Conference vmszoo::rc

    Ken,
    I want to wish you the best of luck with your new purchase.  I would
    be interested on how the Concept works out.  It looks like it could
    be a very good chopper to practice in the back yard with, where
    the .61 size are a little large, although I do get some hover practice
    in the back yary.  Keep us posted on how you make out.

		________
	 /	  __|__  
	=========[_____\>
	/	__|___|__/  BREAK A BLADE,
			    Ken    	

	O.K. Ken - You asked for it :-)     (There's more on the way)
        
    	Having balanced the head, blasted round the countryside, and cunsumed 
a small quantity of frothing ale, I returned to the task in hand and turned to 
the next page of the "Step-by-step Guide to Building a Concept 30".

Step 4 - Installation of Landing Gear.
	All this entails is bolting the preformed undercaraige to the main 
frame (having selected the correct bolts by matching them with the inset
picture), locking the skids in position and fitting the canopy catch. The
landing gear comprises two aluminium tubes (turned up at the front) supported 
by two plastic (firm but very flexible), almost U-shaped, 'straps' which are 
bolted to the base of the frame. The skids are then alligned and held in place 
by a grub screw in each leg. (I don't know why they didn't set these in the 
right place at the factory, but then :- "Theirs not to reason why...")

Step 5 - Fit the rotor head.
	Now that the frame has a nice stable base and the head is all balanced 
up, we bring the two together. Nice and simple - connect the cyclic control 
rods to the blade pitch arms (no measurements given here - just make sure that 
the rods supplied are equal in length), pop the whole head onto the main shaft, 
secure with the 'Jesus Bolt', and hook up the dangling rods to their 
respective ball joints as per the piccy. At first glance, I thought they had 
the drawings wrong but then I followed the snaking arrows more closely and 
discovered the truth. It's not that the drawings are bad, it's just that as 
everything is drawn in black you can sometimes 'lose the trail' of the arrows 
in amongst the rest of the diagram - particularly when two run parallel. The 
collective control rods are the trickiest to fit as the swash plate can get in 
the way a little but all you have to do is rotate the head a little bit to get 
at the ball joints. A cautionary note here, with acompanying diagram, warns 
you not to snap the ball joint connectors too far over the ball (ie right over 
the ball, rattling about on the 'neck'), which I thought was a little 
unnecessary, particularly since the connectors are quite hard to pop on and it 
is obvious when they snap into place, but then I'm used to ball joints and 
given that the whole system feels a little on the stiff side, some beginners 
could be forgiven for thinking that they had done it wrong and asume that the 
balls are there to stop the connectors fall off (well maybe). Well, anyway, 
the whole mechanism goes together very well and there is NO sloppyness that I 
could see (on the contrary - things feel a little too stiff, but as it's all 
made of plastic {or glass reinforced nylon or whatever} I assume things will 
loosen up with use), so it's on to the next stage.

Step 6 - Connect the tail boom.
	This is an absolute doddle! The whole tail boom, drive shaft, gearbox, 
rotor, fins and pitch control rod come as one pre-assembled piece. There are 
four bolts at the rear of the main frame that need to be loosened off a little 
and then you just slot the boom into the hole (taking care to engage the drive 
shaft correctly) up to the mark that you are told to make 47.5mm back from the 
end (this is just to make sure that it is FULLY home). There are two big slots 
on the boom that locate onto two lugs inside the main frame for alignment so 
that the only thing you could do wrong is put it on upside down (which is
immediatly apparent)! The drive shaft connection is quite clever yet
wonderfully simple -  the wire shaft is shaped to a hook-eye loop at the end
which engages in a slot in the rear of the drive dog coming from the main
drive. There is a slotted hole on the outside of the main frame to hold the
control rod snake to stop it waggling about and a ball joint on the end of the
rod (like a wheel collet with a ball sticking out at 90 degrees to the axle)
to be connected later to another push rod. The whole assembly has been
designed so that it can be removed and re-fitted, with no change to the tail
rotor pitch settings, in a matter of seconds (ie pop 1 ball joint, loosen 4 
bolts, and pull!). All this was so simple that I elected to remove the tail 
boom while I installed the radio gear 'cause it just gets in the way.

