For me it all became a function of weight. Sure if you fly a decathlon or a cub you probably don't care but if you want to 3D the weight penalty comes into effect and there is nothing like waiting for someone to switch packs in between an IMAC sequence.

I think the 72" Extreme Flight or 3DHS is where it stops being practical. I say this from personal experience as I electrified my 50cc first with a Rimfire and then a Hacker Q series. The plane had a tonnnn of power but it just felt heaver than the gas set up because it was. The reason is its all a function of MAH which is weight VS flight time. Do you really want to fly for 5 minutes and then switch packs or do you up the MAH/Weight and make it heavier for longer flight times.

It is not about charging times (my PL8 rips 4 6S 3300 in 8 min) it just all became a hassle for a plane that is heaver than it needs to be. After seeing the 92" planes run on the DA 70 compared to my electric I would 100% go gas on that size. As for ditching a 120cc gas for electric I bet that electric plane will be 2 pds heavier.

The nice thing about my 73" on electric is when I get home from work i can go get a couple flights with no muss/ no fuss. Plane, batteries/already charged, transmitter and out to the field 15 minutes away. At least until the time changes again

I used to do the same thing. Kept a small electric, 43" wing span, in my car at the commuter train station. Get of the train in a suit, get in the car, hook up the charger to the power outlet and drive to the field. Battery charge complete, and up it would go with the next pack set on the charger to be sure it was topped up.

Fly for an hour then go home and get out of my suit.

Hi dear!

Hey big boy, you are you so happy about?

Oh, had a good end to the day.

You mean a happy ending? HA!




Sorry, couldn't help it..

I fly gliders a lot and electric gliders are in explosive growth. You never see a glow launched glider anymore, unless someone had one from years ago.

The motors are so small and light and the batteries have gotten small, light and powerful.

You can now put an e-glider into the air at about the same weight as a pure glider so there is little if any penalty for having an on-board launch system. And, unlike a pure glider, if you get into trouble or misjudge your energy you can power up rather than dropping into the woods or worse.

Electric launch puts a lot less stress on the wings than a winch launch so a lot of old woodies are coming out of the racks, getting motors installed and are being found to be competitive in the ALES electric launch format. A device in the plane lets the motor run for 30 seconds or until you get to 200 meters altitude, whichever comes first, then shuts the motor off, prop folds and you are flying a glider. No need for expensive winches or retrievers. And you can work from smaller fields.

In ALES competition I fly a 134" wing span molded e-Supra that weighs 68 ounces all up with a 1300 mah 3 cell and 500 watt motor. I have a pure glider supra that weighs 64 ounces all up.

That 1300 mah pack will get me to 200 meters in 24 seconds. If I hit good lift I could be up there for an hour or more without ever restarting the motor.

For me - speaking strictly of 3d/freestyle planes a 50cc engine replaced by a 12s 5000 setup is as far as I'd consider. For my money, though the smaller 65-75" planes that would otherwise be flown on a 30cc engine is the perfect electric size plane - much less expensive (fly 6s or 8s) and you sacrifice very little vs a 50cc plane in performance.

My advice is for people to go up the 30cc sized planes on electric, skip the 50cc plane alltogether and go to a 100cc plane when they are ready to get into gas.

Originally Posted by AllBread

For me - speaking strictly of 3d/freestyle planes a 50cc engine replaced by a 12s 5000 setup is as far as I'd consider. For my money, though the smaller 65-75" planes that would otherwise be flown on a 30cc engine is the perfect electric size plane - much less expensive (fly 6s or 8s) and you sacrifice very little vs a 50cc plane in performance.

My advice is for people to go up the 30cc sized planes on electric, skip the 50cc plane alltogether and go to a 100cc plane when they are ready to get into gas.

Absolutely exactly right! I have found that in general 50cc planes are cumbersome and the single cylinder engines in this class shake your plane apart. That was why I converted my 2 50cc size planes to electric. More power and nothing shakes loose. 100 cc planes fly much better than a 50cc size and are mainly twin cylinder gas. Not cost effective for electric. I wouldn't go bigger than a 30cc size plane on electric. You just simply are not gaining any better flight characteristics and they are easier to haul. But if you are a beginner, a bigger plane is easier to fly but the intimidation factor is 10 fold.

