Eric,

I'll be following your efforts with interest. I have been playing with some design concepts myself, all which involve smaller planes and shooting for light weight.

 I feel that a smaller plane can be made to fly very well if light enough. I was impressed at my 15 which weighs only 19oz ready to fly. The high speed wasn’t great because of the small motor, but low speed was very good. Wing area is 220 sq in.

My main worry in the scale class is the pull test. Of course lighter models also pull less. Is that what you meant by the comment “the pull tests are less in e than in ic”?

John

     Back to the CL-2 MO-1. The first picture shows the jig I made back in the mid 90s to build MO-1s. Each one that I built was obsolete by the time I got half way through the build. Well maybe I should say I thought they were obsolete and it would be easy to build a better one. Over a 15 year period they did get about 5mph faster and I'm pretty sure that came from the Nelson's getting broken in. Oh and each one was easier to build than the one before and one time I built 2 at a time to take to the NWR.
     I wanted to build this MO-1 lighter than any of the ones before even though this one would be my first MO-1 built to the maximum size allowed in the rules (full 44 inch span). One of my lightning ideas was to make the inside fuselage out of lite ply and the outside side of the fuselage out of balsa wood. So as I didn't want one side to turn out different than the other side I chose my wood carefully, so carefully that I don't think I saved more than a half oz at the most. Course a half oz here and there is what makes the plane lighter than the one before. I also eliminated 2 bulk heads, one in the middle of the fuselage between the trailing edge and elevator and one right under the middle of the wing. The one right under the middle of the wing had to go anyway because that was where I was going to put the 4s 5k battery in the fuselage and as it turned out there was just enough room for it and that's was all. I've come to the conclusion that 4 cells is as large as I want to ever go and this one fits in there on its side and is tight at that.
     One of the pictures shows the motor mount and the landing gear box which is also the ESC box. I did put a 2" by 1/16" ply doubler's in on each side of the fuselage where the gear is mounted thinking that this would be one of the most stressed areas of the plane. The area where the ESC sits in will not be covered so the ESC can get lots of fresh air while trying to keep it cool. The piece of ply that the motor mounts to is 7-ply and extends from the nose back under the the leading edge of the wing. I wanted this area Strong so I could make the pull test without breaking the plane. I also did the samething at the trailing edge of the wing where it crosses the fuselage. That way I could place my right hand fingers along the nose right in line with the wing and my left hand fingers behind the trailing edge of the wing also in line with the wing  and pull as it is the strongest place on the plane.  Eric

     There are 2 pictures here, one is of the tail section and the other is the nose section. The tail section shows one of the 2 bulk heads in this plane. Next time I will leave this bulk head out, just more weight and complications justified only by "I always use to put one there". As it will turn out I removed it later. The maple block for the tail skid is something else as I like strong tail skids because I fly with a stooge and don't like surprises on the launch. It might be hard to see but there is a 1/8" by 3/8" maple post that is sandwitched between the fuselage sides and just behind the tail skid block that runs from the bottom of the fuselage to the top of the vertical stabilizer and acts as a roll bar just in case of a cart wheel or what ever. Not much added weight and I have "never" broken the vertical or horizontile stabilizer off one of my carrier planes that was built this way.
     This is what the front end looked like when I placed the motor and the ESC in place where I had planned to put them. A lot of wire hanging around and I started counting the ozs I was going to shave off and oh so easy (Not). Just by luck I was watching a do it your self on changing the connectors from 3.5 to 4mm on Scorpion motors and it seems that the lead outs on Scorpion motor are made of the motor windings and there for cant be shortend. You can change the connectors by taking one size off and soldering the larger one back on the in the same place that you took the other one off. So I ended up removing the connectors from the motor and cutting the wires very short on the ESC and then soldering them together side by side. This has turned into a nightmare as I have had to change out the ESC 3 times so far and will have to at least once more. Its also a pain to have to handle the motor and ESC as one unit when working on the plane. Eric

It looks to me that you are pretty close. The available photos are mostly of low quality. I am only aware of two three views, both show a rounded front. In the attached pg 2 and 3 it looks rounded on the bottom flatting out towards the top.

