The “Spark side of Life”

I guess you can call me “Spark Piet” now as well because sooner or later the jump was going to happen. After flying Tony's E-Tsotsi in the Nats this year and the seeing Mike and Gordon’s efforts, it was enough to push me over the hill to the “Spark side of Life”.

But the Electric aircraft that impressed me the most was E-flight’s “ Mini Pulse” by Horizon Hobby’s and that Paul Carnal few regularly before and after intervals at thermal completion’s and also at the slope when the wind did not blow.

After phoning around to most hobby shops and to my disappoint found that this AFR model was not freely available. So the itch to buy subsided a bit until 2 weeks ago when I walk in to Ariel

Concepts Shop. I did no need anything in particular (had a hour spare before a appointment with a client) and was just browsing around. Then suddenly in front of me there it was the E-flight Mini Pulse and before you could say “Bob’s your uncle” the Box was under my arm, the last 2 zeros of the prize tag ignored, and on my way to the till.


The box that start it all.

You can assemble the Mini Pulse in 3 hours and it is really a good quality kit.
However no sooner you have finished putting it all together, you realize that it is not going to fly until you buy all the electrics to get it air born.

At this stage you start asking questions about electric motors, props ,lipo batteries,
Electronic speed controllers and so more. The Pulse kit do not in clued the electric motor but they recommend a e-flight 450, but after talking to Paul found out that he use a e-flight 480 mainly because of the high felt height above see level.

I then phone MAD models and they recommended that I had a look at the scorpion range of brush less motors. So now I landed myself in the deep end of “Spark” side.

Fortunately I found a very good software application (Motocalc 8) on the web and this help me with the selection of the motor, speed control and batteries. If you are interested you can go to this link. http://www.motocalc.com/motodown.htm.

The end result of all this was that on Sunday the Mini Pulse took to the air and to say the least it did just what I expected. I got in 5 Flights and the vertical performance of this model was just phenomenal. I still have a lot to learn but don’t mind if when you see me again call me “Spark Piet”

New Members Johan and Loraine maiden their gliders on Sunday. That’s the way, well done.