Brodak’s Oriental ARF
A simple e-conversion produces a clean and quiet C/L Stunt alternative!
By Jim Vigani
AT A GLANCE Type:
PHOTOGRAPHY: JIM VIGANI & FRANK FANELLI W
henever I’ve visited the FLYING MODELS office, I invariably eyed the Brodak Oriental ARF hang- ing from the ceiling. It was as- sembled, but didn’t have an engine and had never been flown. I kept asking Frank Fanelli, FLYINGMODELS editor, when he was going to get it in the air? Well, as luck would have it, on a recent visit, Frank mentioned that they wanted to do an electric conver- sion of the model and, knowing that I fly mostly electric, asked if I would take on the task. It took about four seconds for me to say yes. I was especially pleased to find out that we would be using the Brodak recommended and supplied power system consisting of an Ar- rowind 2820/07 motor, a Castle Creation Ice Lite 50 speed control, a Hubin FM-2 timer, an APC 11–5.5E prop, and an Arrowind 4S-2800 mAh battery. Also provided was a G.T.Power battery charger; quite a complete package. The Oriental is a classic 35–40 size control line Stunt plane designed by Dee Rice. With its clean and functional lines and great per- formance, it has been a popular choice of Stunt flyers for many years. The Oriental sports a 55-inch wing span, 550 square inch- es of wing area, with a typical weight be- tween 38 and 44 ounces. Hats off to Brodak for offering it both as a kit and an ARF/ARC.
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My goals for the e-conversion project were simple: create a neat and clean install of the electric system components while making as few changes to the airframe as possible. Af- ter examining the business end of the fuse- lage, it seemed that I could use the existing engine bearers for the motor; so that part ap- peared to be pretty simple. My major concern was fitting the battery, ESC and timer in the narrow area behind the firewall where the tank would have been mounted. After close scrutiny, and numerous measurements, I came up with a potential scheme. When mounting the motor, I initially wanted to keep the existing cowl intact and mount the motor so that the motor’s thrust washer was in the same location as the orig- inal. Now there are basically two ways to mount an outrunner motor: front mount and rear mount. While a front mount is general- ly considered to be a better choice for control line applications (it eliminates some of the stress on the motor), a rear mount is typi- cally more convenient and, based on my ex- perience, very functional except for extreme cases of use.
For convenience sake, I chose to use the rear mount. A simple scheme using two alu- minum angles bolted to the existing motor bearers offered an effective solution. After cutting the existing bearers back to proper-
Construction: Wing span: Wing area: Length: Weight:
Wing loading: Motor:
Classic C/L Stunt ARF balsa and ply 55 inches 550 sq. in. 35.5 inches
50 ounces (as tested) 13.1 oz./sq.ft.
1010 Arrowind 2820/07, 920 Kv
ESC: Castle Phoenix Ice Lite 50-amp Timer:
Hubin FM-2 Battery: Arrowind 4S - 2850 mAh Li-Po
Manufacturer: Brodak Manufacturing & Distributing Company, Inc 100 Park Avenue Carmichaels, PA 15320 724-966-2726
www.brodak.com
ly position the motor, I epoxied the cut-off pieces to the bottom of the section that re- mained. This formed a solid, symmetrical base on which to mount the aluminum an- gles. I mounted the aluminum angles with a touch of right thrust. Then, using a template of the motor mounting bracket, I marked and drilled the holes and bolted the motor in place.
NOVEMBER 2012
Electrified
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