Well, my Nephew & I spent the whole FCM weekend burnin nuthin but electrons!  I've built 3 electric stunters but last weekend @ FCM was the FIRST time that I actually got to COMPETE with one!  If you think I was insufferable before just watch.  Yee Haw!

All seriousness aside...

Archie was flying the Oriental which has been written about at length in this forum.  I had the Sheeks Swinger (see the classic forum) which until last Friday had not been flown.  Test flew with a 2 minute run to see if it was going to need any obvious trim like wings level & such.  It actually looked pretty good - nose heavy but flyable.  So, in with a new pack and a full pattern on flight #2.  Over the course of a few flights we proved that the Turnigy ESC simply was not going to live up to the hopes I had for it.  Next morning Archie brought out a Phoenix 35 with the fixed RPM program - ran perfect the rest of the weekend.

The Swinger was obviously nose heavy so right after Classic, I replaced the Rimfire 35-36 with a Rimfire 35-30 for a 1 oz weight save.  No difference in power, and the bird came alive BUT just after finishing the first loop of the clover the motor gave a little screech and died.  Found some burned wiring inside.  Per spec it was running near but not over its limits (I don't think) but I think the culprit was poor cooling and a 92 degree day.  Reinstalled the original motor - and commited the unspeakable act of adding a small chunk of tailweight.

Meanwhile over in OTS Crist Rigotti scored a big win in OTS with his Scorpion powered Barnstormer.  Both Archie & I got to fly that bird on Sunday - another most excellent E-bird.  In fact I teased Crist on Sunday, asked why his (IC powered) Expert airplane made so much noise!

Flying the still brand new slightly out of trim Swinger in CLPA expert on Sunday was kind of like taking a knife to a gun-fight!  Leadouts and (I think) tip weight are both too far aft.  Plus it is still a little nose heavy.  It does a lot of things well but has to be finessed get through certain parts of the pattern to fly cleanly, but that will improve.  Round 1 the air was very still - Swinger handled it just fine flying on the motor.  Drew #1 in round 2 in considerably more air - Swinger did just fine again.  In fact I deliberately flew manuvers dead downwind; the excellent Phoenix governor had matters well in hand - I never noticed the wind at all.  The wind continued to come up, several IC piped big block powered airplanes were clearly suffering, several others did not even try to fly.   Archie drew number-last in the round and flew in the worst wind of the day.  The little Oriental with the 3 cell Brodak motor package flew great, with Archie bumping his score some 20+ points or so!

Someone asked me if I was planning on building a piped bird - I said probably never.  Someone asked why I was "messing around" with electric - I said I had to buy all new stuff anyway, electric looked like the best way to build superior CLPA stuff.  I did have an IC powered bird along for a back-up, but never considered flying it.  In fact, I do not know if it will EVER fly again???  I have a new "real" electric CLPA bird almost RTC.  Hope to have it RTF by the end of the holiday weekend - will post some pix when it looks like something.

Over the course of the weekend comments ran the gamut from "I don't like electrics" to "how do I get started"  In some cases the phrases were being uttered by the same people.  There seemed to be a lot of people watching when ever the electrics were flying.  I think Crist's, Archie's, & my "Classic" to mid sized sized power systems proved their worth, certainly Bob Hunt Igor, Bruno, et al have proven middle-large size packages, and Mike Palko's and Paul Walker's forays into big power have all shown that E-power can fly just about anything we fly in CLPA

...and remember its only going to get BETTER.

Kudos to your success, and thanks for being one of the forerunners,, I am finally getting mine airworthy now,, well its been awhile, but finally. hopefully by this weekend?