Great Planes Curtis P-6E

by Ed Couch
(Fort Worth, Texas)

Just a second from touchdown, get the wing up son!

This scale RC airplane was assembled from a discontinued Great Planes product about 12 months ago. The ARF is no longer imported into the US by Great Planes.

The vehicle was electrocuted in place of a fuel or gas engine as I no longer fly fuel engines of any sorts. The motor is an E-Flite 110 swinging a 20/10 APC prop utilizing two 4/3700 lipoly packs in series.

Electronic speed control is a Castle Creation 80 amp High Voltage unit. Radio is Spektrum DX-7 and High Tech servos. Radio battery is 6 volt 2500 mah nickel metal. Total all up weight is less than 13 pounds.

With the advent of many of the Chinese imports, the electrical components can be purchased for less than 40 percent of what I paid for E-Flite and Castle Creations products.

The aircraft flies like it's on rails but is very gentle as well. Landings are a snap utilizing 3-point or wheels-on landing techniques.

Ailerons are very sensitive, so a little exponential works very well. No vices at all and she presently stands at over a 150 flights all averaging 5 to 7 minutes with reserve.

Any way you put it, she has a commanding presence in the air and I have garnered a number of trophies this last year for the vehicle.

Ed

edecouch@aol.com if any questions

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Great Planes Curtis P-6E

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Very Realistic
by: Matt

Man,

It's amazing how much that plane looks like the full scale one.

I visited the USAF Museum in Dayton Ohio earlier this week and took this picture.

The lighting was kinda bad, but It really did look dead nuts like yours!

Nice Plane!

Matt

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hatch
by: Anonymous

How did you hatch up this bird for electric flight? I will be building up one soon and need some ideas.

Thanks,
MAX

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HATCH
by: EABIII

Your choice of components won't change the internal arrangement much. I'm using 3 3s/6000Mah (33V) with E-flite 110 motor.

I cut out the fuel tank bulkhead to allow the three batteries to move forward to the firewall. The kit tends to be tail heavy so keep everything forward as much as you can.

The servos were mounted behind the bulkhead shown in the plans, to give access to the batteries for removal. The flight pack battery is mounted under the cowl also.

The cowl's dummy radiator was cut out and a grill made to take it's place so the ESC could be mounted behind it for cooling.

So, the hatch is the lower wing! Really not a big problem, 2 bolts, 4 screws and you can pull the batteries to charge.

With all of this I still needed 10 oz. of lead to coming out at 15lb.

Hope this helps.

EABIII

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