Hey all,
We have been getting a lot of folks asking for a good power setup for the Slow Sticks and I think we have come up with a really neat setup.
Let me start by saying that the Slow Stick will work well with just about any motor you can fit onto the stock brushless motor mount that we include with the kits. That motor mount will fit up to about a 29mm outside diameter motor. So if you have something like that in your spare pile, go with that!
Our goals for a power plant was:
1- Low Price
2- Robust
3- Lightweight
4- Enough power for sport flying
With those goals in mind I started looking at all of the motors we offered. At first I wanted to go with something around 1200kv, but most of these motors are a little spendy and a little heavy. Lately we have been powering more and more of our higher performance gliders and small race planes with motors that were developed for multirotors. These little motors tend to be very powerful, light in weight and stupid strong. The quality tends to be above normal thanks to competition in that sector for great power to weight ratios and need to durability.
I started looking at some of the multirotor motors and after running the numbers, one of the DYS motors looked like a great fit to meet all of our requirements. The motor is happy to produce 75 watts for training, or 175 watts for sport flying. More on that later. The prop shaft is a 5mm hollow steel shaft, if you manage to damage this shaft I doubt the plane survived at all. Top quality bearings, motor windings and magnets all make for a very reliable motor that should be able to take a lot of training abuse.
Trainer setup:
I wanted a power plant that could grow with the pilot. Take them from training to sport pilot with minimal re-investment. This motor makes this very easy. For training we are suggesting this little 4 bladed prop and a 2S battery:
This prop is whisper quiet and gives tons of ground clearance. It is decently strong, and can take some hits without shedding blabes, but will break in a large impact, avoiding damage to the motor or airframe. It provides the student pilot with about 75 watts of power on a 2S 1000 or 1300 battery. (Can carry a much bigger battery, but light is best for trainers, it will reduce the carnage in a crash.)
With this setup, the power is plenty for training, but no so much as to make the plane difficult to handle. Actually, it is really nice for gentle sport flying and has enough power to loop or jump into the air quickly.
Need more power?
you have 2 options. I suggest simply swapping the prop. We test flew with a 3 bladed multirotor prop with a bit more pitch and this gave a little more power. Next I put a GWS 9x6 2 blade prop on and this was very nice for sport flying. Gives you the big slow turning blade that just looks really good, and a lot of thrust to do whatever you like.
Another option is to keep the 4 bladed prop and switch over to a 3S battery. I have to say that I really liked how quick the throttle response was with this setup. Blip the throttle for instant results. This was really fun with the Slow Stick. If I remember correctly this combo is now producing about 175 watts of power. It is plenty of power for the Slow Stick, but still works really well at not overpowering the airframe. Best of all, we are still super lightweight, we have power but have not lost all of the slow flight fun!
I was excited when I was looking at the math for these setups, but didn't want to suggest this until we had actually flight tested the different configurations. I'm actually blown away as I do think this may be a perfect setup for the Slow stick. It achieves all of the goals and then some, and really lets the Slow Stick shine at what it does best - provide endless flying fun!
We will post up some video as soon as we get it edited and ready.
Our Slow Force:
Also, we had 2 new pilots solo their Slow Sticks this weekend! One of them is our employee Victor and the other is Chris' son Jordan, 9 years old. And the planes survived!
We have been getting a lot of folks asking for a good power setup for the Slow Sticks and I think we have come up with a really neat setup.
Let me start by saying that the Slow Stick will work well with just about any motor you can fit onto the stock brushless motor mount that we include with the kits. That motor mount will fit up to about a 29mm outside diameter motor. So if you have something like that in your spare pile, go with that!
Our goals for a power plant was:
1- Low Price
2- Robust
3- Lightweight
4- Enough power for sport flying
With those goals in mind I started looking at all of the motors we offered. At first I wanted to go with something around 1200kv, but most of these motors are a little spendy and a little heavy. Lately we have been powering more and more of our higher performance gliders and small race planes with motors that were developed for multirotors. These little motors tend to be very powerful, light in weight and stupid strong. The quality tends to be above normal thanks to competition in that sector for great power to weight ratios and need to durability.
I started looking at some of the multirotor motors and after running the numbers, one of the DYS motors looked like a great fit to meet all of our requirements. The motor is happy to produce 75 watts for training, or 175 watts for sport flying. More on that later. The prop shaft is a 5mm hollow steel shaft, if you manage to damage this shaft I doubt the plane survived at all. Top quality bearings, motor windings and magnets all make for a very reliable motor that should be able to take a lot of training abuse.
Trainer setup:
I wanted a power plant that could grow with the pilot. Take them from training to sport pilot with minimal re-investment. This motor makes this very easy. For training we are suggesting this little 4 bladed prop and a 2S battery:
This prop is whisper quiet and gives tons of ground clearance. It is decently strong, and can take some hits without shedding blabes, but will break in a large impact, avoiding damage to the motor or airframe. It provides the student pilot with about 75 watts of power on a 2S 1000 or 1300 battery. (Can carry a much bigger battery, but light is best for trainers, it will reduce the carnage in a crash.)
With this setup, the power is plenty for training, but no so much as to make the plane difficult to handle. Actually, it is really nice for gentle sport flying and has enough power to loop or jump into the air quickly.
Need more power?
you have 2 options. I suggest simply swapping the prop. We test flew with a 3 bladed multirotor prop with a bit more pitch and this gave a little more power. Next I put a GWS 9x6 2 blade prop on and this was very nice for sport flying. Gives you the big slow turning blade that just looks really good, and a lot of thrust to do whatever you like.
Another option is to keep the 4 bladed prop and switch over to a 3S battery. I have to say that I really liked how quick the throttle response was with this setup. Blip the throttle for instant results. This was really fun with the Slow Stick. If I remember correctly this combo is now producing about 175 watts of power. It is plenty of power for the Slow Stick, but still works really well at not overpowering the airframe. Best of all, we are still super lightweight, we have power but have not lost all of the slow flight fun!
I was excited when I was looking at the math for these setups, but didn't want to suggest this until we had actually flight tested the different configurations. I'm actually blown away as I do think this may be a perfect setup for the Slow stick. It achieves all of the goals and then some, and really lets the Slow Stick shine at what it does best - provide endless flying fun!
We will post up some video as soon as we get it edited and ready.
Our Slow Force:
Also, we had 2 new pilots solo their Slow Sticks this weekend! One of them is our employee Victor and the other is Chris' son Jordan, 9 years old. And the planes survived!
