R/C Electric Jets

Last weekend the local R/C club hosted the 3rd Annual EDF jets Fun Fly & speed event. The weather on Sat was near perfect & it was well attended but I think Fathers Day cut into it a bit. The fastest speed in a 90 mm fan (going from memory) was 191 KPH and in unlimited it was 284 KPH (2 way average) which was posted by Terry Nitsch who I consider a pro R/C pilot and who has won several "Top Gun" awards. These are from my new (to me) 1D4 and I'm still working on which metering mode to use & a few custom functions & the 28-300 L IS that I'm really liking.

Here's one of the passes Terry made for his 2 way average.

Good series of shots on them.

beautiful, they look amazing. how big are they? the title says something about "electric" - are they electric powered?

Yes they are powered by what's known as an "electric ducted fan" which is simply a turbine like fan driven at up to 30,000 RPM. Power comes from LiPo battery packs and they are rated by a combination of volts available and how many amps they can supply. That power goes through an electronic speed controller which feeds the power to the motor and at an event like this higher voltages were used than "recommended" so a couple of planes had major failures due to the higher current drawn. 1 melted the wiring connector (a cheep copy of a popular brand) and that plane was totalled. The other melted the speed control but fortunately he landed safely. Here's what the typical motor looks like whether it's exposed or internal.

Thanks for the close-ups.

Good shots, good explanation.

I noticed the "BVM"on the first aircraft and took a minute to recall: Bob Violett Models. Interestingly that's top of the list currently for a google search for BVM.

Cool!