National Aeronca Association Bulletin Board

Hi Ya'll,
Would like to add a radio, GPS and possibly transponder to my chief which means a battery mounted somewhere on the floor but I want a smaller battery than a standard aircraft 25. Does anyone know a source for a smaller battery box made especially for aircraft applications? Spruce or wag-aero doesn't list anything. I suppose something like this is available for lawn and garden or Marine but would prefer aircraft parts. Any help is appreciated!!! Thanks
Pat

Many of the folks in the RV community use the Odyssey PC680, which is 8 or 10 pounds lighter than a typical aviation battery. Of course, it has less capacity too... Which isn't too bad if you have a charging system, but limits you if you don't. If I recall correctly, it is an 18 amp-hour battery, wheras the 25 lb certified Concord is a 23 or 25 amp-hour battery.

It isn't a certified aviation battery, but might fit your needs anyway.

One thing to remember is that (largely) battery capacity is almost directly tied to battery weight...

Pat,
When you start adding all of the avionics the planes get heavy real fast. After you're done the only people that can fly it within weight are naked pigmys.
Paul

Guys,
Gail's 7DC Champ has a B&C starter, Odyssey battery, and wood prop. It weighs 811# empty. This gives a useful load of 489#, and its a LSA. It does NOT have an alternator or built in anything that would load the battery. That Odyssey will start the C-85/0200 hundreds of times. I've never HAD to charge it. I'll charge it every six months or so, but it has never given any indication that it is low. We use a hand held transmitter for a radio.

Mike

That's great Mike,
If you can add the 30 or so pounds of starter equiptment and still be at 811 that makes the numbers you need. For a 7DC to be kept at 780 is tough to do.
Paul

Well I guess a starter would be nice but my A65 doesn't have the capability of that and actually I kind of enjoy the hand propping and I even hand propped my C172 the other day just to see if I could do it and it caught on the second push! I have surplus avionics laying around and the capability of doing all the install myself so just trying to locate all the other hardware I will need. Will probably install the battery first and then someday add a wind-driven alternator. Personally, I don't like looking at the hand-held hanging there, intercom velcroed to the floor and cords running everywhere plus the hassle of changing AA batteries.

Paul,
The B&C starter weighs 11 or 12 pounds, and the Odyssey (and battery box) weigh 15#. We deliberately kept the wiring short to save weight. The starter system works, to coin a phrase, "like a champ". I also added a wood prop, and it saved many pounds too. With the wood prop, we lost something like 5 or 6 mph at cruise, but the takeoff performance is much better. We still see over 90 at 2400, which is plenty for a 63 year old plane. My point was that one can still have a LSA with a reasonable useful load. I have seen many, many pretty Champs (other planes too) that were so heavy, that they were darned near single place planes (legally), and I view that as a real shame. Light planes fly better, are faster, and use less fuel. This is just my 2c worth.

Mike