- IMG 8936
- IMG 8947
- IMG 8955
- 136 3607
- IMG 8941
- IMG 8956
- IMG 8935
- IMG 8957
- IMG 8932
- IMG 8951
- IMG 8939
- IMG 8938
- IMG 8933
- IMG 8937
- IMG 8931
- IMG 8954
- 133 3303
Beastie so far - IMG 8942
- IMG 8958
- IMG 8945
- IMG 8943
- IMG 8934
- 132 3292
Coming together nicely now Tail piece is in, various tail-plane bits and bobs. The tail rotor blades are on the wrong way round here (and remained so for a while) until I realised I had the belt on the wrong way. I noticied this long before firing up the engine, thankfully. - 136 3608
- 132 3294
Tail rotor The orange material you can see through the hole is the belt. The blades twist together, in opposite directions. This is how you point the helicopter. - 132 3280
Engine in the frame, closeup - IMG 8959
- 132 3295
Main drive wheel The belt goes back to the tail rotor. The grey spindle meshes with a drive wheel on the engine drive shaft. There is a shaft going up through these two wheels directly to the rotor hub. - IMG 8946
- IMG 8944
- 136 3609
- 132 3287
Rotor head and flybar The fly bar, I think, ,ostly balances the main blades. They are on a single bar whose pitch alters with the cyclic, but not the collective (I think, lots of "I think"'s here!). The bar is supposed to be near-perfectly balanced otherwise it causes really nasty vibrations in the rest of the machine. Rememeber, this thing is a huge spinning top, really. - 133 3340
Outdoors [1/4] - 133 3304
Clutch The silver drum in the centre of the picture is the clutch bell. Inside this is a clutch disc, which runs directly from the engine below it. It's designed to be fully diengaged below about 7000rpm and fully engaged above 10000rpm. The rotor blades operate at a fraction of this speed, not normalyl going faster than about 1700 rpm. - 132 3290
Tail rotor assembly This was a fiddly piece to put together. - 137 3753
Still in one piece Front view, it's been out flying a couple of times now - 132 3279
Engine in the frame - 137 3749
Fuel line arrangement This t-piece arrangement allows me to load/unload fuel to the tank without pulling the pipwork away from the engine. Just use the right fuel line clip to direct the flow to/from the tank. Similarly, the left clip allows me to inject after run oil without having to do fiddly stuff, or remove the engine. - 132 3291
Tail rotor assembly The red coloured pulley is a two-piece item, a flange fits on one end, and it can go two ways round. The correct way si with the shorter end into the pulley, longer end outwards. Otherwise, as I discovered, there is about 2 to 3mm play in the tail rotor shaft. Not good. - 136 3610
- 132 3281
Engine in the frame, other side - 136 3622
- 133 3305
Gyro This is described by many as the "most cost effective" stabilisation gyro on the market at present. It's job: keep the machine pointing in the direction you want it to. In the old days, you would program a "revolution mix" into your radio which altered the tail rotor blade pitch according to what you were doing with the throttle/collective, the idea being that you could match the rotational energy being put out by the main rotors to make the tail rotor counteract it, and keep the machine steady. Technology these days simply measures the rotation and does what it needs to counteract it. Funky. This is what makes the difference between whirly-top-with-dangerous-bits and simply "dangerous". - 136 3623
- 136 3620
- 136 3615
- 132 3285
Rotor head bearings At this point, I only assembled one end of this piece. The bearing set in the bag fit onto the shaft with a collection of washers, spacers, bolts, loctite and so on. It's all a bit busy. Particularly sicne I forgot to put in a supporting piece rigth in the centre to had to disassemble the thing. - 136 3618
- 132 3286
Look at the mess! - 132 3288
Flybar again - 136 3621
- 132 3283
Assembling the rotor head These bits will eventually sit atop the swash plate. - 136 3616
- 136 3619
- 137 3751
Camera mount Allows me to bolt a camera, or other things, to the side of the Helicopter - 136 3614
- 137 3756
Front view - 136 3611
- 133 3331
The body/canopy This will be it's ultimate shape. - 133 3330
So far... - 136 3617
- 132 3282
The engine The slot-shaped hole you can see is where the exhaust (muffler) pipe will attach, when it arrives. - IMG 8183
- 136 3613
- 132 3277
Engine, closeup - 134 3463
Rear rotor servo Moved the servo from the front of the chassis to the tail boom to shorten the control rod - less chance of flexing - 133 3341
Outdoors [2/4] - 133 3336
Busy busy There's a lot going on with this machine. - 133 3329
Rotor hub It's really busy up here - I can't imagine this thing spinning as fast as it will need to. - 136 3612
- 133 3306
