First real scaler

[flying 442]

I have ordered my first real Scale fuselage. I have a Trex 600 and will be fitting that inside a Coast Guard Agusta 109A Helicopter. It's a Funkey fiberglass body and paint job.

http://www.centuryheli.com/products/fuselages/funkey/FKagusta46/CoastGuard/index.html?currentid=181

So, while at the last Fun-fly I had my Range body on my Trex 450 and many people liked it. It came prepainted in two halves and all I needed to do was make the cut to remove the nose for the battery replacement. Then glue the two halves after fitting it for the Rex. I feel I did not do that much work and should not get too much credit for the bird.

Then comes the Funkey Body. It will be a sharp looking fuselage just sitting in the shipping box. I will love flying it, but should I take any credit when they say "You did a great job on that Heli!". While at the Fun-Fly I tried to explain it came pre-painted and I just did the heli install. Would have been quicker to just say Thank You. Do most build and paint their own fuselage? Is that the only way you can enter one in a scale contest? What would you say if you still had the work of fitting your Heli inside a prepainted body, but that's the stuff nobody see's when they say "Hey, great looking Heli!"

[Peter Wales]

At a fun fly, have a blast and take credit for what you did. There will be dozens there who simply assembled their erector set helis, you stuffed yours into a fuse, pre painted or not.

At a competition, the rules state you have to have built the model, ie put the mechanics in the fuse. They were written to encourage more people into scale by allowing pre painted funkey fuses to be used.

For obvious copyright reasons, Funkey have made up their own color schemes and so you wont find any documentation to go with a pre painted fuse and thats where you would run into problems. The exception may be on their military models. The Coastguard UH 60 I bought pre painted from Funkey was well painted.

To avoid the problem, most "serious" scale guys paint their own fuses, if they want to compete. You can have someone else paint it for you if you want, but you must have assembled the model yourself.

[rchflyer]

Funkey have made up their own color schemes and so you wont find any documentation to go with a pre painted fuse and thats where you would run into problems.

Peter,

So if I enter a contest (ie:Nats), I would zero out on the scale portion, or do you get any points at all for the model?? And would there be any chance of placing with the prepainted fuse??

Thanks,
Dennis

[flying 442]

I too was wondering about the judging points for this kind of thing. I was hoping my heli would turn out looking like this guy's. But would be closer to scale to use the rolling wheels. Living less than 2 hrs from Muncie Indiana, I think I can make it there. Just not sure if my heli would be so far from scale it might be viewed as a joke. I saw some of the pic's from last year and they were very nice. Too nice for all the hobby flying and fly-in's that I do. So I was just wondering if any like this get entered?

[BarracudaHockey]

What you learn in competition one time will be well worth it to make the trip.

[Peter Wales]

You can only score points for what is covered in your documentation. If you have no documentation for your helicopter, then you will only get points for craftsmanship.

However, you should wipe the board with flying so you can make up a lot of points there. No one flew well at last years Nats. They guy who came 4th had a heli which flew very badly and he struggled with it.

If you are interested in competing, I strongly suggest you enter, just to get a feel of what you need to do to take home the first place trophy. I can tell you now that there will be one other helicopter there with no cockpit or rivets or any other fancy detail stuff. The guy is entering for fun and experience and once you have entered once or twice and got a feel for it, you will be much more comfortable with your scale masterpiece.

When I first entered the Nats, Alan Szabo nearly beat me with a Funkey fuse and a TSK mechs set. He had no docs, but boy could he fly it. Give it a go, we try and make it a no pressure event, and I bring the beer!

[ssozonoff]

I have ordered my first real Scale fuselage. I have a Trex 600 and will be fitting that inside a Coast Guard Agusta 109A Helicopter.

Hi,

I just received mine in the mail a few days ago. It is beautifully finished!!

I too plan to put a TREX 600 inside but am not sure yet how well it will fit since I don't have one and wanted to wait in case I need to order different mechanics like an eRaptor 50 or something.
I guess the only real issue might be that the flybars are below the blades, will there be enough clearance.

Let me know how you get on.

BTW, where did you get the Ranger body for the 450?

Thanks,
Serge

[flying 442]

Ok, Let's get this thing rolling!

"ssozonoff" I ordered that prepainted Ranger body from RC Expert out of Hong Kong. Shipping was fast and install was easy for a Trex450.

