Minnwatt (oz15376)

 

Minnwatt (oz15376) by Randy Randolph 1995 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Minnwatt (Miniwatt). Radio control sport model for electric power.

Note on spelling: 'Minnwatt' is used as the title of the article and through all the text. But the plan drawing was printed with 'Miniwatt' which we assume is a typo.

Quote: "Finding time to fly has always been a problem for me. In my younger days, when there was plenty of time on my part, the ability to sell my parents on the idea of taking me to the field depended on their time, Later, as girls, military service, girls, education, girl, business and family came on the scene, the time available for flying became even shorter. Now that I'm a retired gentleman of leisure, time is supposed to weigh heavily, but there seems to be even less of it than ever.

Occasionally slipping in a little building time is a lot easier than getting to the flying field because its so easy to step into the shop and work for a while. If it were that easy to step onto the flying field for a few minutes, wouldn't that be great? Well, if there's a park, a schoolyard, or even a fair-size unfenced yard in the neighborhood, the Minnwatt can provide that kind of convenient flying - and at a very low cost!

So far, Minnwatt has been flown mostly from a schoolyard (half a block away), but I've also flown it in three parks, two recreation centers, the front yard (quite often) and three flying fields. It's almost silent, so it seems to disturb no one. This is not high-tech flying, but the easy, relaxing kind that can recharge your batteries while the Minnwatt discharges its.

Relaxing Electric Flyer: The heart of this airplane is a 36W or 50W motor and a small, low-cost battery pack. A battery eliminator circuit (BEC) allows the radio to use the same battery pack as the motor and eliminates the extra weight of receiver batteries. A 20-minute charge on its 5-cell 600mAh battery pack will usually provide a full 6 minutes or fooling around. Or, if long flights are what you want, you can climb to the limits of vision and fly for as long as you can find lift (and on cool evenings, lift seems to be everywhere). The BEC turns the motor off while there's still enough battery power to fly the airplane as a glider for quite a while.

The 50W motor is what makes Minnwatt the economical, good flying airplane that it is. The one used in the original is a replacement part for the Nikko Sky Ace. Order part numbers 15007 (motor), R15001 (three propellers) and R5002 (drive shafts) from Nikko America, 2801 Summit Ave., Plano, TX 750174. The total cost will be less than $30! The Graupner Speed 400 and the Mini Olympus, both from Hobby Lobby, are good replacements for the Nikko.

Wing Construction: Wings usually require the most construction, so that's a good place to start. The ribs are all made of 1/16 sheet balsa. They can be cut out of a printed sheet (made by tracing around a card-stock template with a fiber-tip pen), or they can all be cut at the same time by stacking balsa blanks together, tracing the rib pattern on the top one and sawing them out with a band saw or a jigsaw..."

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote: "Here is an interesting one. 1995 was early-ish in the electrification wave, and this plan shows an optional glow engine. Very simple build and typical Randy Randolph design ...unless someone who ordered this full-size plan can come up with something better, we will just have to live with a 710% enlargement of the plan as published in the magazine. Note the published plan clipped the edges a bit, not a big deal and totally usable. From the May 1995 issue of Model Airplane News."

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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Minnwatt (oz15376) by Randy Randolph 1995 - model pic

Datafile:
  • (oz15376)
    Minnwatt
    by Randy Randolph
    from Model Airplane News
    May 1995 
    48in span
    Electric R/C
    clean :)
    all formers complete :)
    got article :)
  • Submitted: 27/05/2024
    Filesize: 289KB
    Format: • PDFbitmap
    Credit*: dfritzke
    Downloads: 471

Minnwatt (oz15376) by Randy Randolph 1995 - pic 003.jpg
003.jpg
Minnwatt (oz15376) by Randy Randolph 1995 - pic 004.jpg
004.jpg

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User comments

Have added a note in the text re spelling. We are using Minnwatt here, as that's seen more.
SteveWMD - 01/07/2024
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Notes

* Credit field

The Credit field in the Outerzone database is designed to recognise and credit the hard work done in scanning and digitally cleaning these vintage and old timer model aircraft plans to get them into a usable format. Currently, it is also used to credit people simply for uploading the plan to a forum on the internet. Which is not quite the same thing. This will change soon. Probably.

Scaling

This model plan (like all plans on Outerzone) is supposedly scaled correctly and supposedly will print out nicely at the right size. But that doesn't always happen. If you are about to start building a model plane using this free plan, you are strongly advised to check the scaling very, very carefully before cutting any balsa wood.

 

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