battery for a glider

[Psikelly]

what battery would anyone recommend for a soph' lady ? I m not going to be using a motor . just the 2 servos it takes

[cgroves]

Are you building the lady yet? I usually put as much battery as I need to balance the glider. No point pulling lead around if you can be pulling batteries instead. If your are thermalling, or definately if you are sloping, you can potentially be looking at really long flight times on a good lift day. It really would suck to end your 3 hour personal record flight just because you were getting worried about the battery. Or worse, lose the glider because you ran out of juice and had a flyaway (a specked out glider can go many miles before coming down, some never come down ;)).
I run a 2200 mAh on my Eraser Extreme and my Eraser XE, and I have a 3600 mAh put aside for my Samba Perfect when it arrives. I run a 330mAh in my Gladiator DLG but it is much more weight critical and that is all that will fit.
I know that both Dynamic and Discount have some large packs in stock, I would build the glider, figure out how much weight you need to balance it and figure out how large of a battery you can fit. If none of the shops in town have the right size pack look at NOBS Batteries (http://www.hangtimes.com/nobsbatteries.html) they make some really awesome packs but they are mailorder so they are my second choice to buying local.

PS I remember doing 8 hour slope flights at the old King's Forest ski hill in Hamilton when there was an strong east wind. The glider was loaded with Sub-C cells and flew like a lead sled (did this with a Sophisticated Lady amongst others). Had to keep swapping Tx batteries in flight but the Rx battery was good for the day.

[Psikelly]

I ll mostly be thermalling. I have a 3cell lipo 11.1 v and i think 1300 mah. As long as i get 1 - 2 hour flight times I d be happy.. anything over 1.5 and i won't be happy...cuz if my wife isn't happy then Im not.. hehe..Im almost done building it now. just a couple touch ups and thats it. Its my first glider. Actually my 1st build of any kind. Im new to flying rc and my pico stick is the 1 i spend most of my time with until the weather gets nicer.

[cgroves]

Are you using a switching or non-switching BEC?

[mikemc]

If you are only running the two servos in the plane youre 1300mah pack will last a very long time. I assume this is a 4-cell pack. You do not want to plug that li-po pack into you,re rx it can,t take that high of voltage with out some kind of regulator. Good luck and happy soaring.

[mikemc]

I think I miss understod you. If you only have the li-po pack that wont work. What you need is a 4.8v or 6.0v pack. This will be 4 or 5 cells. If you are only running the two servos in the plane a 1000 mah pack would last you a long time. I agree with cgroves,get you,re plane built and then figure out what you need for weight.

[cgroves]

I have seen 2S Lipos used with a voltage regulator or switching BEC before. It is mainly used on helicopters to try an get high amps for minimum weight since an all digital heli can draw many amps in flight. Don't think I've never seen a 3S used in that application and I've never seen a Lipo/BEC combo used on a glider. With a 3S you are just making heat since the regulator or BEC needs to bleed off more voltage to get down to 6 volts or less.

[Psikelly]

thanks for the advice. im done building so i guess ill get a couple servos to throw in it and then figure out the balancing weight.