Now for those of you following my bad luck with ordering scale bodies,
http://www.helifreak.com/viewtopic.php?t=27850
you know that I got my Coast Guard FunKey scale delivered during a bad snow storm. The box looked like it had taken a hit and I thought a dented vent screen was all the damage. But today as I got close and personal with cutting it up I spotted a crack it the fiberglass.

At this time I wish to note that FunKey and Certury did a great job of packing this body! It was their hard work and great packing that kept the damage to a min! This box took a really hard hit, more than it ever should have.

[flying 442]

I am not sure if this is the right way to do this build, it’s just the way I did it. Maybe you can view this and other posts and find a better way. Or maybe you know a better way and can tell me (and others) where I went wrong.

I can tell now that a Dremel Tool, fiberglass nibbler, sharp knife, and other modeling tools are a must. I think it would have been even better if I had even more tools to make this a cleaner install.

So here we go, I wanted to put the Trex600 into the body and see where we stood. This taught me that I would need to modify the basic setup. In the first picture you see that I kept the wiring clean as not to get caught on the wood ribs. I then removed the skids and antenna shaft. (Picture 1)

On the back end I removed the tail blades and turned the shaft to point up as the body has lots of room this way. On the shaft I trimmed it a little and rounded the edge. Also you will want to trim the bump that fits the tail rotor hub into the hole in the tail shaft. Don’t remove it, but round the edge of it so you can turn it up again to disassemble and replace a broke belt. (Picture 2)

[flying 442]

It looked like the best thing to do was push the tail shaft out the back, then turn the tail rotor hub to the side. To do this I had to trim the wood ribs on the inside of the body. (Picture 1) Next the main rotor unit started hitting the small fiberglass opening (Picture 2) so this had to be opened up and a slot cut almost to the light for the Anti-rotation Bracket (Picture 3)

[flying 442]

In this picture you can see a slice I made up the tail for the shaft to come out. I think that with some paint, this will look better, but if this were a real contest job that would cost me in a big way. Then once the shaft came back, I noted where the shaft rested and cut a fiberglass opening for it.

[flying 442]

Next I did another test fit with the 600. I will want to move some of the electronics forward because they can’t be adjusted or turned on while mounted in heli. I have the bottom of the frame setting on an Align battery. As you can see the fly bar almost hits the red light, so I will need a taller spacer to mount the frame to. (Picture 1)

Then I looked at the tail to see if the tail blades would hit the tail wing. I think it looks good back there as far as spacing goes. Next, I need to see if I have room for the tail blade control arm and if not more trimming. (Picture 2)

[flying 442]

I found that the rear fin mount (stand-off) was keeping the tail shaft from sitting “true” in the body. Here you can see where I have trimmed off one and the other is still the way it comes from Align. (Picture 1) After removing the raised area I had to cut off the extra screw metal too. Now the frame is the same height both front and rear where before the rear was too low. This also raised the tail blade shaft. I re-installed the tail cap to see how far off the shaft is and what still needs to be trimmed. (Picture 2)

[flying 442]

It took a little shimming to get the frame height just right, but when done all the parts came together the way I had measured them as I went along. Then came the choice of the landing gear. I thought about using the wheels that came with it (Picture 1), but for getting the feel of landing a scale this big I felt the 600 landing skids would be a better idea.

Now all that’s left is the maiden flight and that will have to wait for better weather (too windy). After flight testing it will be time for the little things like gluing in the windows, adding lights, and exhaust ports. Hope this helps anyone else wanting to go down this road. Jon

[bullaculla]

Nice job! Thanks for documenting your build! I have one 600 designated for AP, and another still in the box. I love scalers. I may just build the other trex as a scaler with the MD500e body since i'm never going to be a 3D pilot!
:mrgreen:

[ssozonoff]

Hi,

That looks great, thanks for documenting the build. Can you still give us a shot showing where the head exits the fuse with everything assembled, I would be interested in seeing the hole.
Also whats the weight AOW?

Thanks,
Serge

[flying 442]

I'm going to take some more shots today. They will be outside so it should be a lighter (clearer) picture than the one I took last night. It's a little windy, but I might be able to get a shot of it in the air. I'll get a shot of the head hole at that time too.

For those not wanting to cut a slot in the tail of the heli like I did, check out the Torque Tube shaft drive upgrade. I just watched the Finless vid on this and it would have worked well without cutting the upright fin.

