Goodbye, glow: Convert to electric

Model Airplane News, Oct 2003 by Gimlick, Greg

When I have chosen a motor, I can tune the system further by varying prop sizes in the simulation program. There is plenty of room in the Flivver to move batteries fore and aft to adjust the center of gravity (CG); this helps when you switch from a heavier dual-motor setup such as the Kyosho Endoplasma/Inner Demon to a single motor system such as that of the MaxCim. For each system, I built my own battery packs using solderless power tubes from MEC. I mounted them on the underside of the equipment deck, as shown in the photos. With the Flivver's short nose, it's very easy to end up tail-heavy. The recommended CG range is 4 to 4.5 inches from the leading edge of the wing, but I found it much more comfortable to fly at the 3.7-inch setting. This puts the CG at around 30 percent.

CONCLUSION

Thanks to modern technology, numerous motor systems are available today, and just about any glow-powered model can be converted to electric. Electric power has many benefits. It's clean and quiet, and scale modelers will really appreciate the lack of vibration as well as the variety of materials available that don't need to be fuelproofed. Stick around; you may be an electrics enthusiast before you know it!