What was it like?

[Mike Sanders]

I am sorry if this is a slightly Futura - like question.

Did anyone fly electric helicopters before lipo's and brushless motors became available?

How successful were they? Did you get very short flight times or poor performance or both? Did you have to carry an array of about 20 ni-cads? Does anyone have any good stories from "the old days"?

[electricsceadu]

eco 8 std kit
i soon found out why every 2nd hand one had a carbon frame upgrade
the airframe was poor and flexed like jelly
the performance wasn't great
it was a similar size to the 500 electrics of today
some did fly okish for what they are (with the upgraded frames)

the carbon frame a brushless motor and lipos would have turned it into a reasonable heli
but the maingears were a little soft and stripped every crash so with more power who knows how they would last

[KevDavies]

One of the old boys at our club has an Eco 8, only ever seen him hover it tho. I might ask for a go n try to see what its got

[pchristy]

Had a pair of Kalt Whispers (one for me and one for Mark) that flew very well on 8 cell Nicads. They tended to suffer from ground resonance on landing on hard surfaces, so the standard technique was to hit the hold and auto it the last six inches! They would loop and roll (just!), gave reasonable flight times and auto'd brilliantly! In fact, Mark learned to auto on one!

Followed them up with Eco 8s after the demise of Kalt, which were OK, but a bit lacking in rigidity, as others have noted! I still have a JR Voyager-E that originally flew on Nicads, but is now converted to LiPos. This is the original version, not the later one, and isn't terribly agile! Rolls go from horizon to horizon and loops a real struggle. It does reasonable autos, but is really pretty marginal.

However, I do recall seeing Hans Emmenegger flying an own design all electric model at the F3C European Championships in either the late 90s or early 00s. It used Nicads and could match the OS 60s of the day for power. And he had enough flight time to do both the hovering and aerobatics (about 9 mins) with a reasonable safety margin!

[pgkevet]

That made me go do some sums..
a turnigy 2650ma 6s pack weighs 430gm. 20x aa eneloop cells 2700ma would weigh out around 620gm.. so obviously heavier but the former might make 100 cycles and the latter 1800. Further the eneloop can discharge all the way so true 2700 compard to reality on the 2650 of only 80% = 2120 use. Or equivelent to a 3500mah lipo discarged to 20% left which would weight (as 6S) 570gm...

... doesn't sound so daft to go back to nihm's for less amp hungry flight and keep the pack costs way down........no storage issues, less fire, easy post etc..