B-17 Successful Electric conversion

[Smokin' Beaver]

Hi there,
Just found this forum & thought I'd share some info.
This is virtually a stock Guillow's kit except for retracts & it's fully sheeted.
It flies exceptionally well with lots of power to spare and the setup is not expensive.
GWS brushed motors & props, a single ESC & 3700 mA/hr 7.4V lipoly drive "Big Doll" around the sky with authority.



This is my second flying Giant Scale Guillow's
The other one is the Catalina - it also flies very very well.
Build & Show? no way!

B-17 build log is here;
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=696805

Phil

[supercruiser]

Smokin'!!!
Great project. There has been much discussion on this board about electric conversions for Guillow's. Type of motors, prop, etc. Glad to see you got one flying and flying well. Electric might be in one of my future G. projects.
Thanks for posting.

[SteveM]

That's awesome! I bet you catch everyone's attention when you pull that out to fly.

I don't have any RC gear but some day I would like to build some flying kits. Later on today or this weekend I'm going to sit down and read through your build thread.

Thanks for sharing it with us.

[kittyfritters]

Fabulous work! A very well thought out and executed conversion.

There are come local (California) people who have done similar work with Guillow's kits. A B-29 and a Catalina are flown here regularly, and the last time I was in England I saw a very well done conversion of the DC3 kit flying, but I don't think that I have seen anyone put cameras in a scale model before.

I have thought it would be fun to have a real time camera in the cockpit of a model fighter and fly the model from the cockpit view on a monitor, but I'm not sure just how safe that would be.

Anyway, Well Done!

[Xanadu]

Cool..........I have a B-17 I have been considering on doing it electric.
This gives me food for thought

[Smokin' Beaver]

Thanks very much for the kind words guys.
It is an absolute blast to fly and yes it gets more than its fair share of attention at the park.
There's a lot of ARF's around these days but very few 4 engine units.
So it is quite unique there.
I find the B-17 very easy to fly, helped of course by virtue of it's size.
Like the real thing, they were docile in the air & that's how this one behaves too.

The Catalina is a good flyer too btw. A real floater (no pun intended).
I fly her off grass at present but it's fully set up for water.
Just need the rains here now to fill the lake again.
Like the B-17, she is sheeted & has retractable floats.
They're very robust models when built like this, you don't need to treat them like glass, they take a lot of bumps & still come up smiling.

Next on the multi-engine to do list is the B-24.
Again built to take the video camera

btw fwiw video camera link is here;
www.gorillabobshack.com
great bloke to deal with too.

Phil

[Smokin' Beaver]

Sorry guys, the link in the previous thread is dead.
Actually the spelling is wrong (I missed an 's') , but the proper site has been terminated as well.
I'll put it here in case it gets fixed at a later date
gorillabobsshack.com

cheers - phil

[SteveM]

I watched a few of your videos and was wondering if the plane would hold up or not, sounds like no trouble at all.

You say you used a 7 channel receiver, but did you need all 7 channels? I ask as some day I would like to do something like this but don't want to buy a radio only to find out later on that I need 1 or 2 more channels. On the other hand, fewer channels are cheaper.

[Smokin' Beaver]

Hi Steve,
Yes I did use all 7 channels and they are as follows;

1 - Throttle
2 - Aileron (Aileron port side)
3 - Rudder
4 - Elevator
5 - Gear Retract
6 (Aux 1) - Aileron (Aileron starboard side)
7 (Aux 2) - Rotating turret - for video camera

The model could easily fly though, usin 4 channels,
1 - Throttle
2- Aileron
3- Rudder
4- Elevator

A single servo being used for the ailerons of course.

In mine, the retract mechanism in the centre of the fusleage prevented the use of a single aileron servo so I opted for the individual servo at each aileron.
This allows the use of flaperons as well & offers finer trim options.

Phil

[Smokin' Beaver]

Here is the link for the Edvr 5in1 camera.
Dead easy to use, smallest package on the market right now (weighs 1.0oz) and has a big following in the AP arena.

http://www.gorillabobsrc.com/catalog/

Phil

[SteveM]

garyg_92840 just sent a link for your electric RC conversion resources thread to the yahoo "guillows model builders" group.

Thanks for collating that information, it should prove to be very useful.