Originally Posted by twowings74

Absolutely exactly right! I have found that in general 50cc planes are cumbersome and the single cylinder engines in this class shake your plane apart. That was why I converted my 2 50cc size planes to electric. More power and nothing shakes loose. 100 cc planes fly much better than a 50cc size and are mainly twin cylinder gas. Not cost effective for electric. I wouldn't go bigger than a 30cc size plane on electric. You just simply are not gaining any better flight characteristics and they are easier to haul. But if you are a beginner, a bigger plane is easier to fly but the intimidation factor is 10 fold.

Id disagree with the 50cc theory.My friends 87 shp with a DLE55R is a beast & barley shakes.Now as far as going into 100cc plane from a 30cc or smaller,man that's a major jump in price and that's why 50cc planes exist
My friend bought my 91 Extra,DA60 with a pipe.He just doesn't feel comfortable starting a gasser & is afraid that if Im not around he may have turn a needle one day,so he wants to go electric but after looking a cost,flight times,charging times-he's come full circle & will probably sell it as is.
Perfect case of someone who is an electric fanatic that see's a 50cc plane(over 20 lbs) converted to electric,for him just isn't feasible

People have range anxiety in electric cars. I found that I have something similar with electric planes even at the 2200mah 3s level. Wide open for too long is hard on the pack & pulls down the flight time. I kind of put around, throw in some aerobatics and have a Lipo beeper to let me know when it is down to 3.5V per cell.
On the gas - just go for it. Wide open for as long as is stupid & have fun. Plus I can land, fuel and go in a minute. All the gasers I run have 12-15 minutes run time with no sweat and my fleet of electrics pretty much tops out at 9 minutes. The electrics are a blast too, so I like them all. Just the bigger batteries cost more and I seem to have a 1-2 year life span for good power out of the battery & then they slowly die off.

Come on people. There are advantages and disadvantages to either power system. To argue electric is better than gas or gas is better than electric is ridiculous. No one is going to win the argument on either side.

You use whichever you prefer and that it that. I fly mostly gas but that is because I already have all the support equipment that is necessary for gas/glow operation and I grew up on internal combustion engines. That by itself doesn't mean it's better than electric. It's just what I'm more used to. I do have a couple of electric planes plus an electric mid size heli (nothing larger than 3s power.)

The argument over gas vs electric is like the argument over which oil is best or which brand radio is best. It's all personal preference, nothing more.

Mike 48

It is interesting that this topic surfaced as I have been thinking about this very thing. I don't really have experience with electrics other than a few helicopters. Nothing more than one battery at a time. I would like to build a 35% Dalton 260 and make it electric, but I am just starting to research the motor options, esc's, and the batteries. I'm assuming a plane of this size would be 12-14cell. Not sure if you would need 10,000 mah or 15,000. I would want to get through 2 IMAC sequences at least per flight. 6-9 batteries per flight and enough for 3 flights is a lot of batteries for sure. I hear you can get 200-300 cycles out of batteries these days. If that is so, does the cost over that amount of time even out the initial upfront cost for the batteries v/s gas?


Keith

50 cc < gas 50 > user chocie

A 12s electric/50cc size/ will come out about 1/2# heavier than its gas counterpart. Lots of instant power. You can go 10s and get it down a bit but you sacrifice a lot of power for the weight.

I stand by 7#. Anything larger weight for flight time suffers and batteries get expensive. Batteries have to be charged, batteries wear out. IC just runs and needs fuel. IC also sounds better.

Originally Posted by daytonarc

I stand by 7#. Anything larger weight for flight time suffers and batteries get expensive. Batteries have to be charged, batteries wear out. IC just runs and needs fuel. IC also sounds better.

That's why I do both.
Electric for the convenience
Gas for the long haul.
But the power curve is freaking awesome on a well set up electric. 30cc size.