Here are a couple of pictures that John doesn't have in his pdf file - both show the nose to be essentially flat.

     Yes Mike that shows the nose clearly. The part in front of the engine heads is really flat and at the crank shaft it gets a little rounder on down around the chin. The Scorpion HK-3226-1400 fills the cowl up to the point I had to hollow the 1/8" siding out to a 1/16" thickness just to get some air going past the motor. Speaking of motors I've gone to using just helicopter motors because they have a larger bearing on the load end of the motor. I ended up spinning the bearings in my airplane motors.  Eric

     I build a jig so that I can build the wing, that way I end up with 2 chances to screw up the wing although with the jig, you can do it over and over again. So far I've had pretty good luck with this system and my planes fly for the most part straight and level. I take my plans down to Staples and copy the wing on several sections of 11" by 17" paper, cut them out, glue them to a piece of shelf board or pressed board (it has to be flat and level), and then build the wing directly over the plans. Most of this wood is so hard I cant use pins so I drill holes in the jig and clamp everything down as I build (don't forget to put wax paper over the plans). I've included 3 pictures of the wing when starting its construction. Its a little hard to see but there are 2 places where the wing construction contacts the jig, at the spar and at the last 1.5" of the trailing edge. The wing cord has a depth of 1" at the fuselage and tapers to a little under 1/2" at the wing tips and is built upside down over the jig. The 1/16" by 3" leading edge sheeting and the 1/8" by 1/4" spruce spar are glued together and clamped to the jig over the plans then the 1/16" by 1.5" trailing edge sheet is clamped down on the raised portion of the plans. When the wing is completed on the jig and is lifted off you have a wing that is flat on the top and has a gentle dihedral to the under surface. In the third picture notice the little blue Linear-Taper Potentiometer sitting in the center section of the wing. Pete Mazur told me about these units after he saw that I was using a much larger and heavier unit from Radio Shack. These units can be ordered from Mouser on the web (Clarostat 308NPC50K). The fourth picture is the 2 units side by side for comparison. The only way to use the E-carrier rules is "BUILD LIGHT" and this is one of many places you can save a little weight. I will return to these units later.  Eric

     Here are some pictures of the bottom center section of the wing. There is a lot going on here the way I build MO-1s. First, notice the control line release wire running back towards the center section and then turning back towards the trailing edge of the wing. I use to use a Sullivan #507 Gold-N-Cable for this but now use .015 woven control line cable (lighter and I have a lot of it) and where it needs to turn I use the smallest brass tubing for it to run through. It comes out at the trailing edge of the wing right next to the fuselage and runs back to a lever that is soldered to the arrestting hook shaft. When the hook goes down the control lines are released at the wing tip.
     Notice the little box in front of the spar that holds the POT. I mount my bell cranks to the wing ribs and spruce spar, not the fuselage. Then I cover the center section of the wing including the bell crank plate with 1/16" balsa sheeting. This makes a very strong center section/bell crank mount and if the wing is mounted in the fuselage correctly the pull test worries are a thing of the past. All carrier builder and fliers should welcome the pull test not fear it. The third and fourth pictures show the front sheeting on the wing with the 1"by 1" medium balsa leading edge glued and blocked after gluing. The wing is still in the jig where it all started out. Before the 1"by1" leading edge is mounted I take a sanding block and true up the top and bottom sheeting so everything goes together properly. The next 2 pictures show how the leading edge is held to the sheeting and ribs after gluing, all still in the jig for better or worse.  Eric

