Trex 450 Agusta A-109 body (Align)

[aawind]

Hi.

I have seen yours, here's mine.

[bconwayls1]

tz250w

I just finished my 109 and I found it to be quite tail heavy... I made a battery mount out of ply and glued it to the ply frame. I still think it is just a touch heavy in the rear still, I am going to try it out anyway. I ballenced mine by the fly bar and just looked at it in a mirror. If you ballence yours by the fly bar and set it down on a table does your rear wheels touch first?


Mine do. I wonder if a carbon boom and plastic tail would help with this?

[Dudemeister]

Well, here is my Align A109 Fuse. I already had a Hughes 500E fuse, and when I received a $75.00 rebate coupon from eBay I decided to go for an A109 fuselage that HeliDirect had in stock.

On receiving it, I first noticed that it was not very scale accurate, and I really hated the pearl paint job. So I decided to make a few changes and to repaint it. After looking at hundreds of photos I decided to go for a camo scheme that I saw on a Swedish Army heli (HKP15).

While the Swedish HKP15 is painted in NATO colors , I went for US Army colors, but did not make it a specific branch. The color scheme is relatively common on US Army trucks, armored vehicle, tanks and jackets, it's almost never used on aircraft (at least I haven't seen any with these colors). I also kept the splinter design (sharp angled edges rather than curved feathered in edges), which I think gives it a very modern, aggressive look.

Using balsa wood I made a lower tail fin to protect the tail rotor blades. The side wheel housings were also made from balsa wood and painted, though I don't have a retract system on this.

I do like the Agusta 109 look, not so much the 109A MKII which is what the Align tries to be, but the 109E and I'm planning on making a larger one in the future, maybe based on a 500-550 size heli.

As you can see from the pictures, I don't have the front windshield installed, but it will be in the future. Other mods include the opening the other side windows, opening the upper air intakes near the engines and using screen mesh. Did the same for the oval intake on the front of the cowling. I also decided to extended the exhaust pipes similar to the 109E, and not use the 4 vertical pipes the the 109A has. The exhaust pipes are made from very thin aluminum tubing cut at an angle and epoxied in place.

Lastly, the decals were printed on "water slide" decal paper using my Alps dry transfer printer. The beauty of it is that I can print white and metallic inks.

The actual heli mechanics are a EXI 450 SA, which is a Trex 450 SA clone.

[Super-Hornet]

U done a good job on the A109. It looks pretty. How did u do the stand/antenna just below the door?

[Dudemeister]

U done a good job on the A109. It looks pretty. How did u do the stand/antenna just below the door?

I used some 1.3mm copper wire, which I bent to shape, then soldered some other pieces to it. Once I had that done, I drilled holes in the side of the fuse inserted the ends of the wire and epoxied the whole thing in pace.

[Rodan]

Dudemeister, that's an excellent 109 you've got there. Good job!

I've got one of these sitting under my bench. I was pretty disappointed when I pulled it out of the box and saw what a mishmash of A109A and A109E they had come up with!

I'm planning on making mine an E model, with retracts, but I'm going full bore on a 60 size Jet Ranger at the moment. I'll get started with the little guy when I get the Ranger a little closer to finished. I found out with my Align EC135 that these 450 size projects can quickly get out of control!

[Super-Hornet]

I used some 1.3mm copper wire, which I bent to shape, then soldered some other pieces to it. Once I had that done, I drilled holes in the side of the fuse inserted the ends of the wire and epoxied the whole thing in pace.

Thanks Dudemeister. I tried using brass tubing before but it break each time I bend it. I should have bought some copper wire instead. :)

SH

[Dudemeister]

Thanks Dudemeister. I tried using brass tubing before but it break each time I bend it. I should have bought some copper wire instead. :)

SH
When you're ready to do this, try to get slightly thicker wire, the 1.3mm (16ga) I used is OK, but in retrospect I think 14ga or even 12ga would be more scale like and still fairly easy to bend.

One of the advantages of using copper wire is that you can solder it very easy (use some flux paste), and it also takes primer and paint quite well, brass doesn't paint for sh*t.

Cheers

[Super-Hornet]

OK. When I do go down to buy the copper wire, I try to remember the diameter.

As for painting brass, I tried acrylic paint like those Tamiya paint, it stick very well.

SH