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| MOSCA | Heliman - Location: Mesa, AZ - USA - |
To go back in time,as it related to RC helis, for me, is always enjoyable, very interesting posts and heli pics. I have some of the helis some of you have indicated as being your first, that I have bought through years of collecting models, for sentimental or historical reasons. Still have them, some work, and some are just sitting on shelves, but I mainly trained on my own designs.
There have been so many, first RC helicopters, for me, because I started with my own RC electric designs, in the early 80's, at the same time, while learning to fly on these designs. Because every heli I have designed has been unique in one way or another, and has offered a new level of challenge, in itself, I considerend all of my original designs a First RC Heli.
 enjoy.
The Blue Knight, my very first 48" rotor, electric RC heli I designed to teach myself to fly. Made with Leggo plastic blocks for bearing blocks and frame supports, plywood and aluminum for frame/LG, with dual Spped 500 carbon brush motors, driving the main rotor via a multi-stage gear system, and belt drive for tail rotor, no gyro, it used 8 cell heavy Nicads, was very challenging, this heli design made me realize, that my next heli designs will have to be much lighter, to make them easier to learn to fly.
The result of wanting a lighter heli with about the same rotor diameter as my first electric design, this sort of experimental skeletal helicopter, made from light plywood and carbon boom, revealed many design and flight worthy secrets and made me realize that smaller electric helis, as well as lighter were possible and even better more desireable for training purposes, but RC Equipment and Battery technology was many years away from what it is now, still the lightweight pod and boom designed has remained and similarities are still apreciable in most of todays simpler fixed pitch pod and boom micro heli designs.
In my quest to design a CP trainer, this heli was made from heavily machined aluminum parts, althought I managed to kep the overall weight low, I abandoned the idea of using this heli, as a trainer, because it was too complex in design. It used a Speed 600 motor, a modified RC car esc and a Nicad 7 cell pack,CP was achieved by means of a wire through the main shaft to the pitchable main blade supports via a scissors type links. Rotor was fully articulated, made it to much of a floater and hard to control. This heli made me decide that trainer helis should start as simple fixed pitch helis.
This was the very first successfull small heli that I can say I used as a trainer, althought, at about 30" in rotor diameterm it was still heavy to my standards, because it used a speed 400 motor, home made ESC and heavy Nicads. But It hovered nicely and stable since the head was made from fiberglass and had a good amount of rotor damping and suspension. Very simple FP design servos were positioned directly in line with the swashplate, muhc like many of my later designs and similar in setup to much of the more simpler FP micro helis of today.
Pre MIA Mee-Kro and MIA Sport LE, 20" trainer indoor heli, I often used a tether cord to hover in a small kitchen area because Nicads , at the time, offered very little flying time compared to today's battery technology. Many sleepless nights were my training sessions with this heli. This helicopter was extremely lightweight, because it used one single Speed 280 motor and an N20 for tail, to my knowledge, the very first heli in the world to use this particular Carbon Brush motor selection, for simplicity. The frame was made from light plywood and aluminum, with blades made from paper sheet laminated with resin and curved over a mold. Many of todays simple micro helis use the same technique of curving the blades as a single sheet (cambered blade, no airfoil) but instead of being paper laminated as I did them back in those years, they are plastic injection molded.
An RC derrivation of a Free-Flight electric heli Robin 3-50, I designed in earlier years made also from lightened carbon booms, laminated with resin paper blades as well as canopy sidewalls. It had a rotor of 20", used Speed 280 motor, N20 for tail, I learned FFF and circuits with derrivations of this helicopter in a back yard of no more than 20x30 Ft, perhaps the world's first true backyard helicopter flyer.
Derrivations of helis I produced in kit form that tought me advanced maneuvers.
   
Mario I. Arguello
micro-flight.com |
| 04-15-2007 Over year old. | | | |
. Badgered my parents to get me one for ages and they eventualy got annoyed of me nagging and bought me the whole lot second hand for christmas
. Was set up by Bill Paterson of Scottish Helicopters fame (please get back in business Bill!). After months of learning to hover and £££'s spent by dad on fixing boom strikes i took my first unintentional forward flight
. Dad was screaming "put it down!, put it down!
