I bought my Hanger 9 Aspire EP used in 2005.  I was up at the LHS, buying $15 worth of stuff and all of a sudden I feel this compunction to look up.  There it was, it was Friday, and the bird went home with me. 

As originally sold, the bird was packaged as an RTF (HAN1950) for about $240.  It came with a brushed Speed 480 ‘can’ motor, and a huge 6 cell car nimh pack.  Mine was pretty similar, but the guy had ditched the ESC in favor of a full size servo that came and engaged a micro-switch.  It flew OK, but climb performance was pretty anemic.  I flew it for a summer, and then hung it up in the garage. 

In August 2008, I started flying with Zeke.  He had a parkzone Radian, so it was natural to want to dig out the glider.  With a new NIMH car pack the performance was a little better, but still not great.  One afternoon, I was trying to land and got in a rush.  I heeled it way too far over on the wing, stalled the tail and it didn’t occur to me that I should throttle up until after impact.  The battery decided that it wanted out, and put a bullet hole in the side of the fuse.  The rest of the bird was fine.

Week later, brand new fusealage in hand, I decided that I was not going to rebuild the thing as stock.  I wanted something that was going to fly something more like the Radian.  I started doing some research, and based on recommendations from online reviews and motocalc research I picked this motor:

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=3883

You should be able to get by with an 18a ESC of your choice, I happened to put a 25 in because that’s what I had.

Now, Hangar 9 says that you cannot convert this bird to brushless because the firewall won’t take it.  Poppycock.  There is plenty of structure up there, and this little motor is not going to hurt a thing.

The motor bolts right up to the F2 header plate and the motor shaft is in a good place (more on that later) – the real problem here is that with such a light motor replacing the big heavy can motor, the CG is way out of whack. 

Fitst of all, I decided to compensate for some of the weight by using 2 of my older 10-12C 2100 lipos.  Wired together in parallel, I figured I would have a ton of runtime even with the older batteries, and get good economy out of the batteries in their twilight years.

This created a problem, however.  The F3 and F4 header plates were in such a position that placing the batteries was awkward.  I managed to get the bird assembled this way once and flew it, but it was really a mess ‘under the hood’.

So, I decided to hog out the F3 and F4 plates.  I did not photograph this as well as I should have, but you get the gist here: http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524436141_wNyxc

http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524428438_NVu3v

http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524438240_ehvM8

I was concerned that I had taken some strength out of the thing, and you can see the CF bars I epoxied into the fuse as well.  I also installed some balsa planking in the floor under the front battery, just so it would sit nicer in the fuselage.  I think it’s stronger now than it was to begin with.

The last challenge was the spinner and prop.  I wanted to use a Graupner 9×7 folding prop, but the hub that came with the Graupner didn’t have enough ‘plunge’ to reach the motor shaft.  So, I used the stock Hanger 9 hub, which needed to be shorted by about 8 mm, and then drilled out so that the shaft would go all the way into the hub.  The Graupner prop fits it fine, although the spinner is a tiny bit small.

Lastly, I hot glued about another 2 ounces of lead into the nose.  I had flown it once with the weights just stuck on up there and jettisoned one on a test flight – that got my attention and now they are hot glued in.

Having to add that weight was kind of a shame, but this is a fairly heavy bird to start with.   With the new powerplant the model climbs out with ease, has plenty of power to maneuver and overcome the wind.  I would say that it’s not quite as fast as the Radian, but it’s close.  The runtime is phenomenal.  I went out the other day and flew around at moderate throttle + some WOT climbs for about 10 minutes.  I wanted to see if the motor would run hot, and I was curious about the battery. 

When I checked the batteres, I had to charge them about a total of 450Ma.  And, these are rummy old packs!  I honestly think that you could fly around with throttle management for well over an hour, and still have plenty of RX power to get home.

In summary, I feel that I have really upgraded this bird at minimal price, and it’s awfully nice to have it back in enjoyable flying shape. 

- Eli