Durafly Vampire

I want to replace the five blade EDF with a twelve blade unit. The Vampire's present unit seems to be firmly glued into the fuselage. I've seen on the Internet that the EDF just "pulls out" with considerable effort. I had an extra Weetabix for breakfast, but I still couldn't get the fan unit to budge. I've run a knife around the profile as deep as possible, but to no effect. Any suggestions?

Crash it...the fan unit will then be easy to remove.

Mike Seale wrote: Crash it...the fan unit will then be easy to remove.

:lol:

I never though of that!
Anyone skilled in the art of selective crashing?
Must be able to identify the bits for re-assembly.

It will come out if you are persistent Brian. I tried a 12 blade same pier as original and it was rubbish. Best setup I have found is the one in the Canadian edition

It occurred to me, (on the way back to the shed after reading the helpful remarks about fan removal) the fan is probably held in with hot glue. The weather is cold, the glue is hard and unyielding. OK. Apply hot air from heat gun to fan unit, when thoroughly warmed through, apply pressure. The photo proves that it worked. Kadet in background with front blue trim finished, awaiting some idle bloke to apply finishing touches (black pin stripes)

I should have posted the results of the fan change a long time ago, but with lots of interesting things going on, I forgot. The twelve blade fan makes a noise somewhere between a Hoover and a leaf blower at full chat, not really, its very very quiet. The Vampire used to struggle to get off grass, happy to hop off tarmac, but grass was a challenge. Not any more! At Cashmoor, with a slight crosswind, the Vampire was lined up diagonally on the runway, opening the tap produced an encouraging acceleration leading to a clean take off with no dramas at all. Bit of an anti-climax really, but in a nice way. In my opinion, if you have an original "RAF Trainer" Vampire, change over to a 12 blade fan, better take off performance from grass, and I found it nicer to fly.

Hi Brian,
Which fan/motor combo have you used? How many cells are you running?
I have recently acquired a Vampire and the 5 blade sounds awful.

Dave, its a 70mm Powerfun 4s from 4Max, lots of thrust, much nicer noise. Start saving your pennies.

I've left my previous mail in place Dave, its a reminder for me to not rely on my memory. While looking for something else entirely, I came upon the notes I made when sorting a power system for the Vampire. The 4 Max setup was first choice, but expensive. The unit I ended up using is a Changeson 70mm Dia. 12 blades from HobbyKing. All plastic housing, needs careful fitting. The system uses a Zippy Compact 4s battery, pulls a bit over 1700 Watts. I must've been keen at the time as I have notes for a Dr Mad Thrust too. 70mm Dia. 1900KV motor, 70A ESC. This needs a 6s battery. Looks as though I'd intended to use two Zippy compact 3s cells in series. This set up might have been "interesting", the unit gives 1.6Kg thrust. Perhaps "exciting" would have been a better description.