Electric Butterfly?

converting the Dynaflight Butterfly to electric?

This is a natural conversion if ever there was one. Flight times might be measured in hours if you use a folding prop and shut down the motor when thermaling. Call Jim T Graham (aka Billy Hell) at Hobby-Lobby or just call Hobby-Lobby sales and ask for a motor equivalent to a .15 or .20 glow engine.

Charlie

| converting the Dynaflight Butterfly to electric? | | This is a natural conversion if ever there was one.

Yup.

| Flight times might be measured in hours if you use a folding prop | and shut down the motor when thermaling. Call Jim T Graham (aka | Billy Hell) at Hobby-Lobby or just call Hobby-Lobby sales and ask | for a motor equivalent to a .15 or .20 glow engine.

... of course, with electrics you don't just buy a motor equivilent to a certain glow motor, but a motor+esc+battery+gearbox(maybe)+prop.

In this case, you'll probably want a large folding prop with a gear box with a fairly large gear ratio. The plane is large enough that you could use standard 6 cell subC NiCd or NiMH packs to power it, though you'll get more energy out of LiPo if you go that route.

In any event, Motocalc (available at

should be able to help you work out a good power system for this plane. Since it flies so slow, you'll want a large prop moving slowly, which means gearbox. (The glow engine they suggest runs a small prop quickly -- which gives you enough thrust (you don't need much) but it's not very efficient. And of course since it's probably not a folding prop, keeping it small does reduce drag when the engine is off.)

The square fuselage might cause some minor problems with a folding prop -- if the prop closes in the wrong position, the fuselage might keep it from closing completely, which would increase drag. If you noticed it, you could blip the throttle and try again, though it would probably be hard to notice. I guess (depending on how much you wanted to modify the plane) you could file off the corners so this wasn't a problem ...

| > Anyone have any ideas on converting the Dynaflight Butterfly to | > electric? I have not gotten into electric, but I would like to | > try it with the Butterfly.

I've got a Butterfly myself. 0.20 engine. I've been tempted to convert it, but it flies well as is, and I do have a nice glow field to fly it at (and it might be a bit big for the local park), so I'll probably keep it. For now ...

Its been done... The Butterfly does very well E-powered. in some way

it does better with the addition of a heavy battery pack

I'm seing this discussion on

Visit the site and do search... there are several threads on the conversion

-- fhhuber50677

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Thanks guys...A winter project! I will research your info, I love that plane! I have a new one in the box..ready to build.

Andy