Step 7 - Installation of servos.
	This, like everything else with this 'kit', is quite straight forward.
There are two sets of instructions - 1 for a 4 servo installation and 1 for a 
5 servo job - the only difference being the conncection of the throttle and 
pitch control rods. The layout is quite good with three (or two) servos (fwd.
cyclic {refered to as elevator}, pitch and throttle) fitted stacked on their
sides immediatly forward of the main shaft, the other two ('rudder' and
'aileron') fitted vertically, side by side, forward of these above an open
compartment for the gyro, and the nicad, receiver and gyro amp stacked on a 
small platform at the very front of the frame. There are 10 small clamps and 
20 appropriate screws supplied to retain the servos as the locating holes are 
pre-drilled, which may cause a problem if you are not using 'standard' size 
servos. My nice new Futaba S3001 servos fitted perfectly so the only 'trouble' 
I encountered here was getting at the screws from 'under' the servos to screw 
them into the little plastic clamps placed 'on top' of the servo mounting 
lugs. The instructions tell you to use the rubber supplied with your R/C gear, 
but not any brass eyelets, and to ensure that you mount all the servos facing 
the right way and the right way round and also point out the correct way to 
fit the little clamps.
 
Step 8 - Installation of radio and gyro.
	With all the servos in place, we move on to 'stuff in the business'. 
They certainly thought about everything (damn near it anyway) when the put 
this little offering together. Another picture/map shows how and where to fit 
the nicad, receiver, gryo, gyro amp, switch, gyro switch and all the cables.
There's even a layout of how to cut up the strip of double sided tape supplied 
with measurments for all the various places it is to be used (which I didn't 
notice until I'd used it all up - should've paid more attention!). Two small 
plastic 'clips' are provided, to fit between the two forward servos to keep the 
leads out of the way and all neat and tidy, and a bracket to hold the R/C 
switch and gyro rate control box (if you are using a dual rate gyro like the 
Futaba 153) which is to be stuck to the 'bottom' of the pitch control sevo. My 
only complaint about the radio layout was that they tell you to stick the gyro 
amp on top of the receiver, the receiver on top of the nicad, and the whole 
lot on to the platform on the front (retained more securely by the rubber band 
they supply), which I thought looked a bit vulnerable without any foam padding 
or anything. So I decided to stick down the nicad pack wrap the receiver and 
gyro amp in a piece of foam tubing stuff, and place this little bundle on top, 
retained by the afore mentioned rubber band (I don't think there is enough 
room to pad the nicad pack too) which made me feel a little better. O.K.
everything looks good, neat, tidy and safe - the next bit is going to be FUN!

Step 9 - Connect control rods part 1 - 'aileron' and 'elevator'
	This is where I had to remember what the chap in shop had said :-
The instructions tell you to select the hole in the servo output disk that is 
10mm from the centre. As I had been warned, the standard Futaba disk is not 
that big, so that was discarded and I selected the 'six pointed star' servo 
arm from the little bags. These have a hole exactly 10mm from the centre. 
Fine, on with the rest of it. As usual, no problems. Just select the rod that
matches the measurments specified in the instructions, screw on the ball joint
connector fairly well, line up the bell cranks and levers as per the picture 
(ie all 90 degrees or level etc.), and with the servos at neutral with the 
output arms at 90 degrees, adjust the ball joint to fit. Simple, the only mod 
being the diferent servo output arms which (in the case of the 'elevator') 
needed the redundant arms chopped off in order to clear the other servos. All 
looks well and, as far as my eye could tell, everything lined up fine.

