Do you have construction notes to convert a Chrysalis to Speed 400?

If the fuselage is big enough for a 250mah battery and non-micro servos, then it should be big enough?

From : Don Stackhouse

Steve I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: We're very busy right now with some other projects (the 2-meter Chrysalis in particular), and it's likely to be a while before we can get to an official Speed 400 version. The good news is that it shouldn't be very difficult to develop your own Speed 400 adaptation of the Chrysalis if you have some experience.

I just held the Monarch 'E' prototype fuselage up next to the wide-body Chrysalis fuselage, and quite honestly, a Speed 400, speed control, small receiver, a pair of HS-80's and a 6 or 7 cell 500-600 mah battery pack could go swimming in the Chrysalis fuselage, and still have room for a rubber ducky and lifejackets for everybody! About the only tight spot would be the height at the nose. I would recommend you replace the 1/4" balsa cover ahead of the hatch with 3/8" or 1/2" thick balsa, then hollow out the underside to get enough height inside for the motor. You will have to NARROW the width of the nose by about 1/4" on each side (unless you like really big air intakes and a cowl with that "Cessna" look). You will need to shorten the nose by about 1", and make a plywood bulkhead to fit at that location to act as a motor mount. It looks like the typical installation, battery included, will probably fit in the narrow fuselage, but check your components against the plans before you cut anything.

I would probably recommend the same radio arrangement that we use on the Monarch 'E': motor, followed by speed control, receiver, servos under the wing, then battery. I know, that means that huge battery is on top of all the fragile and expensive stuff in a crash, but if you put the battery forward you will have to add huge amounts of ballast weight to the tail to get the C/G correct. Just don't crash! You should probably substitute the small Sullivan pushrod cables or equivalent to keep the battery from interfering with the control linkages.

I picked a relatively large wing area for the Chrysalis partly so it could tolerate the extra weight of standard size radio gear, so it should also do well carrying the extra weight of a Speed 400 installation. If you try to install a Speed 400, 6-cell battery, AND standard size servos and receiver you might possibly run out of room, and at that point the wing loading might also get a little excessive.

Probably the biggest risk area is flutter of the wing. You will be flying under power with about 2-3 ounces of extra weight (compared to the widebody with standard size Rx and servos), which means that you will be at a somewhat higher airspeed most of the time than we typically see on the hand launch version; however, I don't think the speeds will be quite as high as during the beginning of the launch on the hlg. The only time we saw flutter on the prototype Chrysalis was after we buckled the spar caps on the outer panels from repeated cartwheel landings during a contest with winds of 15 gusting to 25. There was the faintest hint of a little flutter at the tips at the beginning of launch, but that was with damaged wing spars and covering held together with cellophane tape. We have since added shear webs to the entire spar ( the prototype only had them on the inboard panels out to rib "L"), which stiffen the wing,as well as making it much more resistant to this kind of damage. In any case, the torsional stiffness is probably adequate for an electric version. I would avoid the lighter weight coverings; we've found that the torsional stiffness of the wing is noticeably lower with Micafilm than it is with Monocote. It's not a big risk; if you find problems, it's no big deal to peel off the covering and re-do it with something stiffer.

We haven't had a chance to actually fly an electric version yet, so we can't make any guarantees or promises, just recommendations and opinions, but it doesn't appear to be too difficult. I'm hoping to find some time to experiment with an electric Chrysalis myself late this spring or sometime this summer. I'll post an update to this after we complete some testing. Meanwhile, if any of you experimenters out there try it, please keep us posted!

Thanks,
Don Stackhouse