Digital servo The Gyro came with this servo. Because the tail rotor pitch is being computer controlled, and you want it to react fast, you have to use a fast servo. Better yet, you use a digital servo, which mostly means the servo PWM's the motor inside much much faster. This is a reasonably speedy digital servo. When it's going, it whines a bit, but I am pretty sure that's normal. - IMG 7820
- 132 3278
Engine, other side - 133 3328
The exhaust It's shiny now. I'm sure that will change. The silicone pipe runninf from it is a fuel tank pressurisation aid. There's no fuel pump - a certain amount of exhaust gas is used to push the fuel into the carb of the engine. Quite neat, really. - IMG 7894
- 133 3339
I fired it up... So, I took it outside, just to fire up the engine. Nobody else around to take pictures, so this is after the event. They definately make good lawn mowers - notice all the grass and grass stains. I'm so far away from flying this thing (still practising on the simulator) but I thought it would be good to give the engine and mechanics some exercise before it does fly. These things are not quiet! - IMG 8189
- IMG 7821
- IMG 8191
- IMG 8190
- IMG 7923
- IMG 7906
- 134 3464
Rear rotor servo cabling - IMG 8192
- 133 3337
Wires/servos Much cabling. Notice how I had to trim some of the servo "horns" - they interfered with the ball-link attachments. - IMG 7868
- IMG 7924
- IMG 8172
- 133 3327
It's looking a bit big Note we have an exhaust (muffler) now also. - 132 3276
The engine OS 32 helicopter engine. Here it is with the Raptor cooling fan attached, basically a centrifugal fan. - 133 3335
The electronics arrived All the servos are on, the receiver is mounted and hooked up. - IMG 8171
- IMG 7891
- 132 3273
Getting started When I remembered I wanted to take pictures of the construction, this is far as I was already. - 133 3338
The radio I decided to start small. A 6-channel JR transmitter. It came with the servos and a 7-channel receiver. - IMG 8173
- IMG 8195
- IMG 7922
- IMG 8167
- IMG 8193
- IMG 8157
- IMG 7797
- IMG 8194
- IMG 8188
- IMG 8175
- 133 3332
Rear view - IMG 8185
- 147 4775
- IMG 8182
- IMG 7804
- IMG 8177
- 132 3274
Side view - 133 3342
Outdoors [3/4] - IMG 8176
- IMG 8161
- IMG 8168
- IMG 8164
- 147 4776
- IMG 8178
- IMG 8163
- IMG 8166
- IMG 8155
- IMG 8174
- IMG 8169
- IMG 8187
- IMG 8181
- IMG 8156
- IMG 7789
- 133 3326
Progress! With the main rotor blades on, it's starting to look like a helicopter now. - IMG 8159
- IMG 7798
- 132 3275
The swash plate This little device is freaky. In a nutshell, the pitch of the blades varies through their rotation, according to the motions of the aileron/elevator servos (called cyclic on a helicopter) and the collective pitch. It's all a bit mad and I onyl slightly understand it so far. - IMG 8158
- IMG 8162
- 134 3462
In flying shape - IMG 8186
- IMG 8184
- IMG 9553
- IMG 8154
- IMG 9555
- IMG 8170
- 150 5072
- IMG 8179
- IMG 9563
- IMG 9554
- IMG 8165
- IMG 8160
- 147 4725
- 147 4738
- IMG 8196
- 133 3343
Outdoors [4/4] - 147 4777
- IMG 8180
- 133 3334
Size comparison - 147 4752
- IMG 9557
- 147 4771
- 133 3333
Size comparison The universal measuring device: A Coke can. - 147 4724
- 147 4790
- 147 4757
- IMG 8846
- IMG 8833
- 150 5071
- 148 4803
- IMG 9556
- 147 4786
- 147 4782
- IMG 9564
- 147 4750
- IMG 9566
- 147 4797
- 147 4773
- 147 4739
- 147 4769
- IMG 8153
- 147 4758
- 147 4737
- 147 4785
- 147 4783
- 147 4789
- 147 4756
- 147 4727
- 147 4759
- 147 4780
- 147 4779
- IMG 9565
- 147 4774
- 147 4743
- IMG 8845
- 147 4760
- IMG 8152
- 147 4729
- IMG 8837
- 147 4733
- 147 4781
- IMG 8835
- 147 4755
- 147 4734
- 147 4742
- 147 4791
- 147 4753
- 147 4792
- 147 4768
- 147 4770
- 150 5013
- 147 4751
- IMG 8151
- IMG 8836
- 147 4726
- 147 4744
- 147 4732
- 147 4787
- 148 4802
- IMG 8839
- 147 4740
- 150 5035
- 147 4754
- 147 4800
- IMG 8840
- 150 5020
- 147 4748
- 147 4798
- 150 5023
- 147 4749
- IMG 8833
- 147 4784
- 150 5014
- 147 4728
- 147 4736
- 147 4735
- 148 4801
- 133 3368
- 147 4731
- 150 5022
- IMG 8843
- 147 4761
- 150 5036
- 147 4796
- 147 4747
- 150 5033
- 150 5070
- 147 4741
- 150 5017
- 150 5047
- IMG 8838
- 147 4746
- IMG 8834
- 150 5045
- IMG 7762
- 150 5019
- 147 4793
- 147 4730
- 150 5046
- 150 5044
- 150 5016
- 150 5015
- 150 5032
- 133 3364
- IMG 8842
- 150 5028
- 150 5048
- IMG 8844
- 147 4799
- 150 5038
- 150 5029
- 150 5041
- 150 5030
- 150 5043
- 147 4745
- 150 5042
- 150 5021
- 150 5064
- 133 3362
- 150 5049
- 150 5018
- 150 5024
- 150 5069
- 147 4764
- 150 5025
- 147 4762
- 150 5059
- 133 3363
- 150 5039
- 150 5061
- 147 4763
- 133 3367
- 150 5063
- 133 3360
- 133 3357
- 150 5060
- 150 5040
- 150 5062
- 133 3365
- 133 3358
- 150 5066
- 150 5068
- 150 5067
- 150 5065
- 133 3359
- 150 5050
- 150 5057
- 133 3366
- 133 3361
- heli 2
- heli 1