Radio Controlled EDF event photos.

The local club held an Electric Ducted Fan fun fly & speed contest over the weekend and having only seen a limited number of EDF planes I was very interested in seeing them in action. To my surprise a lot of them are foamies (some form of styrofoam, not just the type we commonly see in packaging or insulation) thanks to it's light weight while still being strong. There were however many made from composite materials, and the fastest speed recorded was 210 KPH in the unlimited class and one limited to a 90 MM ducted fan on a 14.8 Volt battery scored 137 KPH. Terry Nitsch Attended & brought a few planes to entertain us & that he did. The weather was good, but unfortunately mainly overcast so photos lacked the punch they might have had throughout most of the event.

Nice shots of them. How much airtime would you expect them to average with one battery?

Based on take off & landing times it looks like the very fast (flown wide open most of the flight) were around 3 minutes to maybe as long as 4 minutes, while the larger planes (which can carry more battery) were 6-8 minutes. Just based on personal observations I'd say the ducted fans aren't anywhere near as efficient as the electric prop planes, which limits the size & weight they can push through the sky. Also because the jets require a lot more speed to keep them airborne & under control they get run near full throttle a lot more than prop planes. This photo basically shows a complete ducted fan, and the motor inside it isn't that big physically. I guess the popularity of foam based aircraft relates to both the lightweight airframe & lower cost to produce. In the air it's very hard to distinguish a foamie from a conventionally built model. The foamies also survive bad landings rather well due to the lack of weight in motion.

wow. great shots, really like the last 3.

Thanks for the info.

Not nearly as long as a full tank of fuel, & I would have needed a trunk full of batteries! Of course, the clean up time would be shorter.

Actually most of the batteries are designed to charge up in about 1 hour, and some can be done in about 20 minutes. Most of the chargers used are designed to work off a 12 V car battery, so people either bring deep cycle batteries or simply use their car to do it. The week before the jets event there was an aerobatics event & one pilot was flying a 30 pound plane running on a big pack of batteries which offered at least 10 minutes of flying time, recharged in an hour, and pulled the plane vertical every bit as well as any of the gassers.

To get an idea of size the prop is 26 inches in diameter.

It's a whole different world out there now. Some of my R/C models weren't that long!

Anyone hit the ground? Last fun fly I attended there was a guy with a 1/3 Edge 540 and another with 1/4 Corsair that both hit the ground hard. Toothpicks hard.

Ive never seen R/C models like that before, very very cool!

No problems at the IMAC competition; not even a dead stick emergency. Very different story at the jets event but most of the problems were to low cost foamies.

This one was a structural failure (elevon tore off just outside the extra reinforcement recommended, but not done by the manufacturer.)

GREAT SHOTS!!! and some great modeling too.

Reminds me when I went to a 3D Heli competition.

Nice work ciocopo, your album shots looks great !!
Looks like you were kept busy for the event.

sigma pi wrote in post #12598895
GREAT SHOTS!!! and some great modeling too.

Reminds me when I went to a 3D Heli competition.

Carnage everywhere?

dtw757 wrote in post #12599424
Carnage everywhere?

Not as much as I wanted/expected. They were good. Inverted mowing the lawn no problems. It was still a good show. I was just expecting crash kits for the helis to be coming out of every where.

Being a Heli manufacturer looks like a great idea because those things are guaranteed to need a lot of replacement parts, but unlike the planes not many of us could just build the parts we destroy trying to fly. Way back when I last was in the hobby we bought some balsa, some glue & some covering & built a plane. When it crashed we rebuilt it with more of the same. Crash a heli, even gentle & you create a very nice shopping list of needed parts before it flys again. I'm on that path right now having recently bought one that I'm trying to fly, and so far I've destroyed 3 sets of rotor blades plus bent a steel shaft. On the plus side I bought used & it came with LOTS of replacement parts. Hopefully I'll learn before I really destroy it, but even if I do I'll just buy another. Compared to what I broke or destroyed drag racing it's a cheap hobby.