450 Agusta A109 build

[Cobradave]

Further to my last post I have decided to stick with the retracts after not being able to find anything better that would fit, will see how they go. Have got them fitted and seem to be working ok on servo tester. Have done the lights and have stripped the 450 sport down and am now looking to fit. Before I pull my hair out too much, are there any tricks for this stage, I am spotting at least 4 conundrums to work through which any guidance on would be welcomed.

1) when I test fit with supplied mounting brackets the top of the boom is pressured against the top of the tail canopy about a third of the way down, is this likely to be a problem? If so, the kit also comes with the pro mounting brackets which are about 1mm thinner, should I try and adapt those to fit and try and create a little more space?

2) the tail is belt driven, I have to take the tail rotor off to slide Heli through kit and then refit tail, but once done I can't reach the screws at the back of main frame on the heli to re tighten the boom once I have tensioned the belt. Any ideas on how to tension the belt?

3) similarly, reaching the 3gx in the heli to set up is looking like it will be a bit of a challenge

4) finally, you have to screw the main heli mounting brackets down into the frame of the kit, but the back two are in the rear and pretty much unreachable.

It is the align 450 kit. I guess these are all the challenges of building a scale heli, especially 450 size, but as this is my first go any guidance on the above welcomed!

thanks in advance.

[electricsceadu]

1 try both sets of mounts to see which fit the best

2 set the tail belt tension, then remove the tail gearbox (leave the boom clamped up) strip the box to be able to remove from the belt
once in the agusta refit the tail gearbox, it may be a bit of a fiddle but doable

3 move the 3gx to a better location

4 good luck if you have big hands

[Cobradave]

Great, thanks for the quick reply. Sounds like patience is going to be the order of the day. There is no where convenient for the 3gx on the 450 that is convenient, so I guess a bit like your advice on the belt tensioning, I may have to set tail limits etc before fitting into the heli, hopefully the rest should be ok.
Time to count to 10 .....

[dave j]

Everything as Electricsceadu has said but remember to fit the tail box back on before mounting remounting the mechanics otherwise you wont get to the screws on the tail box

[Cobradave]

Thanks, will watch that one.

[dillwhacker]

FWIW, I have just done a 500 size Agusta and an Airwolf...
1. The supplied mountings were crap, so I made my own from plywood & epoxy, with rubber grommets for a bit of isolation - those allowed me to adjust the front / rear screw pressure to get the boom central in the fus shell.
2. I couldn't do with all the faff, so I drilled two holes in the rear fus so I could clamp the complete tailbox after poking the boom down the fus. Make blanking plugs if you want.
3. Do a dozen hard flights and adjust to make sure the core heli is sound before you put it in the shell. Unless you want to 3D the completed model, setting up the beast on the basic heli will be plenty good enough for scale flying.
4. Buy or make a long screwdriver / drill holes for access / arrange your mounting screws to be at an angle so you can get at them with a long driver.
HTH

[electricsceadu]

drilling holes for screw access is a thing that i do on my own models
some modlers don't like drilling holes in their nice and shiney painted body shell
thats why i don't say to start drilling the odd hole here and there

[Cobradave]

Thanks both

i think I am going to have to mod the fixing as you suggest. Will try not to drill access holes if I can help it, but needs may must! Plan to spend some time on it this weekend, so will post some pictures once done, probably next month!

[Cobradave]

So I have taken my time and thought I had completed it today! The lights in, wiring done, retracts working, heli mounted using my own bracket etc. I ran it straight down the middle of the fuselage, got tail block in and belt tensioned. Final check before flying and on the limits the tail blade hit the side of fuselage! Arghhhh...
So I guess this is down to the angle the tail is running through the fuse, but given it runs straight along the top this is frustrating, have to get my head around the geometry now, I assume I will need to angle it differently in the fuselage to stop this, rather than adjusting the travel limits of the tail servo??

that being said, it is looking good so can't wait to eventually fly it! ��

tx

Dave

[Cobradave]

image.jpgimage.jpgAll finished, thanks for all your help, now to see if it flies :-)

[gazmk2]

I really like that! Lets see a vid of it flying!

[Cobradave]

Will see what I can do

[Cobradave]

Just done a couple of test flights (sorry no video this time). Heli will sit in a hover nicely, but is very twitchy in flight even after adjusting expo and d/r, not particularly nice to fly. I also have a reasonably large and slow tail wag which changing gain does nothing for. Any ideas on whether this could just be because I am running dfc head or anything else I can try. I have the 3gx currently set to small heli, do you think given the extra weight I should set it to larger heli, will this make any difference? Or is this normal for scale flight and I just need to get to use to it!

thanks for any advice.

[Andy Mc]

Hi Dave

Just picked up this thread, just wondering how your build ended up in the end? i've just rebuilt my 450 Pro tonight with the intention of a 3 blade head on it, to go into my Augusta 109 fues, any further tips would be great.

[Cobradave]

Hi Andy

have not had much chance to mess around with the flight characteristics so still have slow tail wag etc.
in the end it came together quite well. I gave up with the supplied mounts and made by own, this took time but meant the heli sits in the body quite well. I could also use my own screws and angle them so I could secure heli in fuse without have to drill separate holes in the fuse to mount.
i had been flying the heli previously with 3gx so new this was set up alright, but had to do redo the tail limits, before final mounting. I couldn't access 3gx when mounted so had to do this before fitting.
Again, with the tail, this had to be removed bar the fixings on the one side, so once pushed through the fuse I could only access to fit the tail rotor from the one side of the heli.
needed to drill a few holes to fit the lights, but other than that no real additional work, just took time!