Andy's Hobby Blog

With the Raven mechanics flight tested, I completed final assembly of this kit. Inside, are futaba 9202s on cyclic, a GY401+9253 gyro and servo, 3003+GV-1 engine governer, a Team Delta switch to switch the front flood lights on and off, OS50 +Hatori SB-9 muffler. Externally, the kit came pre-painted, and features a main body, a bubble canopy, tail portion, the mast fairing, and tail fins. I added HeliMax lights for the navigation LEDs which really "light" up the heli.

 

Full details of this heli can be found on Century Helicopter's site.

 

Until the weather gets better, it will be awaiting it's first flight complete!

 

I attended this years RAMs RC Helicopter Fun fly this year and had a blast! I brought my new Mikado Logo 10, my JR Voyager in a Bell 230 fuselage, and my trustworthy XCell Fury.

 

My 12Z transmitter got wet and no longer functions so I had to send it in for repair.  I'll be using my Futaba 9C in the mean time, but I won't be able to fly my Fury and Hirobo Eagle 3 since they use the newer G3 reciever.

 

Thanks to KC for the fantastic Logo 10 pictures, and Dave at Skyway Photography for the fun fly pictures!

 

 

 

 

Purchased in June06 from http://www.heli-pro.de, arrived mid Sept 06 (yeah, that's a 3 month wait), and finished a couple of weeks after. The canopy isn't fitted and painted yet, since the weather got very cold. That will be a spring project.

 

This heli is quite uncommon, made in small batches in Germany- not many exist in the US. This model is the Revolution CF model (carbon fiber), unlike the S model that contains plastics. Unusual features, compared to other helicopter kits I've built include:

Details, details. I pondered some time ago on how to paint the 6 vent grills on the fuselage. Should I hand paint them? Naw! By using a scanner and the vinyl cutter, I was able to paint them with professional looking results.

Masking the black detail is going to be a chore. Today, I specifically chose to mask and paint the DRF logos on the doors and underneath, only the breit shadow on the bottom, and some misc details such as handles and ports.

 

I'm quite impressed with the masking job. This time, only one small area of overspray (again, masking around compound curves is always risky), but in general, the black went on good.  When I have time, I'll continue to add black details such as the rest or the breit star shadows, the masking around the windows, and skids.

 

Laid down the white base coat last week. This took a lot of time and paint due to not sure if the white was "white" enough (is it grey in some parts?).

 

A week later, this memorial, I masked and painted the red base coat. I printed much of the masks, including the main demarkation oval line, with my Roland SX-12. There were many masks as you can see with the pictures. The hardest part was applying the masks over curved surfaces.

 

When all was done, there were a few oversprays where the masking didn't quite cover enough, some mask bleedings, and two spots of lifted paint (probably due to poor primer or preparation), but at 3 feet away, you would not notice them. The only stickers I will apply are the German flags (white rectangle in the hood), and a Eurocopter logo sticker that will also appear on the hood. Other than that, everything will be painted on.

 

Next is cleanup (fix oversprays, bleeding) and black basecoat around the windows, the breit (star) shadows, and the main skids. After that, I will shade and detail the panel lines to give the body more depth- as you can see, the body still looks "flat", with no detail.  Finally, I have to find a way to clear coat the entire project (toxic stuff).