eric_b
Key Veteran
Location: Denver, CO, USA
My Posts This: Topic Forum | I've finally finished my new scale ship, a Russian Mi-24 Hind-D gunship. The fuselage was molded by Larry Jolly, and the mechanics are an old version 1 Raptor, with the long boom and 600mm blades, powered by an OS .46, Airtronics RD-6000, with a completed weight of 9.2 pounds. Here in the thin air of Colorado, it flies with plenty of power. I made all of the parts to mount the mechanics, and also scratchbuilt the stub wings, weaponry, and landing gear. I originally wanted to make and fit retractable wheels, but the reality of that never happening within my lifetime set in and I installed fixed gear on the Hind.
I bought the fuse about 4 years ago, and until the past two weeks it has just sat around, waiting for me to do something with it. One of the local clubs was having a warbird rally, and at first they said that they would not allow helicopters to participate, as apparently the only "warbirds" are those with non-rotating wings. I guess they have never seen a helicopter gunship, nor heard of Vietnam, or any other war beyond WWII, in which helicopters have been widely used. Anyways... Well that made me mad that they wouldn't allow helicopters. So after asking politely several times if I could attend the warbirds rally IF I brought a scale gunship helicopter, fairly dripping with guns, rockets and missiles, they agreed to let me participate. Well in a quick 2 weeks I got my act together and just barely finished my gunship in time for the show. As the only helicopter at the show (in a sea of 100+ airplanes) I attracted quite a bit of attention with my flights. The club officers were happy to have me attend, so it was a big success! Perhaps next year the club will invite me back again.
I did also take my little Huey Cobra (that's right, it's another helicopter with a gun.... hey that makes it a "warbird", eh?!), but it was too breezy to fly it at the event.
Now that it's in flying condition, I plan to add a cockpit with windows & pilot/gunner, landing gear strut detail, and more marking and detailing. I think I'll also put some smaller wheels on it.
Here is the "before" picture:
Here's the "after" pictures:
And a few movie clips:
Movie 1
Movie 2
Movie 3 |
I went to a scale meet a couple of weeks ago, only two heli pilots, they gave us 10 minutes on the hour. The CD groaned when it was our turn to fly at first, but by the third slot he was a lot happier. The sight of my Airwolf doing loops and rolls seemed to please the crown too. Just for good measure and to tread on middle ground, I flew my autogyro aswell. That was flown with the fixed wing as really it is neither. Managed a couple of loops with that aswell, plus one dead stick. My fault as I tried to prophang it with low fuel!! no damage.
