I plan to paint this 1/48 model as photoshopped in the photo. It’s a private helicopter in custom paint. I have a fantasy about owning a 1/10th r/c version of this model with on-board cameras and with such flying precision to function as a drone. I bet such a fine scale drone heli would cost what, $5,000? By the way, does anybody here build fine scale RC models?
They do make that kit. Not sure of the scale tho. I build mostly cars , buggy’s and trucks. Never done a helo or airplane. I am sure someone does.I plan on doing one with floats in the future but not at the moment.
Have you ever done SCALE R/C vehicles?
I have. Almost have 100 of them . I collect and restore them and at one point raced them . Startred in 1985 onboard an aircraft carrier.
I’ve got 5 or so gas/electric planes and a couple of electric helo’s but they are all ARF kits that required minimal assembly. I have seen the scale stuff and was thinking maybe some day merging my RC world with the scale world. Sure looks like fun. I watched some video a bit back where they had a meet and points were scored for scale appearance and required flight manuvers. Very, very cool. Do you do that stuff?
I have a couple cheap R/C toys. Two cars that are rather close to scale in body lines. A BMW police car and a Toyota Celica racer.
No ‘hobby-grade’ R/C models yet. I think you have to be a master machinist to do that. I know of no hobby-grade Bell 205 helicopter R/C kits in any degree of “scale”. Some master machinists make each and every scale part by hand. Here is a beautiful Kenworth logging truck fabricated by hand at home. This man has a video series on his truck. Hand-built from scratch-made aluminum parts and custom painted to look like the real deal. Many detailed scale R/C models have to be scratch-built. There are some who scratch-build static models as well, I believe. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of true-scale R/C model kits on the market. There are a bunch of R/C “models” that are not scaled on any real-world boat, plane or vehicle. Fine scale R/C is a rich man’s exclusive club.
My first R/C toy was a RTR Radio Shack/Tandy Corp. BMW racer back in 1983. The car retailed $40 back then and it did have such gee-whizz advanced features as DIGITAL PROPORTION steering AND throttle control as well as reverse. The car could be controlled precisely and variably, not merely “all or nothing” at the gas pedal or steering wheel. I don’t recall the car’s having operational lights, however. These cheap cars nowadyas often have operational lights but no DP controls. To get DP control these days, one more or less has to go with a “hobby grade” R/C vehicle with its attendant high price tag, many of them not “real-world scale” but racing buggy type things.
I was at an airshow recently, over watching the R/C demo.
One guy had a pretty large scale helicopter. After he flew it around a bit, he landed it, unfortunately on an airfield several feet lower in altitude than we were.
“Oh well, there goes $ 5,000”, he said.
I’ve always wanted an R/C ship. Maybe some day.
Bill
There a a lot of RC’ers here. I myself was pretty heavly into it and sratchbuilding in the 90’s. I still have many many plans and a few planes. I have’nt held a radio in a while though.
I collect and restore thetamiya ones. Also raced and competed the traxxas trucks . Just the small time stuff. I love building them they are not hard to do. Tried the helos a few times and learned the laws of gravity very quickly. All mine are electric except the big one that has a weed wacker motor in it. I will bebuilding a display this summer hopefully if all goes well and will post pics of them.I am planing to start a club in this area soon that will have all types of RC venues along with model building.
Here is a big scale Bell 205 that is gas powered. My ideal Bell 205 would be 1/10 scale, lithium battery powered, have scale crew figures and a scale German shepherd dog figure in the cabin. The bird would be called AMERICAN ORIGINAL and be painted Grape purple. My helicopter would have precise collective/cyclic/torque/throttle control and all the correct working navigation lights. The bird might also feature auto-hover and a camera for areial photography in drone fashion. I’m experienced piloting virtual aircraft in Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe.
I doubt if this man’s model came from any off-the-shelf kit:
That most likely will be something you will have to build yourself. Its not hard. You will have to search for all the stuff that you will need but its all out there. The best and rewarding part of it is that you will be able to fly it when your done. building it is alot of the fun and the learning along the way is very rewarding to. I suggest checking out a local club in your area and ask alot of questions .I bet they will be more than happy to help you out.
Getting in with a local club can be very rewarding and informational. My local RC flying club even kicked in to help me with a boat model. There were a number of definite differences in how things are done, but none-the-less, they were very helpful.
It is a 1/12 scale Vietnam era "Tango’ boat (that’s a queen sized bed it’s sitting on)
Once a year we have what we we call the Helicopter Scale Masters at our R/C field near Sacramento. Here is a link to some photos form last year.
(22) RC SIKORSKY MH-60T JAYHAWK 6010 SCALE RESCUE HELICOPTER MISSION OVERSEAS - YouTube
A Sikorsky USCG model. The landing gear isn’t retracting, I don’t think. All battery powered.
I have done some Google searches and there is stuff at websites outside of America. There are scale heli kits available in the world. There is an outfit called VARIO. This particular kit is 1:8. It can be fully battery powered. No IC engines. How does one attach a drone camera to a scale model heli for aerials? How about auto-hover control? In theroy, the heli would just automatically hover in place with no control input. These r/c drones you buy with cameras don’t look like “real world” helicopters at all. It would be kind of special to have a scale heli with drone camera capabilty.
I like the notion of all-electrc model helicopters. Clean and quiet. Lower maintenance. Probably less expensive.
Bell 205 UH-1D 1:8 - Fuselage kit Motorization Electric Skyfox (vario-helicopter.com)
Local clubs are the best. They can help with any problems and doing updated work or parts. Thats why I always recomend them. They helped my out emensely with all kinds of stuff. I even started 2of them in the twin cities. After 20 years they are still going strong. I have moved from there and planing on starting 2 more. One for RC and another for models. Thats why I recomend them .
Oh, by the way, this scale R/C hobby is not for the poor. It might not be feasible for many to try to get into. Still, it seems to have a much less following in America. Americans want cheap, fast and ready to go. There are these toy grade things and these drones which don’t even look like a real-world helicopter at all.
Fine scale modeling … not cheap, not fast and not ready to go and lots of Americans [:P]
Maybe look into some of the scale body kits. I have a couple Align TREX 450s and there are some pretty nice body kits that are reasonably priced. I’ve been considering doing an MD500 if I get back into flying.
Hoo Ya I totaly agree with you. It can be extremely rewarding and very informational. Not only that you can make some friends and learn other things as well. Also why I like to recomend local clubs.
I don’t think many Americans especially young Americans have the patience for fine-scale R/C modelling. Some of them are quite well-to-do too. I think gaming and tech-geek stuff has derailed traditional modelling, either R/C or static.
I actually play the Auran/NV3 Trainz railroad simulator and have a 1/10 scale outdoor layout that is virtual. It has autonoumous trains, boats, automobiles and trucks running as well as autonomous horse-drawn wagons. Autonomous airplanes are also available but not on this virtual layout of mine. I can drive the trains by hand as well. I do have an Army Huey helicopter flying on this layout with a door that opens to reveal a machine gunner when hovering down to the helipad. My virtual outdoor layout covers about 422 virtual acres, 2/3 of a section (square mile) of land. The landscape is a rural American Pacific Northwest theme and heavilly forested. My fantasy is that this might actually be a billionaire’s PHYSICAL layout with autonomous operating scale vehicles that would be cost-prohibitive in the real world.