Recreational Helicopters

I really want to build one of these things, not to kill myself, mainly for fun. Has anyone built their own Helicopter?

Do you know how to fly a helicopter? Its bloody hard, and I imagine that some of those are more unstable than average, so not best to learn on.

Don’t plan on “really” flying it, maybe put a remote control in and make a test run… if i could build a control to fly it, i could build a remote to practice with =P. anyways I was thinking of trying to build a miniature car.

not in it for the finished product, more for the building :slight_smile:

You make it, I’ll test it for you. :slight_smile:


Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!
~ She’s not crazy, just a little misunderstood… -Better Than Ezra

That’s the thing though - theyre just as hard to fly by remote control! (plus rigging it up with remote control sounds very hard to me).

Get a contra rotating helicopter instead I would say a Hokum or a Helix but that is Russian military hardware.

The Benson helicopter company sold a contra rotating helicopter but i think they went out of bussiness a while ago (they also made the flying bed)

With the contra rotating blades there is no torque so no need for a tail rotor and wind doesn’t do squat to you so you can fly faster and more lift is acheved since the power that would normally go into the tail rotor is put into the main rotors.It can also turn flat at any speeds

http://www.prismz.com/zipster/

seems to be one I would rather fly a Hokum though not just because its military hardware fast (350KMPH) has excellent lift , can do the funnel wheel of death etc etc, because thr Hokum has ejector seats.

I wouldn’t say that helicopters are hard to fly. I was hovering by the end of my first lesson. (I have a friend who flew Black Hawks in the army, and she said that most people take several hours to learn to hover. Maybe; but it wasn’t all that difficult.) Once you learn to hover, everything else is easy.

About stability: Fixed-wing aircraft are designed to have “positive stability” or “neutral stability”. The former means that the aircraft will return to stable flight after being disturbed. That is, if you have trimed your aircraft for straight-and-level flight and then bank it or dive it, you can let go of the controls. The aircraft will experience diminishing oscillations until it returns to straight-and-level. Neutral stability means that if you do something to the aircraft, then it will tend to stay where you put it. Helicopters, on the other hand, are inherently unstable. You can’t even let go of the cyclic stick or it will “fall off” in any direction. (I’ve heard this is not as noticeable on larger helicopter, so you can briefly let go. Briefly.) The pilot must make constant, subtle movements of the cyclic control to keep the helicopter flying. Once you get into it, it’s subconscious. The best way to learn how to make these subconscious movements is to not think about making them. You just let your body do it. Very Zen, actually.

Kit-built helicopters do not have a stellar crash record. One of the more popular ones is the Mini-500, a single seater. I don’t know the numbers, but someone on the boards pointed out that it had a poor record and that many had crashed. You can buy a used one for about $20,000. Maybe less. Another popular kit-heli is the Rotorway Exec 90. AFAIK, this two-seater has a better record. In addition to being safer, you can also carry a passenger. These kits go for about $60,000. By comparison, a used Robinson R-22 may cost $100,000. But that is an FAA-certified helicopter with a good record that you can rent out and give rides to paying passengers in (with the proper pilot rating). Experimental-category helicopters cannot be used for hire.

geepee mentions Russian helicopters. You might be able to pick one up for less than a comparable Western helicopter, but it will cost you more to operate. Also, you may only be able to register it in the Restricted category, which would severely limit its usefullness.

Now let’s say you build your kit heli. You can’t just get in and fly it. You can’t even get in and teach yourself how to fly it. You must have a license, which means that you must get training from a Certified Flight Instructor for helicopters (CFI(H)). Hie thee down to your local helicopter FBO (Fixed Base Operation) and take in introductory lesson. The first one is inexpensive.

Remote control? Why not just build a model helicopter kit? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper. I think Tower Hobbies has kits starting at a few hundred dollars, which is much cheaper than the tens of thousands you’d have to spend for something you can fly in.

But if you do build one and it passes inspection, I have a little grey piece of paper in my wallet that will let me try it out for you. :wink:

(hijack)
So if contrarotation helicopters are so much more stable why don’t I ever see any in the air?

