I have been having a good few flights with the Jetranger, it isnt a true helicopter, but so far, I am actually preferring it to the real heli's I have had.
My Morley MX Ranger was over 8 pounds and with its 4 foot rotor span it was well into the 'dangerous' category.
It also suffered damage easily... While it was on the ground, a little rise in revs as the fuel ran out was enough to flip it on its side.... Bent mainshaft, cracked blades etc and a helluva fright.
My new one is 3/4 the size of the morley and I can fly it indoors if I want (my wife isnt here just now, or that just wouldnt be happening)
If it does tip over, it doesnt seem to damage it, so far, its only real weak point is one of the skids, they are bamboo and drilled to take the undercarriage legs, this creates weakness, I have repaired it a few times but may have to visit my mum and see what she has in her knitting needle collection, I cant find bamboo sticks that size anymore or I might have tried again with fresh ones.
Even though I made it, it still surprises me just how light the jetranger feels, even when the battery is in, it still feels like it should be much heavier than it is.
During construction, I never had a scale that would accurately weigh the whole thing, as soon as it got over 100g, I had no real idea of its weight.
I now have a better set of scales that read up to 5kg, that will cover nearly all my model weighing requirements.
So.... Final weight, ready to fly....
370g. It is 322g without the battery, it turned out my cheap kitchen scale estimate in the last post was only 3g out... It is good to know exactly though.....
Maybe not as light as it feels, but it is 3 feet long.
It works out at about 10g per inch, and that is including electronics, battery, carbon rods and motors, gearboxes, props, knitting needle and bamboo landing gear etc, etc.
I did fancy doing a 4 foot version but if it was much over the weight of the 3 foot one, I dont think it would fly as well. As it is, it can power out of a fairly rapid descent so I dont want to risk anything heavier.
I just need to fly it closer to make it look bigger😁
One more major advantage... It cost so much less. The whole quadcopter, charger, battery, and control was £12 and there is about 12 to 15 of balsa.
I am still glad I bought a good few of the quadcopters when I had the chance. They are the cheapest way I have managed to get something flying with radio control.
And you can do it indoors if it is raining.
Does stirr up the doghairs a bit though.....
The morley jetranger had £250 JR radio in it and a £70 gyro, the heli and engine were another £400 odd. And that was about 30 years ago, I have had motorbikes that cost less than that.
I know my jetranger isnt a 'proper' helicopter, I can live with that, I managed to get the shape not bad, considering it is made from flat balsawood.
It doesnt pump out castor oil, but it is still pretty loud, compared to running just a bare frame quadcopter, the fuselage amplifies the sound a bit.
I still have 2 'spare' quadcopter setups, and some 1/32 and 1/16 balsa, so I may be doing another quadcopter body at some point, I still fancy another Sikorski skycrane, I thought about doing it to same scale as my vertol/seaknight, but it would be a fair bit bigger, so I would have to go (even more) extra light construction. Especially if I wanted to keep my power reserve.
I do have vector 'board' at 0.2mm thick that I thought about using for non stressed areas, it is pretty flimsy stuff. I will find a use for it eventually😁
I have a lot of projects and potential future projects in my head just now, deciding which one to concentrate on is the difficult bit, and making best use of materials I have, rather than buying more.
I have spent a fair bit on my modelling recently, I do feel a bit guilty about it but building my pair of Javelin speedboats has helped keep my spirits up at a very difficult time.
I am on economy mode now, I still have enough for a couple of boats and another quadcopter creation, I have done a jetranger, a seaknight and a giant wasp so far......
Any suggestions for the next one?
The Javelin is for size comparison.
The jetranger would need to be a bit bigger to be action man sized.
I cant believe how far my pot of yellow paint has gone.... Lol.
Off the top of my head, it has done a Jetranger, 23cm cabin cruiser, 18.5cm tug, mini size vic smeed Rorqual, a Lesro Javelin and 2 different sizes of giant wasp, and thats just the radio controlled things.
The original 5 litre pot also did my full size minimost boat! The rest were painted from what was left over.
Thats what I call coverage.
I need to get all my yellow models out in the garden for a photo.
Sadly, my minimost rotted away. Models are a bit easier to store. 😁