     First 2 pictures is the weigh in, where I made the decision that the plane would have to be a CL-2 instead of the CL-1 I wanted to make it. It was almost 7 ozs over with the Scorpion 3226 motor and 4s-5000mah battery. If I had gone to a 3026 motor and a 4s-4400mah I could save almost 4 ozs but it would still be over by at least 3ozs so it became a CL-2 carrier plane. It still had not been glued to gether yet but just after I took it off the scales I did finally glue it together. Look at the area between the TE going aft towards the edge of the picture (2nd picture) there is something missing. I had forgotten to install the arrestting hook, I knew there was a reason I kept putting off gluing it to gether. Oh well, so now it has kind of a crappy looking patch on the bottom of the fuselage just under the hook pivot point. The plane was startting to look like it had been around the block a couple of times and hadn't even been air born yet.
     The third picture is my little partner and its 12P, time to go out in the back yard and pick up nuggets. He wont leave or bat an eye until this is done (everyday) so off I went bag in hand.
     The next 2 pictures are of the tentatively finished product and is ready to go out and fly. I didn't realize at this point and time just how much more work would be involved in getting it ready for its first contest. The next picture is a close up of nose #2 and the chin cowl. I couldn't figure out how lock the chin cowl shut and finally decided I would keep it in place with a couple pieces of UltraCote ironed on each seam. It worked just fine and how light can it get, I only put it on if its going to a contest other wise its left off so the motor temperature can be checked while testing one thing or another.
     The next picture is of the under body at the nose section. The ESC is not cowled in because there seemed to be a lot of heat going on there. After the first flight I found some oil on the fuselage just in back of the ESC? I was going to time the high speed on the first flight but dropped the watch when the plane accelerated so quickly and went so darn fast that I was busy just trying to hold on. At first I thought the oil had come out of the motor but on the next flight after landing the ESC caught fire and burned out (not up) and I saw where the 2 capacitors had ruptured so that is where the oil had come from on the first flight. So I ordered a couple of 150A ESCs of the next flights. Eric

     Your welcome Wayne, I think I got a couple more entries to go. Not very many questions so far but it will be there a while and if any come up I will be glad to answer them. This e-carrier thing is all so new that we all seem to be approaching it a little differently, course that's part of the fun of this hobby. Eric

     Yes John, I'll cover how it performs and some of the things I learned while trying to get it to perform the way I wanted to. I read and was told over and over how to get this thing going but never put it all together (not even all of it now) and paid dearly (money) learning the hard way.  Eric

     Yes John, this electric stuff is a mystery to me too. There seems to be a lot of information out there for the electric stunt flier's but our carrier flying is quite different when it comes to information. Bob Frogner was the first person to write enough about it that if you read all he wrote you could go out and buy the equipment and put together a pretty decent .15 carrier plane. That's how I built my first e-15, I copied everything Bob had done (except the plane) and my e-15 plane flies quite well. Actually that's the way I've done most of my carrier plane development is copy or improve something that someone else brought to my attention. Bill Bischoff has given me at least 80% of what I know about carrier.
     A little history about my journey with e-profile carrier. I started in mid 2010 building a e-109T just for electric. The AXI motors were pretty easy to get form Hobby-Lobby and I got a AXI 2826/8 (1500KV), JETI 77A ESC, U/Tronics single channel unit, Radio Shack potentiometer, and a BIG TP 4s 5000mah 30C battery (I didn't want to come up short on capacity). My high speeds were mid 22s to mid 23s and the low speed times were mid 3s to low 4s. Nothing about this combination was very striking and after a couple of months of playing with it I hung it up in the garage and consentrated on my IC planes. At contest where I competed I noticed that the e-profiles were going faster than mine ever went but they were not able to get very good low speed times because they were running out of battery (something I had not had any trouble with). So I thought I would take another shot at it.
     This time I built a bigger (44") 109T and built it as light as I could (well for me anyway). I switched to a Scorpion SII 3026-1190 motor and picked up a little more high speed to the mid 20s with an occasional high 19. I really was looking for the mid 19s so was a little disappointed and then discovered the Scorpion had less KV than the AXI I had replaced. For some reason I thought the AXI was 800KV and the Scorpion at 1190 and would give me significantly more speed, well the AXI had 1500KV and the reason I did pick up a "little" speed was that the Scorpion motor was a little bigger 3026 to the AXI 2826. I was using cut down APC (IC) 10/8P props on both the AXI and Scorpion. AND, then another problem came up.
     I was mounting my motors at the front or drive end and the prop at the other end. By front end I mean the end that the wires come out of (see what I know about electrics) because it made a much cleaner plane and a touch lighter. After around 20 flights with the Scorpion I spun the bearing at the prop end of the motor, so I bought another Scorpion and got it just in time for a contest I was going to. This time the bearing lasted 5 flights and I spun it again. Well I thought if this is electric carrier I want no part of it. These bearing are so small its a wonder they lasted as long as they did (I, thought). SO, I started looking around for motors with larger bearings.
     Well there they were, called "Helicopter Motors". They had a bearing on the drive end of the motor that was about twice as big as the bearing at the other end. This was so the motor could run against a big reduction gear with a side load for extended periods of time, and it seemed to work for me also although I had to reverse the way I mounted my motors (not as streamlined and heavier). Scorpion had dropped the size motor I wanted so had to go to Hyperion HP-HS3026-1210KV which is made by the same people that make the Scorpion. So at this point that's what I'm using in my e-profiles, still going low 20s with an occasional high 19. I will probably try a Hyperion HP-HS3026-1400 sometime soon to see if I can get a better high speed. Next time will talk about the motor in the e-CL 2 MO-1. Eric

