Any scale flyers on here?

[Dan22]

Are there many / any scale flyers on here these days, if so what are you flying?

I am considering converting a spare 550 / 600 frame in to either a Jet ranger or a Eurocopter EC145

The big question is, where is the best place to buy a scale fuselage?


Cheers,
Dan.

[hedge]

When the weather is good I fly this, its a Funkey fuse and they still sell 550 size fuses. I am not up on scale but be prepared to make your own modifications even with a fuse made for your heli. This one may not look it but its been customised in quite a few areas. During downtime, I do enjoy adding scale bits, this winter I've added a cockpit. The cockpit itself is my own design that was then 3D printed by Shapeways. Looking forward to working on it this summer, it has some odd flight behaviour I want to iron out.

Blade tips
by RC Paul, on Flickr

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[mole hunter]

Hi Dan,

Not much of a reaction to your post! Helis fliers are a small minority - scale heli fliers even more so. When it comes to scratch builders, well we all know one another.

Not sure where you can get a fuze from these days except Midland Helis https://www.modelhelicopters.co.uk/funkey-scale-fuselage-jet-ranger-30-550-red-jt-jr30red-jt-jr30red.html You could have a look in at the main scale forum for some clues https://www.scalerchelis.com/phpBB2/index.php



Me and my scratch built Wessex Mk1

Happy hunting, Marty

[barryorbik]

Lovely helicopter Marti and a little off track Dan, but did you watch last weeks 'Warbirds Workshop' on 'Yesterday', when they restored a Westland Wessex. One of the fliers at our club has just purchased a new 600 sized Funkey Hughes 500 fuz off E bay, but the seller was in France. He paid £250.00 with the international DHL postage only costing £16.50.

Barry

[Dan22]

Wow that's looks fantastic Marty, scratch built too!
The jet ranger on midlands looks nice, i might ask if they can get the slightly longer 600 version for me.
I will check out the link to the scale forum.

Thanks,
Dan.

[Dan22]

Lovely helicopter Marti and a little off track Dan, but did you watch last weeks 'Warbirds Workshop' on 'Yesterday', when they restored a Westland Wessex. One of the fliers at our club has just purchased a new 600 sized Funkey Hughes 500 fuz off E bay, but the seller was in France. He paid £250.00 with the international DHL postage only costing £16.50.

Barry

HI Barry,

Yes, a little off track for me but i have always fancied a scale helicopter, in fact when i first started flying helis, i couldn't understand why most of the models in the magazines were pod & boom.
I soon realised that learning to fly on a scale heli would have proved even more expensive, so that was that, i bought a Raptor 30 and loved every minute of learning.

Anyway, i think after 9 years of flying, it might be time to venture into building my first scale model, i'm not going to rush in to it, i will do some research.

I will see if i can find that 'warbirds workshop' episode

Cheers,
Dan.

[barryorbik]

Hi Dan, I too always fancied a nice scale helicopter and I used to love going to the scale events at the Midlands Helicopter club site near Tamworth and Parkhall Helicopter club site in Derby, but sadly Parkhall seem to have lost interest in staging events in recent years. I bought a Blade 180X BO105 that was RTF and is pretty scale like, but it is unpredictable due to the linear servo's and a nightmare to fly and service, so is now a shelf queen now. After that I splashed the cash on a UH1 Cobra shell for one of my 450 Mini Titans, but even though its very thin (flimsy!!) it really made the helicopter feel 'heavy' ,and in flybarred mode was very prone to weather vaning if there was the slightest breeze. I eventually uprated the motor/esc and fitted a mini V Bar and Align Pro 2? FBL head, which has made it better, but it is still very much a calm day flying machine.

Two of our fliers fitted the Align Airwolf fuselages to their 550's, but they both had fit and finish issues with the shell and the front retract needed lots of work to stop the collapsing on landing if the helicopter rolled. We are fortunate enough to have a good tarmac runway to fly the scale helicopters off but the retracts still failed.

Servicing with a fuselage on is still real PITA and hanger or transit damage is an ever present threat - unless you have access to lots of bubble wrap and a van that is!!

Best of luck in your search and Yesterday catch up is available on 'UKTV Play'.

Barry

[hedge]

All the above are very good points. Also not always apparent but worth pointing out your most probably not going to do any 3D flying so your going to fly mainly upright flight (like a real helicopter) which many pod and boomers find too limiting - wait for series of scale helis doing 3D to be posted now. The reasons are many, from power to weight to CofG but for me its the fact I've spent weeks of my life working on that heli and dont want to risk looping it or tic tocs - I've got many many other helis that can do that. On that theme you also don't often find scale helis in a fleet of 3D machines and rarely find a scale flyer who can also do smack 3D (with pod and boom). The two groups tend to follow different paths. I do understand why but I like both for different reasons.

There is a good scale forum which is alive and well but dont expect lots and lots of posts. Helis like Martys above are measured in years to build not days and hence updates are either large and infrequent or frequent and very small - remember to glue and paint a small thing can take over a week (24 hours just to cure for the glue, days to cure the paint). I admit I am crap at painting but as a reference the blades on my heli took around 3 weeks to do during last years hot summer. That's three weeks of not flying as I am waiting for the blades to be finished!!