Step 10 Connect control rods part 2 - pitch and throttle.
	The pitch setup went pretty well to plan, after making sure that I was 
reading the correct set of instructions (ie 'In Case of 5 Servos'), trimmed 
the servo output arms, and adjusted everything 'by the book', the only problem 
was that at one end of the full servo travel, there wasn't quite enough travel 
in the pitch control mechanism. "Never mind", I thought, "this wonderfull 
radio can handel minor problems like that", so I set up the Normal pitch curve 
with enough reduced movement to stop the servo stalling. Now to set up the 
throttle linkage. Ah now here we have a small problem. Using the control rod 
specified, there was no way things were going to link up - it was just too 
long. So I refered to the fly sheets that I had been given, which were amended 
versions of some of the manual pages specific to the UK version of the kit. In 
the UK the kit comes with an Enya 30, but the original version comes with an 
OS 28 wich apparently has the throttle lever a bit further forward and the 
control rods provided don't allow for this. The supplimentary instructions 
seemed to deal with the 4 servo set up, bit were not too clear about my 
version (either that or I was just too tired to figure out the true meaning of 
the translation). Anyway, as it was now about 3 a.m. I decided that enough was 
enough for now, and made a mental note to pop in to the model shop tomorrow to 
check things out with the bloke what flogged it to me (he flies one himself so 
I guessed he would know ALL the answers).
	In the mean time however, as I started to tidy up a bit, when I picked 
up the canopy (still with its windscreen tentativly taped in it approximate 
intended position) the words uttered in jest (only just) back at the shop :-
"There is actually a little bit of modelling required - you have to trim the
windscreen with a pair of scissors!" forced me to have a quick inspection.
Before I knew what had happened, I had grabbed the kitchen scissors and began
to trim the quarter of an inch or so spare flash off the windscreen. "Just a
quick five minutes" I thought as I tried the top edged up to the body to see how
I was getting on, and so after about 45 minutes I had the windscreen all
nicely trimmed, held in place by the appropriate strips cut carefully from the
decal sheet and was just thinking about applying some more of the pretty
stickies when the hourly chime on my watch went "BEEP!" as if to say "Hey
mush! - Are you indending staying here all night?!?!". So at 4 a.m. I
reluctantly lay everything to one side and gave up for the night. 

	If you're still awake after all that - well done! My wee fingers are 
getting a mite tired so I'll fill in the exploits of Friday and the weekend in 
another reply. If I havn't bored the pants off you yet, by the time I've 
finished this 'article', you'll either dread the site of a Note with the words 
"RDGE44::LEEK_9" at the top, or hopefully, want to go out and by a nice new 
Concept 30 and join the fun!

Bye for now,

Ken.

    
And finally....
    
    	Friday was a new day, and before departing for a high speed dash and a
late arrival at work, I surveyed the previous nights work. "Nearly there!", I 
thought, "Only that throttle linkage to sort out, re-fit the tail boom and 
blades, fix up the tail rotor pitch linkage, a few more pretty stickies and 
get it all checked out. Not a lot to do." All that would have to wait though, 
there's a little thing called 'work' which always gets in the way of fun but 
without which there would be no pennies to pay for said fun!. Fortunately it 
was a rather quiet day, most of it spent reading Notes and pondering over the 
prospect af a fun weekend playing with the new toy. (This Note was born more 
out of frustration at being stuck at work when I had better things to do than 
anything else, but as it has progressed from a "Hey look! I've got a new toy!" 
to a _sort_ of a 'kit review', I hope it is of some interest.)

	As I knew that the model shop stayed open late on a Friday (as much 
for a chin-wag as for last minute puchases it seems), I stopped off on the way 
home to see if I could find out what I had done wrong (if anything) with that 
throttle linkage, and also to try and get some idea of how I should set up all 
the wonderful whizz-bang bits of the new radio. I transpired that Andrew (the 
'bloke what flogged it to me', I forget his last name) hadn't actually built 
his model - it was a promo gift. Anyway, he hauled it out and we had a look at 
the throttle set-up. As I had suspected, the throttle servo has to be 
installed the opposite way round to that pictured in the instructions, and 
upon re-reading the UK-specific fly-sheet you CAN (just) translate the 
translation in such a way as to indicate this fact (it's doesn't state "Turn 
the servo round" or anything quite as explicit). Andrew also pointed out that 
if you install the R/C switch in the little bracket provided and position it 
where the instructions say, then it tends to get in the way of the canopy a 
little and can be inadvertantly switched off when fitting the canopy. As he is 
using the same 154 gyro as I am (without the rate control box), he suggested 
doing away with the bracket all together (so I did!).[I wouldn't have thought 
that this would present a problem as it is not necessary at any time, during 
normal opperation, to remove the canopy. But then I asume he can speak with 
some experience!]
	So, after concluding that it was not necessary at this stage to worry 
about any fancy settings on the part of the radio, and getting rough 
directions to a heli fly-in on the Sunday (where everyone was going and 
therefor would not be around the local flting sites to give any assistance), I 
headed off for home, all set to complete the little beauty. Now where was I? 
Oh yes,

