Mess Deck: General Section > Other Hobbies and Interests

Andy's - Bell 206 JetRanger build.

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Andy M:
As my Sea Knight is mostly finished and I can return to do more work on it any time, I have already started my new project, another quadcopter powered helicopter, anybody got any idea what it is?

TailUK:
Long round section tail boom! Could be a Russian Mil 8?

Andy M:
Nope. I was going to do a cobra, but again, finding decent drawings was a problem. I was worried about rolling 1/32 balsa on a tight tube like this but it turned out not bad, I did the sheeting in two parts. Superglue to do the first bit of each and woodglue and pins to close it up. And well wetted balsa of course.

Andy M:
Mil 8 looks nice right enough, need to add it to my list. Hoping to do a cobra as soon as I find decent drawings, at 1/19 scale to match the seaknight, it is about the same length. Also thought about doing skycrane at same scale, it comes out at  45 inches compared to 28 inch for seaknight, getting it within my weight limits would be a challenge tho. I built a skycrane for walkera 5#8 co ax helicopter, it flew but the rotor wash made the body wobble a bit. Sold to someone in germany. I have the video of it on my youtube channel. It ended up within my weight limit for the heli. The skycrane is pretty spindly so might manage 45 inch version within weight limit for my quad setup. The never ending build list. :-)

Andy M:
Some amongst you may be wondering why I started building the tailboom first, main reason was that I wasnt that confident of managing to get 1/32 balsa round the thin end of the boom,which is 18mm diameter, without the balsa splitting. The rest of the helicopter body is even more challenging, with compound curves everywhere. So I picked the eaaier option. It also spurs me on to do the rest of the working out on how I am going to build the fuselage. I have got decent drawings this time and a reasonable bodyshell to copy from a cheap co ax heli, it ate one of its motors after about 10mins of first flying it, after buying 2 more sets of motors, I found out that 10mins is actually the longest I got from a motor! Ah well the bodyshell is good, my balsa one is going to be 3 times the size at 3 feet, so scaling up is easy. Building as light as I can, I hope to have the weight of the bare bodyshell with no motors, receiver or battery around the 200g mark. A bit of a challenge but I have managed to build the tailboom, horizontal stabilisers and fin at 20g. I have still to refine the sanding, which will take a small amount off this, then painting will put more on. Its promising. Undercarriage and glazing will add a fair bit, more paint. I need to keep it really light from the start as there are so many bits I cant lose weight on, I already made my first mistake with the tailboom, its formers are 2 layers of 1/32 glued together with grain running 90 degrees to each other forming superlight ply that you can cut into without it flaking off. There are seven formers, I was going to cut lightening holes in the inside 5, leaving end ones solid for gluing........I forgot, it was only after I had cut all my slots and glued the stringers in, ready for sheeting, but much too late for holes. Ah well. I am trying to design my fuselage as light as possible to compensate a bit for my error, I hope to use 1/32 balsa for as much of the structure as I possibly can, while being strong enough for a heavy landing.

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