     If you read reply #23 you will know that I'm not very happy with the high speeds in electric carrier and I was hoping to do better with a CL-1 carrier plane even if it was just faster because its a little better streamlined. After getting about half way through this build I discovered I would be going over the weight aloud in CL-1 so set my sights on a CL-2 carrier plane. Now that I had more weight to play with I decided to go from a 3026 motor and a 4400mah battery to a larger motor and a 5000mah battery. At first it seemed that the next size up would be a 40-- size motor and I didn't think the 5000mah battery would be enough but while searthing for a new motor I found that Scorpion had just brought out a new 3226 high KV motor for helicopters. They had 2 to pick from, one with a KV of 1400 and another with 1600.
     I chose the 1400 because I wanted to use a APC 11/8EP cut down to 9/8 and felt that size would give me enough RPMs and duration to finish the carrier event. As it turned out I was right but I'm still going through a lot of new lesson I had not expected. The first flight with this motor/battery combination was quite a surprise to me and instead of getting a timed flight I dropped the watch and held on to the handle with both hands. I was very impressed but no time so didn't have any idea of how fast it went. The next flight was much slower at 18.64 and just after touch down the ESC burned out, blue first ,red next, and then white smoke for quite a show.
     I ordered and received a new 150A ESC and went out for another test and the plane turned 18.11 but then the next flight was a 20.19 and the next I didn't finish because the ESC had quit and I couldn't get it to work so ordered another. With the 3rd new ESC installed I went out and flew it again and turned 17.72 which was much better than I had ever hoped for. So next day I went out and flew it again and it turned 19.50. I had a pattern going of a great flight on a new and un-used ESC followed by a much slower flight and then smoke. After this happened 3 times in a row I started searching for the problem and came up with another lesson in E-carrier.
     It seems as though how long the leads are from the battery to the ESC can make a big difference in how long your ESC lasts? I had added around 10" of extra wire while mounting my arming switch in a place behind the wing where I could get to is easily (bad idea). I found out that when you add this extra wire (only between the battery and ESC) it can store up some extra current that is discharged into the ESC when you throttle back abruptly from a full power high speed run. So I moved the arming switch from behind the wing to right up near the ESC and haven't had that trouble since.
     Notice I said "that" trouble. Well it seems that after that first flight something else was happening also. On the first flight everything seemed to work great, good high speed and good control of the throttle in the hang. After the first flight the throttle would surge when adding power while in the hang which made flying the low speed portion of the event a real head ache (this is after the first flight on a new ESC). A little bell went off and I remembered pitting for Pete Masur when he was flying his electric planes and he would go through this little ritual of plugging in the power on his plane with the throttle wide open and then reducing the throttle to idle or off  before each flight? I thought he was just doing it the hard way and then found out I better start doing it the hard way too. I had never done that in the 3 years I had been flying electrics.
     So now I do that before every flight with an electric and my high speeds have settled down and "sometimes" my low speeds don't sure, I guess I still have some fiddling to do. I also tried a Zinger (wood) 9/7P and my temperatures dropped 30 degrees in both the motor and ESC while not affectting my high speed. Now the motor and ESC run between 95 and 110 while the battery chugs along at 85 to 90.