Step 10a - Connection of throttle control rod.
	With this new information, it was a fairly simple job to turn the 
servo around so that the output arm was now at the far end (ie away from the 
engine). This brought it directly in line with the pitch servo arm above, 
necessitating a little bit more trimming of servo arms for clearance. A small 
amount of adjustment provided the correct range of movement, albeit in the 
wrong direction. With the servo now turned round, it was no longer possible to 
attach the control rod to the bottom of the servo output arm as the main frame 
would get in the way (in fact there is much more clearance this way round than 
there is in the 'conventional' layout - the instructions even point out that 
you may have to bend the control rod slightly in the standard layout). You may 
think, as a result of this, "Why didn't they design it this way round in the 
first place?" Simple, up to now ALL the servos opperate in the 'posative' 
sense, and only due to this 'non-standard' modification, was there any need to 
have a servo reversing funtion. This is a piece of cake with a flashy radio - 
just press a few buttons in the correct sequence, and hey presto - we now have 
a propely funtioning throttle/pitch mix.

Step 11 - Connection of 'rudder' control.
	As I said earlier, I had elected to remove the tail boom during radio 
installation to make the job a little easier (and I would strongly suggest 
that anyone else do the same - apart from general ease, there is no chance of 
accidently whacking the tail rotor on the edge of the table or knock over your 
can of beer!!!), so the first thing I did was re-install it. Two minutes later 
I had the servo rod through its hole in the side-frame, connected to the servo 
(making sure that BOTH throttle AND rudder were set to neutral {like it says 
in the book}!) and was fitting the 'off-set joint'. Let me see if I can 
explain this control set-up :-    A straight push-rod comes form the servo 
output arm, extending past the drive gears through a guide hole in the side 
frame and is terminated with a large ball joint connector set at an angle so 
that the ball part (the whole actually) is stepped in towards the side frame 
by about half an inch. This connects to the ball on the end of the snake 
attached to the tail boom (described earlier) and forms the adjustment part of 
the linkage (although you could also re-postion the ball-collet-thing on the 
snake but you'd have to be careful not to foul the snake outer or retaining 
slot). What this means is that you get a pretty straight linkage (past the 
transfer gear) with a hand snap-on/off joint in the middle so that you can 
remove the tail boom for transit or storage (or the dreaded repairs!). I 
thought it was all pretty neat! Unfortunately this set-up does introduce a 
certain amount of slack/sloppyness (the only bit there is I think!) to the 
system, but not a lot and there is ample throw available (I think).

That is basicly it! Apart from decorating the canopy with the pretty stickies 
supplied (much of this is even diagramed so you can all look the same!) which 
is the next step in the manual (the one I had jumped to at 3 a.m. the other 
night).

After that, the manual goes on to check the pitch set-up using the little 
pitch guage supplied (a piece of cardboard with a blade-shaped hole in the 
middle and a couple of lines indicating 0 degrees, 6 degrees and the top edge 
is 10 degrees) which you push on to the blade (once you've put them back on
taking care to put the marked blade in the marked holder, the right way
round!), stand back a bit and line up the fly-bar with the lines at the
appropriate stick positions. I managed to get a little more range on mine
(about -2 thru +12 ish) 'cause I've been swatting up on magazines an' stuff!
(the transmitter set-up can reduce the amount of travel if required so I
thought "What the hell"). 

As I mentioned in my first installment, I decided to re-check the balance of 
the blades which I found to be if perfect balance, but since I know a tiny bit 
about setting up choppers, I put one of the nice tracking tape pieces on one 
blade (to help with any tracking adjustments) and balanced it with clear 
sellotape ('scotch tape' I think you foriegn chaps call it) on the other.


	So there we have it - 1 complete new Concetpt 30 - all set for a 
maiden fight. Oh no it's not! I havn't finished the pretty stickies! So I 
settle down with the scissors for a couple of hours carfully cutting out the 
flashy bits and sticking them on in the appropriate places - several hours 
actually 'cause I couldn't help picking up the tranny from time to time and 
PLAYING WITH IT! err... testing to make sure that everything went the right 
way realy ... honest Guv! Good job too as it turned out - I forgot to set the 
gyro sense to Reverse like it says in the book. Fixed that and carried on 
playing err.. testing I mean, until about 2 a.m. when the transmitter started 
to complain that the battery was flat! So I stuck the whole lot on charge for 
15 hours and finished the decoration. That meant that Saturday was not on for 
the first flight (just as well 'cause I slept through most of it) so it looked 
like I would have to make a trip to the fly-in (not the BEST place to trim out 
a new chopper, but plenty of experienced fliers around) or give it a try on my 
own on Sunday. Good sense prevailed and I set off for Bath (without any idea 
of how far away it was) on the Sunday lunchtime. But that's another story....