[ssozonoff]

For those not wanting to cut a slot in the tail of the heli like I did, check out the Torque Tube shaft drive upgrade.

Great, thats a perfect tip. I was already trying to think how to avoid the slot cutting in the tail.

Thanks,
Serge

[flying 442]

Let the madness begin…

Here is a shot of the weather we had today at lunch. It has been windy for a while now and I have been flying the 450’s in wind 10-15 MPH for two months. I had test flown the bare bones 600 in 29 MPH winds and it did very well under those conditions. So when it was windy again today I thought I would at least give it a try.

[flying 442]

I love the way this thing handles the wind! Even the gusts didn’t upset it too bad. Here are some shots of me keeping it low as this is the first flight after adding the body.

[flying 442]

Here are two shots of the head unit coming through the body for "ssozonoff".

[flying 442]

After work I took a good look at my scaler to make sure everything was good. I found that crack from shipping is getting bigger. I used some ca glue to maybe stop the crack from growing and might put a vent sticker over the now darkening crack. The rear skid gap (space between skids where it rests on the ground) was getting wider than the front letting the tail sink lower in the back. I thought I would see what was involved to switch from skids to the wheels that came with it. I also thought I would move the 600 a little farther back in the heli as the CG was off. Moving the 600 back a half inch fixed the CG. It also moved the tail blades away from the rear cross wing making a strike even less likely. I have a fly-in this weekend and thought it would look more scale. It turned out to be a lot of work and a little reward.

The front landing gear is a piece of cake. Just install it in the mount and you’re done. I should note that it does not swivel and sits a little higher than the rear wheels. I think swivel could be working with a trip to the LHS.

Now the rear gear was a pain because of the way I did my install. The rear landing gear eats up a little space inside the cabin. Without the torque tube mod, I need that space to install (turn) the tail by shoving it past its normal mounting spot. Then the wheel gear comes with 2 screws that hold a fiberglass gear mount to piece of modeling wood mounted to the bottom. This would not handle the landings that sometimes happen with me.

I decided to drill new holes in the landing gear cross bar and pin it between the frame and the bottom with a spacer. I now had the CG right, the head height right, and the wheel style landing gear. I’ll let you be the judge of which looks better, the skids or the wheels. Here’s a picture of someone’s Agusta 109A that also has the wheels. For me I’m not sure I like it better.

[flying 442]

I think my next step would be retracts along this line. I’ll have to search the net to find out who makes them. I’m sure that’s what I am really wanting to see and I might go back to skids until I can make this happen. The parts just came in for my torque tube so tonight I'm installing that. My hat is off to the guys that do this all the time. My hand cramped up, I have small cuts on both hands. My eyes are almost cross-eyed. Then to think one big crash and it’s all gone!

[bullaculla]

Wow, those are nice retracts! I really want a TT upgrade just for that metal tail box! Plus my CG is off and I need to put more weight in the tail since I put a bigger RX pack in the nose.

[flying 442]

So after work I take it up, need to have it trimmed out before doing the torque tube install. The white Align blades had no affect on the tail. I went through two packs and I think the wheels are growing on me. (Pic 1) I have seen skids for so long on all my heli’s that it just looked strange without them.

Now on to the torque tube install. It’s a shame to take a tail that looks so nice and cover it with fiberglass. Finless is right in his review video, this is too simple to take any time showing how to do it. I show that it is the same length as the belt drive setup. I thought I would have to demel off the fin mounts, but after installing they are not rubbing the sides. I might use this in the future as a slide in mount to secure the tail section.

(Pic 2) I still needed to shove the 600 as far back as I could to get to the bolts on the torque tube. There is a bit of room on the sides so head unit removal might be something to think about here instead of shoving the frame back. The next shots show the room left to work and the installed tail unit. Last where it will rest with the fame mounted.

Another issue, inside the fiberglass tail the white cross-wing might give you trouble. At first I had it set up so the wing fit between the tail and the rudder control rod. Then I had both the tail shaft and the control rod above the wing with a groove cut it the wing for the control rod to sit in. If this is done wrong it will drag on the control rod and seems to make the tail ‘hunt’. It looks like some torque tube installs have tail wag, so making sure there’s no control rod / cross-wing drag causing wag will be a must. Can’t wait for the test flight tonight.