For these planes people generally use an AstroFlight geared Cobalt 40 powered
by 18-20 1700mah SCRC cells. This provides plenty of power for an 7-10 lb
WWI aircraft. You need nothing special in terms of radio for electrics.
Instead
of all the throttle linkage and servo to regulate throttle, you use a speed
controller
that plugs into your RX just like a servo. The big advantage here is there is
no
throttle linkage to set up. The disadvantage is that you've got to buy a
controller :-)
>ago and enjoyed it except for 2 points. 1) The gas (sic) engines were
>too damned hard to start and 2) starting them was dangerous. My interest
You are absolutely correct here. With electrics you never need to have your
hands around a spinning prop. In fact, the motor systems are generally test
run, in the shop, without a prop at all. Operation amounts to turning on the
arming
switch and the prop starts turning only after you advance the throttle on your
transmitter.
>I would be interested in starting agin in R/C if the electrics are
>truely a viable way to go now. Is the power/duration of the flights
>acceptable?
Power is not problem. With electrics, however, there are tradeoffs between
power
and duration. Whether they are "acceptable" is up to the individual. Guy and
I
figure that you need 5.5 minutes of duration to fly an acceptable Scale Masters
flight sequence. This duration is obtainable with sufficient power to fly
quite large
aircraft. Guy's 1/4 scale Fokker DVIII weighed 16 lbs and yet he flew it in a
Masters
Qualifier. Bob Benjamin has recently been flying an 81" Spitfire weighing
14lbs in
similar events.
Cheers --- Larry