The Steve Neu motor arrived a few days early and we thought you might enjoy seeing what we had in the Curtiss and what we are replacing it with. On the top left is the 4.2 Sachs we removed and below it the new more powerful Steve Neu electric geared motor. A Graupner MX16 transmitter is to offer size comparison.
The Sachs 4.2 was driving a 24X10 prop and the Steve Neu geared electric will begin with a 27X20 prop. After we fly the Curtiss, we will adjust the prop for best performance. These props are huge compared with earlier gas engines. Want to see incredible? Check out the full scale propeller and the 1/3rd scale comparison below.
HISTORIC NOTE:
The propeller that Doolittle had on his Curtiss was:
Diameter: 92 in. ( 237 cm ) Pitch: 112 in. (284 cm)
Our 1/3rd Scale model would be:
Diameter: 30.66 in. (79 cm) Pitch: 37.3 in. (94.67 cm)
The molds for the cowl have been completed and our first set of parts made. We will mount the bottom part to the fuselage and do the final trim and fit of the top. Below you can see the new parts. The air intake (rounded triangle at the upper part of the cowl, will be filled with metal screen and painted black. This is what we did on the original cowl and it worked quite well. You can see it on the Building and Flying the Curtiss. In the photo on the right with the top removed you can see the 1/2"recessed area that runs down and across the front of the cowl that the top will attach to.
This next week we will be completing mounting of the motor/motormount, building the battery box for the lithium batteries, shaping the screen that goes into the cowl for the air inlet, hooking up the final linkage for the rudder, balancing and installing the flying/landing wires and tuning them.
We hope to be able to make the first flights of the Curtiss by the 24th of October.
We are also going to return the wing tips to the chrome yellow that they were painted when this model was built in 1988 as this is an upgrade of that orginal aircraft and not an attempt to enter a scale competition.
The custom motor mount arrived and what a beauty, precision machined from aluminum it is light yet robust to handle the more powerful Steve Neu electric geared motor. This motor is capable of up to 20hp. We are going to use 14S2P 10,000ma XPS Pro Lipos. The system will run on 58 volts, approximately 150 amps and 8000 watts. That is approximately 11.8 h.p. ( 746watts = 1 h.p.). This is approximately twice the thrust and hp we had with the gas engine.
We can now mount the motor and prepare to attach the lower part of the cowl once the air outlet has been cut and the screen installed.
