Many years ago a trend started for trying to convert Giant Scale Gas airplanes to Electric power. The idea however was never very successful for several reasons and didn’t seem to take off in the market place.
The main problem which people had before was weight, cost, and flight time. The approach which people took before was to use 4 x Lipo Batteries to make 12-14s 10,000mah batteries which ended up being VERY expensive and VERY heavy. Then to counter the weight of the extra lipos people would use very large and expensive motors to give more power to maintain adequate power to weight ratio. However this just added to the weight of the model as well. This lipo weight / motor power was a curve that they couldn’t seem to get ahead of. The planes were very expensive due to lipo costs and ended up weighing up to 5-6lbs heavier then their gas equivalent and since they used such power hungry motors, still only got about 4 minute flight times.
This is where the concept of Electric Powered Giant Scale Models left off, and it hasn’t really be revisited since. That is until now!
A few months ago our Team Pilot Santiago Perez started thinking of ways to revisit this topic and came up with a theory. The theory was to get ahead of the power to weight curve by using a very light efficient power system instead of a heavy power hungry system!
Scorpion’s largest airplane motor they make is a SII-6530-180kv motor which was originally designed to over power a 85cc gas equivalent airplanes. However what Santiago tried was to use this very light motor on a 100cc airframe with respectively “small” 12s 5000mah batteries. The results ended up being really interesting!
A standard 100cc gas engine has about 50lbs of static thrust and weighs about 26lbs which gives a power to weight ratio of 1.9 : 1.
The Scorpion SII-6530-180kv motor has 42 lbs of thrust and since we are using such a light Motor/ESC/ Battery power system the airframe ended up being about 2.5 lbs lighter then its equivalent gas power system! Which gave a respectable power to weigh ratio of 1.78 : 1.
Which allows for unlimited up lines and Aerobatic maneuvers!
Then the next thing that was surprising was the flight time which was attained. Santiago is using half of the batteries as the “old style” of electric planes, yet he is achieving 4-6 minutes of flying time!! Which is more then he found with the old style. This is because the plane is much much lighter with such a efficient motor.
All and all, Santiago reported that he was were really impressed with this power system on his airplane and reported that since the airplane was so light it was really fun to fly, and super cool to have such a large electric powered airplane. Santiago says that he “feels that this gives validity to the concept because it is light weight, efficient and cost effective, and hopes that it becomes the new standard of electric powered giant scale airplanes”.
Santiago’s setup is as follows.
Model – Extreme Flight 105” Slick
Motor – SII-6530-180kv
ESC – Tribunus 130A
Battery – 12s 5000mah
Propeller – Falcon 28x13E
Here is a video of Santiago talking about his setup and thoughts on this plane.
https://www.facebook.com/scorpionpowerUSA/videos/411968042685792/
Here is a video of the Plane being flown in a tandem demo at SEFF 2019 along with Kyle Dahl flying his Logo 690 Fusion.
https://www.facebook.com/scorpionpowerUSA/videos/654953311621134/
Santiago and our US distributor, Mikado USA, took and showed this airplane off at SEFF 2019 and Joe Nall 2019 where people took a lot of interest in this New Giant Scale Electric Concept!
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