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Eco Piccolo Micro Indoor/Outdoor Helicopter Airwolf Body Kit (styrofoam)
August 2007 : BladeCP
head convertion
For more info see this thread. May 2006 Update: AirWolf reloaded ;)
Short indoor ...AirWolf_TestClip1.wmv 5MB 0.3 mins 50 fps 360x288 Eco Piccolo FP base: Pic+ board, Hornet MS-080 CF blades, AirWolf - Reloaded On Patrol (check video page. )
Video
here! April 2004 UPDATE! i got it to fly, check video page.
Hey it flew! but it all gets quite HOT real quick, so flights are limited to 3 mins and stop for 10 mins to let the Pic board n 310 cool down as there is no air cooling when encased in the body kit. 3 x 3 min good/fair flights with 2 x 3 min sluggish flights and nothing like as agile as the bare frame setup. Oh and the motors make much more noise and sounds quite ruff bellowing in a hollow body kit. The large tail fin is very susceptible to any cross wind (or even mild down wash splash back from furniture etc.), later I made large cut outs to reduce the problem. Also the heli's balance is effected by the horizontal fins being directly under the rotor blade tips, catching a lot of down wash and pushing the tail down. I decided to compensate by moving center of gravity forward a little (batts) rather than adding some forward trim. Climb out power is ok and better than I expected for the first 10 mins air time. With the weight of the fuselage, retracts and extra servo, my setup (listed below) is at 1500 rpm 1 inch off the deck, estimate 1750 rpm at 2m high hover with a max of ~2000 rpm available (cells permitting). No real forward flight testing yet... Pic+ board All up weight unknown, a porky ~310g maybe I'm not much of a modeller but when I first got into
this hobby I was determined to get an AirWolf or a Huey in Vietnam colours
(like many beginners I guess), yes I fell for that trick piece of Ikarus
marketing that implies stock Eco Pic FP (v1) + Body kit + 7 cell 250mah
= a flyable heli LOL. I soon realised that life isn't that easy. Photo's so far 80% finished The time taken for me to build this kit was considerable, twice as long as building the original heli and it looks better in these pics than it does close up in real life. Hand painting styrofoam looks hand painted. The landing gear is also a bit of a bodge and still needs some tuning before all three wheels go up and down via servo control. I'm not impressed for the money £70 + £17 servo.
Now it's finished the Airwolf doesn't
look too bad... but it doesn't fly too good either!!! I lightened it
as much as possible (took out the landing gear, servo, removed the fins
and tail) and still found that it was on the limit. Even with a 310
motor (and Orion) it would barely hover for more than a couple of minuets
(stock 7 cell 300mah pack) and if I tried to climb (full throttle) the
tail rotor was unable to compensate and the heli began to rotate, making
left turning impossible. I came to the conclusion that it wasn't the
overall weight but the extra body surface area in contact with the down
draft, effecting the aerodynamics. 10+% of lift was being lost as air
thrust down from the rotor blades pushes down on the heli's own body
work.
More info at www.micro-heli.co.uk Bell 222 Check out meatbomber (Phill's) colloection of bodies, Bell UH-1D and more... More good scale body types n tips from New Zealand Warbirds A stunning Bell 222 Great thread of many 1:24
scale Huey Gunships Piccolo Pro Airwolf (with construction) Compache 2 (Gas Raptor) with live firing weapons system, crazy! Mr. T Hino - Cobra, UH1, BlackHawk, Puma and more scale bodies from Japan Monogram 1/24th scale plastic kit 'Bell Huey Gunship',
Monogram Huey Gunship Flight Video *thread1* *thread2* *thread3* Large scale heli Airwolf, a fine example with video
here,
or see these images Intro Buying Building Learning Flying Upgrades & Mods Airwolf Body Tips Video Heli BB Glossary Links 
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