teh money

well..I cant help ya there..LOL...and I doubt you will ever see it lower then $139.00..in fact its hard to belive they can sell it for that price and make much money...if you do get 1..theres 1 or 2 mods youll need to do..that will take about an xtra 5 minutes but cost you no money..these are just mods that you phsyically do to the plane...the 1st is to make 2 vent holes {1 on each side of the nose} for the motor to dissapate heat..and the other is to cut the foan out a bit from the battery bay towards the right side of the plane..I did these 2 mods before my 1st flight..and the plane flew so good it was scary...im definitely not use to having such a succesful 1st flight with any new plane I buy...

I managed to maiden the little beast today. It took me a while to figure out that i needed 2x AA batteries for the starter. but HOLY COW its loud... and messy. No wonder they call them slimers!

Well it can climb out at about 30-40 degrees and flys MUCH faster than it ever did on electric power. the fuel tank held enough fuel for about 3 minutes of flight, but meh, i can always land!

Ill try to get some video next weekend.

its a NITRO skyscooter... im still laughing at it. its a very, veeerrry odd thing to see flying over your head.

Needless to say, my shoes, pants, and shirt are drenched in glow fuel and i smell like fuel. but that was worth it.

somehow my mom managed to miss the fact that i had put an engine on it as it zoomed past the window.... she wasnt impressed. She thought it was going to explode. my dad, however, was blown away by it. haha he was pretty impressed.... he also lost about $60 by betting it would never work.

Glow engine on a scooter, what a waste of time. Mega motor, 3/1 GB and 3S Li-po will blow away any cox crap.