I finally got some time to work on the heli this past weekend. I drilled out the Raptor 60 frames to allow for a larger bolt (6/32) . I was quite lucky to have the landing gear align perfectly with the frames in the front. The photo above shows the Raptor 60 frot frame bolted directly on top of the landing gear.
I had to build up the back of the heli to get the tail boom angle correct. I bolted the front of the heli down and then marked the position of the rear frame holes. It was a little tedious but was necessary for a proper fit.
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In the photo to the right, you can see the rear landing gear struts. I did them a little different than the front pair. I noticed the real 500's tail angle down slightly when the heli is sitting level on the ground. I really didn't want to cut the thick metal gear legs and drill new holes to make the tail end shorter. My workaround was to add a piece of 3/16" plywood between the top deck and the bottom of the gear that is folded over on the top. This makes the gear mount further up inside the heli and accomplsihes my goal of dropping the tail a bit without the hassles of cutting the legs. After doing this the heli looked much better. It really made a difference in the look and it also helped straighten the main shaft so it is now almost perfectly straight up as it should be. |
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This photo shows the lift plates I installed under the gear to lower the height of the rear end of the heli. Notice the wood used to raise and strengthen the flooring so the heli sits at the right angle. The nose must be at a lower angle than the rear for the tail boom to align with the fiberglass shell. I used 1.5" 6/32 machine bolts with blind nuts to hold the tail end of the mechanics down. I just purchased some carbon fiber cloth in a 1"x10' strip and will be reinforcing the deck and former joints with the carbon fiber and epoxy. After everything is ready to be installed I will paint all the wood with SIG DOPE to seal and fuelproof the wood. |
I wanted to include the cool looking air intake nacelle that is on the front of every H500 I've ever seen. I didn't know what I would use to give me the smooth rounded intake so I looked around and found what I was looking for at the hardware store. I was in the plumbing area and found some copper tubing inserts that are flared. It was too long for what I needed so I cut it to length with my dremel. I fabricated some sides on the inside of the canopy and ducted the intake upwards. You can see in the photo I ground out the top of the insert and made a flat duct behind it and make a fillet on the bottom of the intake with some epoxy, this halps turn the air smoothly upward into the duct. I had a slight ridge around the piece so I added some red spotting putty and made a small fillet around the intake and sanded it smooth. Below the intake you see a white tube. As in the scale helis, they have their white landing light mounted in a tube angled downward slightly. I fabricated the tube out of an old Krazy Glue outer container. It tapered at the rear just the way I needed and was the correct diameter so I cut it out with the dremel and drilled a hole in the bottom. Once everything is painted I will actuall install the spotlight which came with my GEM Scale Heli Light kit. I chose the 6 light system and it is going to very cool. I plan on running an independant battery pack dedicated to the Nav. light kit so it won't drain my flight pack. |
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I will put a red flashing strobe on the vertical tail fin just above the tail gear box. I made a custom bracket to hold the light, I have pics down the page of the bracket. The other flashing red strobe will be surface mounted to the belly of the heli between the front gear struts, it is not centered, it is closer to the left side by a few inches. The white light will be on the crown of the heli just behind the main rotors. The green and red lights will be mounted in the scale position at the tips of the landing gear. It will take a bit of work but it should be worth the work to get the lights correct. Red is left and Green is right. The landing spotlight will go in the custom tube I made in the nose as shown in the photo above. |
Here is tail strobe light mounting bracket I made out of some thin aluminum stock I had laying around. The round light case will snap into the bracket from the top and I will secure it with some goop underneath. I've not determined how I will route the wire for this light. I could run it through the vertical fin down to the boom or leave it exposed until it enters the boom. I guess I'll make that decision later down the road but I'm leaning towrds running it outside as the scale one has a =n external cable for a short length. |
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Notice in the pitcure above, I extended the landing gear skids by 5 inches. I couldn't believe how short the supplied gear was after test fitting it. It was very distracting so I was determined to make something would work. I found some K & S Brass Tubing at my local hardware store. It was the exact size I needed, 15/32nds. The brass tubing was rather thin and the stock skids are quite thick I knew I would have to plug the tubes with different diameter inserts. I found some hardwood dowels at the store that fit insid ethe breass tubing.
The scale gear is quite long in the front extending out to the nose of the heli. I was very pleased with the look after extending the length, it finally looks correct. This is going to a pretty big helicopter, the H500 gear is very tall and the mechanics sit up another inch or two above the bottom of the fuselage.
I cut the dowel to 10 inches and took my dremel and gound down one half the dowel to a smaller diameter that would fit in the stock skids. It sounds like a lot of work but actually only took a few minutes to do each dowel and I only needed two. After a test fit I JB Welded the dowel into the landing gear skids and the brass tubing. I will fill any remaining seam with JB Weld and hopefully get a friend of mine to powdercoat it black for me. He powdercoated my Raptor 46 skidsw and tail boom supports and they look great. He has also powdercoated some exhaust pipes/mufflers with black gloss powdercoat. Looks great!
Below is a close up of the modified skids.
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Here's a shot of the mechanics during the test fitting into the body. The fiberglass had to be cutout behind the swashplate to allow clearance of the linkage. It looks like I will have to drill a small access hole for the starter shaft. I was hoping I would have room behind the fonr one piece canopy but it isn't practical to do so. My only other alternative would be to remove the canopy each time I crank the heli. I don't think I want to do that as I would end up damaging the canopy retaining bolts or something worse...
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