I finally painted the last color on the heli today. It was the insignia blue on the tail boom. Masking was much easier than the previous colors as I only had to follow the red and shoot the tail boom and tail feathers blue. I am very pleased with the color match of all the colors.
Here's a shot of the heli with most of the decals in place, just need a few details and I can shoot the clear on it.
The tail numbers are die cut silver vinyl and they look great. I didn't have any luck with the yellow decals that lay over the blue on the tail. They are from the clear vinyl and aren't opaque, once placed on the blue they faded in and were very difficult to see and these particular decals (DANGER>) must be very visible as they are safety related.
Here's a shot of the left side:
I got some flying in today and had a chance to test my scale exhaust system on the Raptor 60. Good news, my one foot exhaust is going to work just great! I have opened up the exhaust port on the scale body to accept the larger silicone exhaust tubing. This is silicone header tubing that is 3/4" I.D. and 1-1/8" O..D. It's a little heavier than I would have preferred but it is designed to handle the exhaust gasses and heat so I know it will be "safe" to use internally.
Here's a shot of the Raptor 60 with the exhaust tubing in place, I just have it looped on the tail boom with a long zip tie. I used two differnt sized pieces of tubing to step up the diameter to prevent back pressure problems.
I must say the OS61SX-WC is really getting powerful now after I've run several tanks through it, climbouts are strong without any sagging and I still haven't leaned the engine to peak performance. The added length of the exhaust doesn't seem to have caused any problems as far as the performace is concerned. I've put the 680 V-Blades back on it for now, I'll fly with these until I can get some FAI 680s that are around 200-210 grams.
Heres' some more pics:
