And now for something a little different.....

Jim Greenwood has converted his old Blue Pants to electric. He has fully cowled the motor and included cooling ducts. 

Just behind the left hand exhaust stack can be seen a battery isolating plug and socket. Inserting the plug arms the system. A good safety feature and well away from that prop. The cooling duct (red) can be seen in this view. Jim also added a tapered false trailing edge to the wing which gives it a slightly different look.

The specifications are:-

Motor- Thrust 10 /Precision aerobatics

ESC- Arrowind lv 25- Precision Aerobatics

Battery- Turnigy 3 cell 11.1v 1300mah

Motor controller- z tron BSD micro RC LLC [Version 1

Motor control – R415 Micro RX Hobby King TX Parkzone 2.4 GHz DSM2 Hobby King

Jim is going to try both methods of motor control; i.e 2.4 gig radio or Ztron programmable timer. The top front of the fuselage is a removeable hatch which allows easy access to all the electronics so changing from radio to timer is a simple matter of unplugging one and plugging the other in.

Jim tells me he has a couple of more things to do to it and hopefully the test flight will be next Sunday (21/10/12).

A gathering of Blue Pants at Townsville.

Push Rod Failure

Alan Beggs' (Townsville) own design profile stunter didn't survive the test flight.
Alan said it was very responsive and flew well until the push rod
disconnected halfway through the flight resulting in a wingover
and power dive into the deck.
The fuselage was foam sheeted with balsa.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board!

I had a similar problem with my Blue Pants a few weeks ago at George Town. One of the leadouts pulled out of the bellcrank, causing the plane to wingover and bury itself to the leading edge in the ground. The only damage was a broken prop! The bent spring on the needle valve easily straightened. I build 'em STRONG!! The leadout is now repaired and the prop replaced. Just waiting for some good weather to fly it.