Pelikan Filip 600 Electric Glider

Last Update: 03 Oct 2002

Another quick project. I like gliders because I can relax flying them. Important after sweating with the helicopters. I liked my Whitestar but felt I need something more 'competitive' with ailerons. Hobby-Lobby has good foreign stuff and since the Filip 600 was on sale I went for it.
Here is a propaganda pic from Hobby Lobby showing the very sexy lines of the Filip in flight.
I am going to spend some $$$$$ to get a decent power system for this nice glider. I always end up spending more to experiment with different motors so this time I'm going for the good stuff right away. After a disapointing bout with a Phasor 30/3 the Filip now carries a AXI 282010 Rotating Can Brushless motor. It runs at low rpm with lots of torque so no gearbox is needed. I am saving 4oz of weight in the nose from the Jeti and gearbox.


The current setup includes:
Pelikan AXI 282010 brushless motor.
Jeti brushless 40 amp speed controller.
Freudenhaler 10x6 carbon fiber folding prop.
ThunderPower 1500mah 3S1P (three) Lithium Polymer batteries (total 4500mah @ 11.5Volts.)
HiTec 8channel mini receiver.
Four Hitec HS81 micro servos (Elevator, rudder, and ailerons (spoilerons).

This is what the kit looked like when it was unpacked. I'm not that much of a Marine Corps fan but the colors were very easy to see in the air. After a year the yellow on the fuselage started to fade out to a lemon shade. Ugly so I decided to repaint the fuse and recover the wings.

Fuse is painted with twocoats of Krylon Arctic White. Wing is recovered in Ultracote flourescent transparent red. Aileron and ruddervators are painted because I was too lazy to recover.
Here you can see the antenna wire coming out of the fuse behind the wings. Aileron servo installation covered with a piece of monokote trim. The included plastic covers are too small as are the aileron bays. Two HS80 micro servos are installed, gooped to the wing balsa. Wires run through wing are soldered directly to servo. About 36 inches required. I used real control horns vice the glued in plastic pieces that came with the kit.
The internals of the nose section. Jeti 15/4 brushless motor with planetary 2:1 gearbox up front, Jeti 40 amp speedcontroler velcroed on the bottome with its on/off switch on the right. The on/off switch is too far forward and the prop was catching on it until it was beveled on top. The HiTec 8ch mini receiver is located behind the batterytray aft of the wing.

Here you can see the layout of the avionics. Even with all the stuff moved back and the servos in the tail it still balanced right on the money. The 11.5x7 freudenthaler folding prop with 45mm spinner and 47mm center yoke. The original nose is set up for a 40mm spinner but with the noseheavyness I decided to move the motor back one inch. This turned out to be fortunate because I need the clearance in the nose for the Jeti gearbox. Notice there are no cooling intakes so this is strictly a LMR (limited Motor Run) craft. 30 seconds of motor run at full power is recommended. I ran the motor for about 2 minutes static and the motor and battery were nicely warm. According to my Craftsman clamp-on ampmeter, the current draw at static is right around 24amps. Deans Ultra connector on battery harness, ESC is soldered to motor.

Since Filip is very nose heavy I moved the two V tail servos to the enlarged area under the tail. The two HS81 servos are a perfect fit. The instructions recommend HS60 super miro servos up front and they would fit even better in the back. Internals are beefed up with carbon fiber to compensate for the two servo holes. hTe control horn is specially made for V-tails with a 100deg angle.

Close up of the new Winglet installation. I didn't want to extent the wing so I used winglets to artificially increase wing area. Made out of 3 layers of bals, shaped to an airfoil. Toeout of 2 degrees and outward cant of 5 degrees.

Flight Report Part ONE:

This was with the Jeti 30/3 motor, gearbox, rx battery, battery monitor, 13.5x6 prop and HD wires in the wing. Overweight at 60oz RTF. Climp performance was adequate but not what I expected from a U$250 power package. After 1 minute of 30 deg climbing on the first flight it seemed to be at the right altitude. It was noseheavy at the suggested 76mm CG point and I used a lot of trim to get it to fly level. Rudder is very effective, more so than the ailerons. Elevator and aileron throws are just right as suggested in the manual. The aileron differential prevents adverse yaw during yank and bank flight ops. Spoilerons (Ailerons both full up) proved to be exciting with lots of pitch up. I'll set up a P-Mix to counter that. On the second landing the motor battery ran out a tad to soon and a wing caught in the tall grass at the end of the runway. A cartweel later the Filip survived with a few tiny cracks in the forward canopy area. Most likely because of the heavy Jeti and Gearbox compo hanging in the nose. I got 8 minutes of full power run time and no heat from the batteries telling me I could go up in size with the prop. However, with the Glider exceeding the recommended weight, I decided to put it on a diet instead. I saved 2 oz pulling the gearbox, 2 oz going to the AXI motor, 2 oz removing the rx battery and 2 more oz removing the lead in the tail and going to std servo wires for the ailerons. It comes in now at a much more respectable 48 oz RTF. I'll report again with the new and improved setup.

Flight Report Part TWO

Ok, with almost 1/2 lb removed the glider flies much better. The AXI motor takes about 30 to 45 seconds to drive Filip up to spec height. The immense power of the brushless motor requires significant elecator down trim. I set up a 5 point Pmix that lowers the elevator as throttle is increased. With the cheap 1250 batteries I can get 3 good climbs out of it and have reserve for thermaling. So my guess of about 30 amps was right. I'm looking forward to cheap LiPoly batteries so I can stay up for days. Filip thermals very well. I'm no super glider pilot but even I was able to keep gaining altitude for 30 minutes. In the end I had to flip up both spoilerons to come down. This is a great 2 meter glider and with the AXI motor has a superb power to weight ratio. Get 3 cheap batteries or 2 expensive ones and you can fly all day.

Flight Report Part THREE:

The latest setup includes a Jeti 15/4 brushless motor with a planetary 2:1 gearbox driving a 11.5x7 CAM prop. The AXI 2820/10 is now in the ME-110 project. New Hitec Mini 8 channel receiver moved to the back of the battery tray. This also eliminates two extra extension I had from the ruddervator servos in the tail. Power comes from three packs of 3S1P 1500mah Kokam LiPoly cells. This is equivalent to a 10 cell nicad with 4500mah capacity all at 12oz. Overall weight of the Filip is now at 49oz RTF. Climpout is at 45 to 60 degrees and takes about 30 seconds to speck height. With the motor drawing ~23 amps, I have 7 minutes of runtime giving me at least 14 climbs to altitude. Longest flight so far was in excess of 60 minutes using 2200 mah out of the battery. This is the winning combo so far. I could increase the prop to 12.5x7.5 for even more power but it's not needed and I like to take it easy on the expensive batteries.

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