Installing electric motors on 1:18 aircraft

[tpa05]

Going through some of my 1:18 aircraft and replacing the batteries on the motors I installed on some of them. Just wondering, how popular is the practice of installing electric motors? Has much been written on this topic?

[Panther F]

As a kid, I used to do that on some of my model airplanes I built ... if it fit.













~ Jeff

[tmanthegreat]

There was a topic about it a long time ago - so long ago I can't remember whether it was on this board or the original GPXD board...

I recall that the board member had installed an electric motor in an S1 21c ME-109E, and even had the switch hidden in the cockpit. I want to say he made the nav lights work as well. For more recent efforts, I think boardmember granch has done some lighting on his BBI helicopters, which looks really great.

Slightly off topic, but does anyone remember those RC customs that were on ebay several years ago where someone put a motor in a 21c AH-1 Supercobra and got it to fly? They did a great job keeping the overally tooling of the piece together, even with the engine.

[pcoughran]

Tman,
Yes, I remember the flying 1/18 Cobra, blackhawk, pavehawk, apache, huey, and littlebird. They were done by a guy that went by NYTURTLE and Scalemaster on one of the scale RC forums. It was seeing these that originally inspired me to get into 1/18 to begin with. Here's a couple photos of his flying helos:





Here's a link to his RunRyder RC forum gallery with photos and video of his other 1/18 stuff

http://rc.runryder.com/helicopter/gallery/31405/

[granch]

Granch confirms you he's working on helicopters modell, but nothing to compare with these real flying masterpieces.
Even for only static display, quite a difficult job, because I don't take the risk to fully open the fuselage. The idea came when my sons were tired and icecold in my garden in winter, after 50 trials pulling very thin fishermen's wires to set the props in movement during the 3 seconds I needed to make a picture! At the time now, I have a blackhawk on my workbench, one easyer project with a Kiowa (it's only in my head) and only one finished MH-6:

If you want to see more, go to photobucket and search for granch. I like the dawn and sunset atmosphere, and darkness hides inperfections... or highlights some details like the instrument panel above!
I think its easyer with airplane models, somebody in this board made nice customs and small very convincing videos.

[tpa05]

Wow, that's some pretty impressive work. Most of mine have been 1:18 aircraft with a simple electric motor and battery. It started with a 1:32 corsair that I did a while back. I was sitting with my then 6-year old son and he mentioned twice how it would be "cool" if the motor worked. And so with that, I went to Radio Shack and the rest is history.

The aircraft I've done so far are a 1:18 Corsair, Hellcat, P-47 and Zero. Note these have radial engines and so the blades/spinners were easier to work with. I'm hoping to add a motor to a 109 I just bought but find myself just starin' at it wondering how to do it without tearing up the spinner and/or cowling.

Anyway, just wondered what others here have to say on the matter and how many other members actually break out the dremel and tear-up a perfectly good airplane.

[tko211]

I have 2 planes with electric motors and wing nav lights. I have an Me-109e and an F4-u Corsair. I had visions of doing more but found it took too long, lost interest. The final results are cool though!

[tpa05]

That's interesting that you did the 109. For all the aircraft that I worked on the results weren't perfect (or always pretty) and my technique was the simply break out the dremel and cut the cowling heads off along a panel line and that seemed to work just fine. Replace the spinners and props and next thing you know (especially in the case of the Corsair) it starts to taxi down the hallway.

The problem I have now with the 109 is basically where to start. Don't thing the motor will fit through the spinner if I decide to just remove that and go in from the front. So, if I cut a panel line (and hope the plastic is molded the same color throughout) I don't have a disimilar two-pieces of airplane like I did with the others that allowed me to simply put 'em next to each other and it's hidden (mostly).