Selecting a Brushless Motor, ESC, LiPo Battery and Prop for an RC Airplane

👍 Download the latest RC Calc sheet to more easily select your power system👍

Picking a power system for your RC Plane is not an easy task. It can be quite complex and overwhelming. This video aims to simplify the process as much as possible and provide a good guideline to follow. At the end of the day, however, you will still have to run the Airplane up and dial the prop in based on your results.

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Reading an ESC Data Log:

#rcexplained

[leonardojadue]

This is the best beginner tutorial I've seen for learning airplane electronics. Thank you!

[foxik]

As aircraft’s engines engineer I’m really surprised about details explained in this topic. Everything is nice and clear on the whiteboard. Very appreciate time for preparing all data and calculations, I will definitely use your tips to calculate my RC plane. Big thumbs up for future projects! Greetings from Poland 🇵🇱 💪👌

[alanmakoso]

All the other tutorials online expects newbies to already know the desired Kv and use their charts. Thank you for providing that Kv formula as a function of wingspan.

[theeddytor]

i hate lectures, but damn i can't believe i sat through 29:31 mins.
this was a detail dive and i loved it, although my wing span is 21inch and motor are the smallest, it's a power efficient rc plane. using 3s li-ion battery with 3-8C only.
everything was great for me in this explanation up until propeller. i think when it comes to prop i'll just take the word of seller recommendation based on motor.

[lasersbee]

Excellent Beginners RC Airplane Setup Tutorial... Bookmarked.👍

[Minty_Da_Mouse]

Thankyou so much! I am currently building a large scale Bf109 model and this has helped in knowing i wont blow anything up!

[fededc]

I'm really thankful for this fantastic explanation!

[marko_sigma]

Thanks for your lesson I really learned much

[MaxR]

Absolutely fantastic, thanks so much!

[captaindronieversefpv]

Thanks very much for this information.

[rafaeltorres]

My thoughts when deciding this is how much room does the plane have for a battery, how big and how many cells in series will fit first than I look at flying weight how much wing do I have to support a given weight for decent flyer and a medium to slow approach for landing. motor and prop combo is important
you need to have enough power to climb and enough clearance for the prop. luckily there are many choices to make power.

[paulbryk]

For pitch, how do you arrive at " Prop Diameter/ 1.57"? There are many Pitches' for various Props and your Calc will always be the same for any given Diameter. For example: Your Calc will always give 6.37 (or 6 ) for a 10 inch Prop. However, there are 10x6, 10x7, 10x8 ... etc props out there. Please let me know.

[dantetejeda]

Great video for people getting into this stuff. Is there a book or source you used for your calculations?

[Loochy]

Think it's better to figure it in this order..

Determine approx weight.

Determine approx watts needed based on weight. 80-150w per lb

Pick a ballpark prop size based on wingspan.

Look for motor that supports your needed wattage with a prop that is in your size range.

Motor choice will dictate esc and battery needed. It will also recommend prop pitch.

[paulbryk]

Awesome Video !!! May I check one calc to be sure I got it right? I input 48 inches WS, 1.5 lbs., 100 watt/lb., 3s 1500 mAh Lipo. My results were 14 Amp Motor, 16 Amp Esc, 18C Lipo, 14, 106 rpm, 1271 Kv and a 7x5 prop. Do you get the same ? Just want to make sure I got it right. You use a good number of constants/factors. Many Thanks

[eshaw]

So great video it helps a lot do you have any videos explaining diameter and length in correlation to KV and why the length or width of a motor matters when the kv is the same with a Narrow but long VS a short and wide other than fitting it to plane

[engineerf]

For smaller Rc plane I think it would be different. As you said 2s battery for the wingspan of 30-40in, but 2s small batteries can be also used for smaller brushless planes like 20in wingspan.

[mjollnirboy]

Thank You for such an immensely useful video. Could you please share the sources/references for the formulas and the calculation tables used. Thank You.

[JavedAliKhanPatan]

If you were to use 4 propellers, 2 on each semi wing span, what would be the propeller diameter for the same motors, i got this doubt because the formula at 24:24 does not account for multiple motors
, please help me out

[guypehaim]

I think this calculation would be more useful if you used wing loading (LBS/SQ. IN.). This way it would be easily applied to any plane model.