Not being sarcastic, I am genuinely curious.
(/hijack)

Nymaz: I would suspect the main reason is expense. A single rotor blade for a Schweizer 300 costs around $13,000 or so. Tail rotors are less expensive. Also, a contra-rotating transmission would be much more complex than the usual setup. So would a transmission for an intermeshing rotor system. I don’t know if such an atypical aircraft is more stable than a typical one, but you do get rid of the torque effects for which the tail rotor exists. I’ve read (I think it was in Jane’s) that the Husky was declaired unsuitable for training because it was too easy to fly.

Designing aircraft is a compromise. You have to balance speed, range, payload, and expense. The single-rotor design with an anti-torque rotor has proven itself to be the most efficient design. Large dual-rotor helicopters such as the Boeing CH-46 and CH-47 have larger CG envelopes so they can carry more, and more bulky, equipment, or more passengers. Most helicopter operations do not require this, so other helicopters fill the role more efficiently.

Whatever you do, do NOT buy a Mini-500. It doesn’t just have a ‘poor’ safety record - it has an atrocious one. As in, most of the ones that were built have either crashed or are permanently grounded. Terrible design.

The Rotorway exec is a fine machine, though. But still, building a helicopter is not a task to be taken lightly, because there are so many moving parts. Airplanes are very simple by comparison.

Just don’t forget to tighten down the Jesus nut.

Sing with me!

"Oh, the Jesus nut will save your butt,
Be sure it’s good and tight.
You’ll get religion when you go,
On each and every flight.

And don’t forget to pray when flinging,
Through God’s most perfect sky…
'Cause if that Jesus nut comes off,
You can kiss your ass goodbye."

Nymaz: Think ‘chinook’

every time I post something I make a fool out of myself, should have thought about all this :frowning:

Nah…I’m still with ya!

When does construction start?

Think I found my test pilot… :smiley:

Go to MAKs in 2002 (the Moscow airshow) and you can see Kamov’s coaxial rotor designs (flying as well) they already use the Ka28 Helix for anti submarine ops , and the Hokum was used in Chechnya.The hokum was pitted against the Mi28 Havoc which is a conventional setup tail rotor thing and the hokum won Russians are only fielding two per year btw , oh and Mil keep saying the coaxial system isnt safe to try get more export orders.

Interestingly it looks exactly like the Benson’s helicopter the top picture does anyway and (in his design) the top rotor is free spinning like in a gyro copter so torque is reduced not completely canceled out on that one just reduced.

Also i doublt you’d be able to get a hokum i don’t know the specifics but they cost ALOT since they are better than the
AH-64A at least maybe even the D model.But stripping out the complex fire control systems and the radar might make it cheap.

As a minor addition i wouldn’t fly one of those things , + what will most likely get you killed is vortex rings which you can’t see , you just lose power and turn into a grand piano .Easy if you know the symptoms or you are at high altitude but for a panicy beginner (like me heh its scary)
though i am good in games.

Nah, if you get into a vortex ring state (settling with power) just fly out of it. The only times I’ve been in such a state has been in training so that I know what it’s like (yes, you intentionally get into a settling with power situation) and during the checkride. Although the FBO did lose one R-22 to settling with power, I think it’s a rare occurrance. (The pilot, who along with his father survived the crash uninjured, was low-time.)

I’d guess that “what will most likely get you killed” are failure to maintain rotor RPM, flying into something (cables and power lines seem popular), or mast-bumping due to putting negative Gs on a semi-rigid rotor system (like on the R-22).

http://www.cartercopters.com - this group is developing a two-seater prop/rotor driven aircraft. (IIRC) I found it rather interesting reading, myself. Can’t buy one yet, though :wink:

I got a discount coupon for $1000.00 in lessons from Rotorway a few years back. Valid if I bought their kit.

They may still train on their stuff.

d

      • There was some little company that used to sell build-it-yourself plans for little helicopters in the back of magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics (maybe they still do).
        The ad copy always said “Take off from your backyard!”.
        We always used to joke that the ad space wasn’t big enough, because they never had enough rooom to print the rest of that line:
        " -sustain critical injuries in your neighbor’s backyard!" - DougC