by woundedbear » Sat Mar 12, 2016 4:06 am
Does anybody know if electric free flight systems are available? What I am interested in is a setup that uses a rechargeable battery and a timing device that could be used to limit the duration of an electrically powered motor. I know from experience with battery-powered wrist watches that had a stopwatch features and countdown timers, that they, "the timers", could be made very light. This combined with rechargeable lithium-polymer batteries could be used to power free flight model airplanes. With a countdown timer, the duration of flights could be used to limit the power phase of a free flight model airplane. This could limit the time the motor would run to suit the size of the flying field. I bought electric powered tethered toy airplanes for the grandkids in my family for their Christmas a few years back. I was amazed at how light they were, they had 2 batteries that were charged by inserting them into the two channel transmitter radios that controlled the speed of the tiny motors that spun the propellers, and had a single very small servo that controlled the elevators. These little toy airplanes are tethered to poles and traveled around in circles, much like the cox control line airplanes we grew up with. Very light free flight model airplanes could be built with such systems. Does anyone on the forum know if such things as miniature countdown timers are made? And where could such things be bought?