Yet Another Airwolf Project HK500 (Trex Hybrid)

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I have ordered my fuz (10 minutes ago) and cannot wait!!

The airframe is a HK500 with a fair number of Align bits on it. I flew it the other week for the first time and was impressed with how stable it was. OK I backed it into the ground - Yup My fault and the only damage - checked thoroughly - was the tail drive gear. It was just the blades touching the ground!!

Enough of the crash report.

I have seen some fantastic Airwolf project around the patch, mine is based on the Heli Artist V2 and will probably be mostly stock. However, I do intend to change the way the nose gear retracts because it retracts the wrong way - rearwards instead of fowards. This means moving the axle to the rear of the nosewheel bay and making it pivot forwards like the mains.

I am tempted to get the CNC U/C from Smartmodel, they look quite good and for the 500 size have suspension.

Looking forward to the build. A whats in the box will follow and hopefully plenty of pics of the build as I go along.

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Its arrived

Well it arrived in a big box. I requested Royal mail delivery but it arrived via UPS. Had to take a day off holiday. Yes I am hacked off and so is my boss - Thanks Fast Lad!

Anyway here it is in the box - It had 3 carrier bags full of polystyrene chips around it so it was well packed for the ride.




The cat got a wee bit interested in the new arrival.



First impressions are that its a reasonable model with lots of inaccuracies and issues! There are absolutely no instructions in the box. The undercarriage is plastic and ugly so I will definitely send for the Smart Model UC kit.

The equipment bays above the thruster engines are too short, there is room for improvement there!





Its a shame that Heliartist chose the panel opening they did, it spoils the look.




The lighting kit looks like one I bought last year, originally for the 500 as a pod and boom, but never used, there were no instructions with that either! I didn't use it because the wireing harness was not long enough to reach the tail!! Hmm must make them longer!

The nose gear does indeed retract in the wrong direction too. I am going to have to learn to fibreglass heheh.

Plenty of bits in the box. but no idea if its all there




Now to start planning the build and see if I can find some instructions.

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More photos

I found the instructions on line, what a waste of space!

Anyways I took some more photos of the beast.

The canopy is held by pins and magnets. The magnets are quite strong so I expect it to stay on




The air intake profile looks kinda boring and could do with sorting out



One plus is the mesh on the engine cowlings.




Shame they didn't put some on these holes, or are they ment to be NACA ducts?




The nose and main gear do look kinda naff but as I said I am ordering the Smartmodel ones.






Plenty of space to work in too




A bit of a blemish on the paint work, not sure how to fix this.




The donor airframe and new skin

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Working on the lights

After a bit of research on the location of the aft navigation light, I found that it actually sits on the lower part of the fin on the left (port) side.

As I don't have the skills (yet) or the materials to make a scale light fitting, I decided to just place the LED in the middle of the training edge of the fin.


First I split the fin down the middle using a scalpel then drilled two 1.5mm holes on the centreline so that the legs of the LED fit into them. I then drilled a 3mm hole in line with the mounting holes on the inside surface of the fin about 10mm aft of the rear mounting hole and then cut a channel in the fin from this hole to the trailing edge so that I could feed the wires inside, one at a time.

This channel is on the inside of the fin again and as its on the break line between the grey and white, its likely not to be noticed.

Heres the almost finished article. I still need to epoxy the trailing edge of the fin back together.


Airwolf didn't have strobes fitted, but I am tempted to fit them as it would probably have them if it was flying today.

I am glad I have started the build.