Jorjo
Heliman
Location: Belfast NI
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Ole martin my email is
Jorjo@timebasecollective(DOT)com
Barcoes.
Congrats Barcoes.
Mine is sitting here as yet un flown and officially my first heli too. My plan was also the jet ranger shell, but on the advice of my local heli hero Dez Mc neil, (a guys that owns the local heli shop and the best part of thirty years of heli flyin) I skipped the shell for now and went pod n boom, the money I would have spent on the jet ranger shell, went on a piccilo fun as a trainer instead.
I'll get round to a scale shell as a bench project while i get it flying in it bra and knickers format
Now for the tricky bit, ie not offending the other members of runryder.
I built the 50, it was easy. then i discovered it maybe wasnt so much easy but more perfectly engineered. I wanted to do as much for myself as possabile and spent a day sorting out the fuel tank alone after it was built. it not so obvious but that uplift nozzle could suck it's self to the wall of the tank etc. also the fill method. all will be come apparent as you build, but the two pipe system mean you would be constantly removing the out let pipe to fill it thus I decided to add a third pipe for filling in through that pre marked indent in the tank bung. (splitting the brass pipe in two made this very easy) also Adding a fuel filter in both the filler pipe and outlet pipe will insure that the tank is always clean.
One other trick was fitting HALF of an extra screw thread type fule fliter on the end of the filler pipe and the other half to the pipe from My ground support filler pump, which effectivley tidys up the filling system.
all in all thats two filters for the fuel and an extra on with the gauze removed to form a simple filling coupler. the filters where under £2 each and nicely machined
[sigh] ok now the hard part, particularly when most of the guys here have years of experience and I don't
I admit I have very little flight time. Zero on the 50 so far, But! I did a lot of research before deciding on the 50 as my first major heli.
fist thing I can say is that the starlet is expensive by comparison to most, but it very clear that you get what you payfor. That alone probably explains why there are so few of us showin up on here. The design and construction when compaired to the raptors and shuttles etc is signifigantly more robust while remaining light. so I gotta say, right out of the box, Ive been most impressed with it.
However.
By the time I had it built and realised that I was the weak link in the chain. I decided and was advised to skip the scale shell initailly and buy an expendable heli to get the basics down.
Ive watched a lot of thread on here suggesting that a sim is the way to go and to be honest I can see the point for raptors and shuttles. but for a starlet I'd say no. By buying a piccolo fun (which is basicly a toy by comparison) instead of the shell, you can get over that "OH ****" feeling on your first flights. No sim in the world can create that feeling of responsibility when the dam thing lifts off and you realise that it all down to you from then. Don't even for a second think that my 50 will ever be a hanger queen. what Im getting at here is this. jump ahead a few months to when your competent even just to take of and land it.safely, and ask this question. would I hand over the controls to a guy that has never flown a heli? or would I give a guy that can fly a piccolo a chance?
Everything Ive heard form those I trust, the starlet 50 is very forgiving and easy to fly, but its also very capapble of extream flying. that kinda like my twin turbo supra sitting at the door, its a pussy cat too, but I would'nt fancy teachin a kid to drive in it, it could all turn ugly and expensive fast, I figure the starlet the same way.
Thus.
My game plan evolved after buying the best heli I could afford. into then also buying the cheapist heli that would fly as a trainer instead of a shell
Damn good job that I did buy the piccolo. Its sole purpose was to experience hovering and orientation before risking the starlet. so far its been an amazing experience. one slip and smash, but the piccolo just clips back together. the real experience is knowing that THAT would have been the starlet! To all accounts the piccolo is harder to fly, its small its twitchy and its expendable. the starlts weight alone dictates that inertia will make it a smoother fly.
Three or four weeks back I was in the same situ as yourself, cash on the hip and enthusiastic. Today. well nothings changed except that the cash is gone and the responsibility for keeping that investment intact forced a healthy dose of common savy into the equation.
Put a cheapo trainer into your learning curve between the sim and the starlet. The piccolo has cost me a "SMALL" fortune in replacement parts already. but its saved my starlet from becoming scrap in the clumsy hands of an inexperienced owner.
The short version!
Before investing in a scale body for your starlet.
Buy a cheapo electric instead for SCALE repair costs while getting the hang of flying.
tis way better laughing and thinking damn that was dumb and learning from it as the piccolo bites the deck, than standing petrified and frozen with your starlet in the air too soon.
BTW.Barcoes? i'm curious re yer ID. most of my production equipment is manufactured by Barco in Belgium
Jorjo |
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