HoneyBee King 2 motor died!

Well, it has happened!
The standard motor has died. Even though I used heatsink paste and an extra heatsink the heat load was still too much.

As with all electric motors this tells us that it is simply not up to the job. No matter if the motor is in a plank or heli, if it gets excessively hot, you are overloading it. (Same goes for ESC and battery.)

With a fixed wing plane you have the choice of changing the prop in some way, (Reduce pitch or diameter or both) but with a heli you are stuck. You could reduce pitch, but that would need more head speed and more head speed itself needs more power…

I must say that I don’t know why manufacturers do this to their products. The HBK2 is a really great little heli, why not supply it with a motor up to the job?

Probably, if I had flown it around instead of hovering all the time, it would have been ok. On the edge, but ok. Problem is though, hovering and slow flight are a mandatory part of heli flying.

Anyway, I have an Esky 3900kv brushless motor, ESC and suitable batteries on order. So the saga will continue. (And I will use the two old batteries in my flattie!)

I must say, this problem is not limited to helicopters either. How many times do you find a really nice little foam job, and the first thing folks do is rip out the motor and fit a bigger one?

I am truly sick of hearing the excuse of ‘scale flight and power’ bandied about as a reason for the gutless wonder in front of me.

One of the main reasons for the popularity of glow models is the excess zoom they have bolted to the front! We in electric flight need to pay heed to this.

I have commented elsewhere on the reviewer who felt that the model under scrutiny was ‘way overpowered’ because it ‘jumped off the runway in two feet in a most unscale like manner’

(I might add here that I had done my rule of thumb calculation on its weight and power and thought that the manufacturer had got it right for a change!)

Have I missed something here? The throttle control wasn’t a switch the last time I looked! It is called a ‘proportional control’ for a very good reason. Use it!

Likewise, trainers need more power not less. Any flier who has nursed a model with border line power around the sky knows that he needed all his skill to avoid crashing. A learner does not have that skill level. Until you build up your skill bank, you need power to save your butt.

Rant over!