Towing with a Telemaster Electro

[Pilatuspc12]

That sounds good. I like the "newbie" glider guider. I've seen him somewhere before. The guys at our club currently have a couple of 2 meter poly gas bags and a 3 meter composite slope ship and a 4 meter Discus. We'll start small and see how it goes. Thanks for all your help and guidance Jim, I really appreciate it.

Randy

[Tom]

The newbie guy was ok but he kept crashing!

[JimD]

The guys at our club currently have a couple of 2 meter poly gas bags and a 3 meter composite slope ship and a 4 meter Discus. We'll start small and see how it goes. Thanks for all your help and guidance Jim, I really appreciate it.

Randy

Randy,

Being interested in both sailplanes and power planes over the decades, I have tried to recruit sailplane pilots from the ranks of the power guys. The trouble with those power guys is their brains just don't seem to compute how the controls of a bent wing RE sailplane work! They would make one flight and say they don't like sailplanes and that was the end. Since that was the typical sailplane back in the 1970's, my aerotowing career didn't make it very far.

Here we are aerotowing circa 1977...from left: sailplane pilot, tow plane pilot (me), fellow pilot observing up close, left sailplane wingtip runner, right wingtip runner, sailplane on tow, and my .60 2-stroke glow powered Sr. Telemaster towing.



When we restarted aerotowing in 2007, the thing that made the difference was the Multiplex Easy Glider. With its fairly straight wings and full-house controls, the power guys could fly it with no problem! I started handing the transmitter to a fellow pilot and would say: "Here, fly this." and takeoff! Our recruiting efforts immediately expanded and not only that, we had them waiting in line to try it.

If you really want to get things going, I would suggest you invest in an Easy Glider Pro RR version...it can be made ready to tow in a few hours (at the field) and then just start giving other pilots the controls. Insert hook in mouth of unsuspecting hard boiled R/C power guy and give the line a jerk to set the hook...then he will be following you all over the place asking to do anther tow! It works! We have repeated this over and over at numerous places.

Jim

[JimD]

We just finished building one of the new Hobby Lobby Deluxe Telemaster 40 kits (fantastic by the way) and the last step was to figure out where to put the receiver and radio battery. The kit builds with a long platform that runs from the back of the firewall to about 60% of the way back thru the radio compartment. This shelf can support either a fuel tank or a motor battery. The servos are positioned behind the aft end of this shelf. Anyway, after much thought, we shoehorned the receiver battery down into the area between the front of the servos and the end of the tank/motor battery shelf, and mounted the receiver on the side of the fuselage with antenna tubes to guide and protect the 2.4GHz antennas.

[Dave D]

I hope to spend some time behind the new Telemaster this weekend....

[JimD]

We got to fly the new Hobby Lobby Deleuxe Telemaster 40 during the 3rd Annual Cumberland Spring Soar for Fun. The motor system is the Hobby Lobby eRC BL60 motor and eRC 85amp Opto esc. The AUW of the plane (including motor batteries) is just over 8lbs. Prop used was an APC 15x8 electric.

Easy Glider Pro towing results: 25 seconds of full power motor run delivers the Easy Glider to a resonable altitude. The full circuit, from launch to landing to being ready to launch another Easy Glider is about 3 minutes. About 5 seconds of motor run at partial power is needed for landing and taxi back to start point. The LiPos used were 6-cell 4500mAh. 9 minutes of motor run (used as described above) used 80% of the pack capacity. The radio is operated by its own battery pack. This means you can tow an Easy glider to altitude 18 times/charge.

Cularis towing results: Being larger and heavier, it takes about 45 seconds of motor run to get to resonable altitude and complete the circuit. Also, a greater load on the motor is created by the extra weight of the Cularis and the amount of current the motor draws is increased. About 7-1/2 minutes of motor run used 80% of the pack capacity. this means you can tow the Cularis to altitude about 7 times/charge.

[Pilatuspc12]

Good stuff. We try our first tow tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes in this "rarefied atmosphere, where the demon lives"!

Randy

[JimD]

	eRC BL-60	Rimfire .80
kV	380	500
prop	APC 15x8	APC 13x8
Battery	6s 4500mAh	6s 5000mAh
esc	eRC 85A Opto	Phoenix HV85
weight	285g	298g

We have two Telemaster 40 tow planes now with electric power systems, one has the Great Planes Rimfire .80 motor and the other the Hobby Lobby eRC BL-60 motor. The run times are very similar, but the kV and prop size are different. The sound of them is different also! The Rimfire .80 turns a smaller prop at a higher speed and the prop noise is louder than the BL-60. Although the BL-60 is quieter, it pulls very well because of the large prop and it handled the Cularis and another fiberglass fuselage/foam core sheeted wing sailplane weighing near four pounds very well.

[Pilatuspc12]

Thanks for the info, Jim. Well, today, our club made it's first aero-tow! It was with the Telemaster-Electro with an AXI 4120/18 and a Jeti 77amp Opto ESC with a 6 cell thunder power 4400mah LiPo battery. We towed the Ace High MkII only twice as it was a rudder-elevator ship and was towed with about 20 degrees flaps on the Telemaster. The Ace High weighed about 2 pounds. We towed it on an 80 foot mason-braided line and it worked just fine. We'll have to put some streamers on the line as it helps to see the line after you drop it. The first tow was wild but controllable. The second tow rolled the tow-plane inverted and I told him to "Release"! He did and both airplanes landed OK. He was doing rolls on tow! You really have to have ailerons as the roll control isn't enough with just the rudder! So, the next ships will have ailerons. Overall it was very fun and we'll post some photos, next time!

Randy

[JimD]

Randy,

Congratulations! You now have your feet wet and want more.

As for a sailplane with ailerons to practice aerotowing, I would highly recommend the Multiplex Easy Glider Pro RR (receiver ready) version:

http://www.multiplexusa.com/rr-rtf-m...er-pro-rr.html

It will make tow pilot and sailplane pilot alike look like professionals right from the first tow!

Jim

...and get part #M723470 from Multiplex for the glider tow release: