Arthur
Heliman
Location: Wales. UK
My Posts This: Topic Forum | Thank you heliheadcase and czankl for your kind comments re my Cobra. I'm afraid I haven't got any flying shots. When I flew her in the sevetnies and early eighties, believe it or not, I never got any flying shots. She then spent much of her time after that in the loft. We moved here to Wales about five years ago when I retired and last year we dragged her out of retirement. We have about twelve acres of land so no excuse for not getting on with things. I bought the Cobra about 1978 from Dave Nieman Models. Dave Nieman was a leading light in the heli world in those days. In fact he did the film work in the James Bond film where, as far as I recall the black Jet Ranger chased th amphibious Lotus into the sea.
As far as I recall I initially flew her without a gyro. From memory, she was a docile old bird. However my flying skills in those days were limited and still are !
A point of interest, as imentioned, are the agricultural blade holders. I was sold these with the Expert head. When we tried her this Summer I was convinced that I had flown with the blades tightened to the usual standard. However, just before lift off the tracking went haywire and I'm surprised that she withstood the terrible vibration, the blades separating by two to three inches.! We then tried locking the blades solid, no luck, then with hardly any tightening, both with the same result. We tried tightening up the head to lock the seesaw dampers up nearly rock solid. Still with no luck and put ther away. I eventually dug out Dieter Schluters' book and unearthed a section where he emphasised that the blades must be locked in position with the lead/lag advanced by one to two degrees. I fixed all this up and fired her up. Hey presto, she lifted off with no funky chicken dance. I had a couple of more quick goes and the tail gearbox came out of mesh !! She has gone away again till the Spring/Summer. I will keep uou informed of any developments, however as we all know, the kiss of death for a model is to photo or video it when flying.
I also have a Kavan Jet Ranger in need of a lot of attention which it might get next year.
Incidentally, the Synergy which you might see in the photos is not mine, thats far to exotic for me. It belongs to my mate Dave Gizmo Saban who helped me try to breathe life into my old girl.
Hope I haven't droned on too long Arf  |
Basically all there but needs some TLC.
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