FanFacts H
ello again, and welcome back! It is always a bit weird writing a Jan- uary column that will be mailed and received in December, while
the leaves are still changing color in Octo- ber. My original thoughts (and outline) for this month’s column didn’t materialize with life occurring here, and where several items were to come from, so it got me thinking …. With the way the weather has been across the US this year I think a long building sea- son is about to be upon us, so I reviewed my first few “official” Fan Facts columns from 2004, and man oh man was I jolted by sev- eral things (pun intended) when looking at the electric side. I talked about the excellent Multiplex Multicharger, of which I have two, and still use routinely, as well as a ThunderPower Li- Po charger, that I don’t. Neither of the two mentioned chargers have balancing capabil- ity, and both will only charge Li-Po chem- istry. While the Multiplex charger is still a very capable charger with Ni-MH and Ni-Cd chemistry, the number of packs that are not Lithium of some sort have decreased for me, especially in my jets—where Li-Fe receiver packs have become my “go-to” choice. Why is the obvious first question, and the answer is simple: I can charge an Li-Fe pack on Sunday evening when I get home from the field, and I have a 99.9 percent proba- bility that it will still maintain the full charge in one, two or eight weeks time when/if I get the chance to fly again. My Ni- MH pack equipped models need an over - night charge, so I have to anticipate going flying with that particular model and, for at least the last year, my flying has been more spontaneous than planned. Okay, then I was jolted in the types of
packs I use, and I was also jolted with the changes in chargers, all of which seem to not only do every chemistry known to man, but
by greg moore You can reach Greg Moore via e-mail at
jetflyr@comcast.net
PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG MOORE
In this image shamelessly copied from the Internet (the same image was found in five or six places) the recently restored, and colorful, Colorado Air Guard F-86D waits to be towed inside. Very colorful, unique and scale! Pictures such as this provide a wealth of information for the scale builder.
balance the Lithium based cells as well. Not only that, but many can deliver better than 10 amps to a 5000–6500 mAh pack all day long! Since many (most?) of the new charg- ers are also capable of charging 2, 3 or 4 packs at the same time, life for an electric flyer is good! I have two chargers that will charge, and balance a 6S 5000 mAh battery at 10 amps, so I am doing okay in that regard, but read- ing about (and looking at) some of the new- er “battery management systems” has me scratching my head! In that first column, I also talked about
Chris Wolfe’s Minifan-powered F4D Skyray and the twin Minifan-powered F-14. Today, Chris is flying a JHH Kfir powered by an e- Turbax. The difference is size, weight, pres-
ence in the air and ability to carry scale goodies like afterburner rings and lights is huge, and that is a small plane for some. Yup, any plane powered with a turbine is fair game for an electric conversion with more than a few 20–25 pound jets having been done. Whenever I think about it, I can’t get the following song out of my head, so sing along: Anything you can do, I can do better…. This was really brought home with a thread on RCU about the new “bleeding- edge” TF-8000 fan,
www.rcuniverse.com/ forum/
fb.asp?m=10798331. The 145mm TF-8000 Aeronaut Turbo Fan
has been around for several years and with a 5-bladed rotor produces 28–30 pounds of thrust (I have linked several videos from Switzerland showcasing jets with this fan
Taken from inside, the colors can get changed in the photograph (above left). Late in the day, while they were turning the lights out does make for some interesting color shifts. It’s not hard to get the nomenclature correct when you
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can get right up to the aircraft (above right). When blown up on the computer monitor you can see the bent edges and missing rivets. All of these details are great for scale documentation!
JANUARY 2012
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