I find it all very rewarding though and enjoy winter as that's when I get to update the scale heli - its a huge project that's been running for over three years now and still with many many hours and weeks left to pour into it.

Its a real shame we are I lock down as I've been prepping the scale for a few days at the field to figure out whats going on - I think its the custom 4 blade head I fitted but could be anything. The dream is a really relaxed flying experience, at the moment I need to stay on the sticks full time to keep it tidy.

For me the only boundary is imagination, the skills required can be taught/googled. A point I will finish up on was made on the scale forum, one chap said his dad used to say - "It may be crap but its my crap". That resonated with me and I try and over come my OCD with that mantra as learn new skills.

[electricsceadu]

I did fly the odd scale heli or two but at present they are grounded

I have a 1/3rd scale Vario Robinson R22
A 1/4 scale Vario Bell47G3
Graupner Jet ranger and Agusta 109
A shuttle inside a Jet Ranger

with the 550 build you are thinking of the 30 size Jet Ranger you should be able to get most 550 class electric helis inside
the Funky range was based around the Hirobo Shuttle , Funky/Century did have a list of what older 30 class nitro models fitted and what alterations were needed to get them together

[GIR8]

If you are on facebook there are a few groups there still fairly active with scale heli's. Or PM me and I'll get yah sorted out with a couple of suitable groups.

[mole hunter]

Nice line up Dave but what are all those spatulars on the rotor heads for?

Marty

[Dan22]

[QUOTE=hedge;1254099]All the above are very good points. Also not always apparent but worth pointing out your most probably not going to do any 3D flying so your going to fly mainly upright flight (like a real helicopter) which many pod and boomers find too limiting - wait for series of scale helis doing 3D to be posted now. The reasons are many, from power to weight to CofG but for me its the fact I've spent weeks of my life working on that heli and dont want to risk looping it or tic tocs - I've got many many other helis that can do that. On that theme you also don't often find scale helis in a fleet of 3D machines and rarely find a scale flyer who can also do smack 3D (with pod and boom). The two groups tend to follow different paths. I do understand why but I like both for different reasons.

Yeah it's interesting that most 3D pilots don't like scale and it limiting factors.
I fly pod & boom, mainly 3D although that wasn't my initial intention.
I think over the years i have just evolved into flying more 3D, that said i'm no smack down pilot and never will be.

I think i will go for the Jet Ranger as my first scale project, maybe add a scale head and some nav lights etc and see how i get on.

Cheers,
Dan.

[electricsceadu]

Nice line up Dave but what are all those spatulars on the rotor heads for?

Marty

They are the only way to fly them
they are built to fly in all weather conditions (not rain)
having seen the Bell 47 flown on a scale head and asking those that have flown one before all the latest electronic systems came about I took the advise of 'do you wish to fly it or just sit it on the ground and look at it in the windy UK conditions'
The R22 proved the point one year at one of the scale events in June being the first to fly that day and one of three models flown
I was questioned to why I was flying it in the windy conditions and the answer was because the model can cope with it and I'd travelled there to fly not look at it

[Dan22]

They are the only way to fly them
they are built to fly in all weather conditions (not rain)
having seen the Bell 47 flown on a scale head and asking those that have flown one before all the latest electronic systems came about I took the advise of 'do you wish to fly it or just sit it on the ground and look at it in the windy UK conditions'
The R22 proved the point one year at one of the scale events in June being the first to fly that day and one of three models flown
I was questioned to why I was flying it in the windy conditions and the answer was because the model can cope with it and I'd travelled there to fly not look at it

This is interesting, i learnt to fly 9 years ago with a flybarred Raptor 30, it ( i ) flew circuits very nicely and it felt like it was on rails, i swapped it with a friend for a Trex 500 which i converted to FBL
It set my flying back and took me best part of a year to get used to FBL, yes it was a smaller heli with a Beastx, which tend to be very 'locked in' by default compared to a vbar, which has paddle sim if required.

So when i do build a scale helicopter, i will put a vbar neo on there as i find them to be very smooth.
I haven't flown a flybarred helicopter since, maybe i would like it?

The other question is, do most scale flyers fly the tail in Rate mode?

Cheers,
Dan.

[ANDYW]

This is interesting, i learnt to fly 9 years ago with a flybarred Raptor 30, it ( i ) flew circuits very nicely and it felt like it was on rails, i swapped it with a friend for a Trex 500 which i converted to FBL
It set my flying back and took me best part of a year to get used to FBL, yes it was a smaller heli with a Beastx, which tend to be very 'locked in' by default compared to a vbar, which has paddle sim if required.

So when i do build a scale helicopter, i will put a vbar neo on there as i find them to be very smooth.
I haven't flown a flybarred helicopter since, maybe i would like it?

The other question is, do most scale flyers fly the tail in Rate mode?

Cheers,
Dan.

Hi Dan
ive got a couple of scale helis and some pod and booms all raptors 50s and an un flown 60 Hughes MD. I fly the tail in heading hold as that’s how I started but I would like to try rate mode to see if it makes it a bit more realistic. I use a pitch curve around -3 +5 +9 and that makes the flight very scale like. Scale fuselages are quite hard to get in the UK especially 600 size but you can get them from china if you want to risk the postage and charges that can be added.
cheers Andy