Electric B

[Duncan McBride]

Man, did I ever have fun at my first ever Nats! What a week. Met a bunch of great people, met in person some I’ve gotten to know here on the forum, and got to fly in some pretty good weather. Flew the big Satellite in Electric B, but pilot error knocked me out early. Maxed E36 but couldn’t keep up with Dale Elder in the flyoff(nobody could). Put my smaller Satellite into the lake on my first max in A on Thursday, and had to pull out the big one to finish. Came in second behind Dale. So that was fun.

Came home all excited, and have been testing new motors to put in the Satellites and built a new E36. So I have a good lineup for Electric A (Satellite and emergency backup Satellite), and E36. What I want to do is build a proper, if that’s the word, Electric B. I know, you don’t need VIT-AR and bunt to win B, and Dale just set a new record with his locked down ship, but I just want to. Never have, and I want to see what the fuss is about. I’ve been scratching through all my old digests and while there is a load of information on nostalgia and fixed surface models going way back, I haven’t found a lot of recommendations for a first auto-surface model. So I thought I might get some free advice here. I’m looking for good performing, relatively easy to build, beautiful (deal breaker) candidate for Electric B that would be a good ship to learn the ins and outs of auto-surfaces. I’ll give it a start by suggesting Charles Caton’s Hummin’bird. His sure do fly pretty. Comments?

[Anonymous]

Duncan, since you are on a Satellite theme how about the “Archer” Satellite which was designed for auto-surfaces? If I recall correctly there are 600 and 800 sizes. Gene Smith built one so he might turn you on to the plans.

I’d say that if you were able to sort out the power package for your big Satellite you shouldn’t have any issues with either of those two.

[Duncan McBride]

Thanks, Randy. I looked through the Member index and don’t see Gene. I checked the NFFS plans list and Outerzone – no luck. I would very much like to see the Archer plans.

Still working out the power on the Satellites. Kind of adding more and more power until they can’t handle it, and then back off a little. So far, so good.

[Anonymous]

Gne Smith is the free flight columnist for AMA Model Aviation magazine. His email is: grwhiskey@brightok.net Failing that I know Don DeLoach has plans for both I believe. Also Free Flight Quarterly has a three view and a write up on the Satellite including the Archer variation.

I’m going to build a Satellite 375 for Electric A this winter.

Randy

[Duncan McBride]

Thanks Randy. I was going to go through my issues of FFQ to see if I had that one, and there in my email was a note from Chris Stoddart with the article enclosed. He saw your reply here and was kind enough to send it to me. Fantastic! The Archer Satellite is exactly what I was looking for, and I’d be crazy not to take advantage of the work Randy Archer has done. Thanks for your help, and hat’s off to Chris.

[Author]

Posts