     Moving back, way back to the elevator the first picture shows the control horn with the elevator push rod and arrestting hook release rod, also a gaping hole in the side of the fuselage where the push rod comes out (more on that later). I have switched from down elevator to release the hook to up elevator to release the hook. For about 12 years I used down to release the hook because when I was first introduced to carrier I noticed they always took off with up elevator so not wanting to drop the hook on take off I used down elevator. I soon learned that you don't have to use any elevator to leave the deck because the plane sits at the take off angle and flies off the deck on its own, any way I didn't change my release mode until just recently.
     The next picture shows the key to the cascading system that I use, and might add another item that Bill Bischoff wrote up in the Hi-Low news letter and I adapted it to all of my planes. Note that the release rod comes forword passing through a small hole in a 1/8" piece of brass tubing that has one end smashed with the hole drilled in it for the rod and the other round end stuck through a hole in the fuselage skin and JB welded. The hook rides against the bottom of the brass tubing which sticks out of the fuselage no more than 5/16" and in the unreleased mode is held there by the release rod and a small release wire that is soldered to the arresting hook. When given up elevator the two release hooks come together with enough resistance that you will not release the hook buy mistake like when your picking up the handle just before you signal your launcher to release the plane. If the two release hooks are correctly bent it will take the line pull from the flying plane to help you release the hook, Trust me this works great and saves many flights that you might have otherwise had to do over.
     The third picture shows the whole setup on the side of the fuselage. After up elevator is given and the hook goes down the brass control horn that is soldered to the pivot point of the arresting hook pulls a wire that runs from the control horn to the line release at the tip of the inside wing (cascading). The fourth picture shows the line slider guide (another BB item) and how the lines slide back while raising the wire catch that will lock them in the back position (still cascading). All of this took place when you gave up elevator to release the hook, you are in control, no if ands or buts.
     The next picture shows the back end of the slider where there is a copper or brass tube soldered vertically between the slider rails. This lets you set how far your lines can travel back in the slider. Remember your lines have to exit the slider at or forward of the trailing edge at the fuselage.
     OK its time to see nose #3 so there are two pictures of it. Broke my heart to cut my #2 nose off and put this one on and another thing that broke my heart was after looking at this plane and flying it for almost a month I discovered the fuselage was to long between the trailing edge of the wing and the hing point of the elevator. Sooo I had to cut two inches off at the rear of the plane, whew. Thats how the hole got so big that the elevator push rod comes through, I could never get it right the second time so just kept making it bigger and bigger to line up the push rod and elevator horn. Also I ended up removing that rear bulk head that was back by the tail and no it didn't lighten it up enough to make it a CL-1 again. Oh well, Eric

Bill,
On an electric plane, if you use an esc with bec, it will power the U/Tronics. No need for an extra battery BEC's put out a nominal rx pack voltage. Typically 4 nicads, nominally 6v fully charged. So if you are using it for servo controlled throttle on a glow plane a 600mah rx pack is adequate.

I put all my electronics in my handle for electric power and use a 2200nimh pack for longer flight time without charging. For glow ships I use 600mah packs, and all electronics are on board except for the control resistor. 
John