Don't miss the next installment. Not available at any newsagent or bookstore.

Come soon to this screen..... 'Flight of the Concept'

'nuff for now (did I _realy_ write that much?!?!)

Ken.
    

    Better late than never ('though some may say that's back to front)

    Having re-read the previous attempts at portraying my enthusiasm for this 
little beauty and found it incredibly boring, I will try to contain myself 
and keep this short and to the point.

		--------------------------------------

Basically - IT FLIES! - and rather well too (I think).

	After a couple of late nights putting it together and _playing_ with 
it, I went along on the Sunday (late) to the Bath Heli-Meet to find Andrew (the 
bloke what flogged it to me) to see if I could get it trimmed out. The engine 
(ENYA 30 as supplied) burst into life with very little effort and seemed to 
run fine, set as per the instructions. The first sign of trouble was an 
occasional screech, emanating from the area of the clutch, accompanied by a 
twitch in the rotors (still being held). This became more of a problem when 
we tried to get it off the deck - engine flat out, but not enough rotor 
speed. A spot of oil in the clutch bell bearing (no ball races here) seemed
to solve this and Andy took it out, spun up the blades, and up she went! 
GREAT! It is very rewarding seeing a new 'toy' doing what it is supposed to 
for the first time! So, after a few minor trim changes, and a couple of nice 
stable little hovers, Andy complimented my setting up (?) and passed me the 
box! All credit to that man - he stood there in the rain with me while I ran 
through about half a tank of fuel hopping tentatively up and down, somehow 
managing to keep the thing in an area about 30' square. 
	I was a little nervous at first about trying this without the
'chicken-sticks' on, but soon learned that, as Andy said, if you are a
*little* aggressive and have the nerve to pick it off the ground reasonably
quickly, it is _much_ easier. The first two inches are the worst! This was no
bowling green we were flying off! Most of the ground was fairly un-even and
the grass was about 2-3 inches long. Once I had got the hang of getting the
rotor disc horizontal, give it a bit of pitch, and correct the cyclic when
it came off the ground, I began to wonder what all the fuss was about - 
until it started drifting off a bit!. I also learned (quite quickly) not to
bang the throttle stick all the way back when 'dropping' the ship in a state
of panic when it started moving off somewhere and all my frantic stick
wiggling wouldn't stop it! This, I was told, would very soon result in an
expensive boom-strike and was not a good idea - all that is required is to
ease off the pitch a little and it falls *reasonably* gently back to mother
earth.

	So the maiden flight of the CONCEPT 30, though not entirely trouble
free, was regarded (at least in my eyes) as a major success! Most of the 
credit for this success I feel, must go to that Japanese chap (I forget his
name) who designed this superb little machine. It seems to be very stable yet 
still has plenty of response (I know - I wasn't always very gentle with the 
sticks!) and hasn't as yet shown any nasty anti-beginner tendencies!

	Since that first rather wet flight, I have had about half a dozen 
enjoyable outings with it. The clutch has given a few problems, which I think 
I have managed to overcome, namely - the plain bearing, being about half an 
inch of metal-to-glass-filled-nylon (or whatever the bell is made of), needs 
to be lubricated with some kind of resilient oil/grease - I used Triflo 
Teflon penetrating oil, and I also had to bend out the shoes of the one-piece 
clutch a little as it was having difficulty engaging resulting in a machine 
sitting on the ground with the engine screaming it's poor little head off. 
There is a ball-raced clutch option available at about �20 which might be a 
good investment if the bearing continues to give trouble but this appears to 
be O.K. at the moment.
	It has also been unceremoniously 'dumped' on a few occasions (OK - 
quite a lot!) and has stood up pretty well. It's had one very minor boom 
strike, which put a tiny dent in the boom, and a rather major one last night 
(both blades judging by the dents) which bent the end of the boom about 15-20 
degrees, mashed the tail rod pitch push rod, and pretty well knackered at 
least one of the main blades. This is the second set of blades 'cause I 
ditched it on a previous occasion and snapped the ball joints off both the
mixing arms for the flybar linkage as well as splitting one blade about an
inch from the end in the process. These mixing arms are, unfortunately, only
available has a full set of four arms plus all bearings (plain bearings on
the DX, ball-raced for the SE, about 50% more expensive) and I hope they are 
not as vulnerable as I thought they were when I saw that both had snapped in 
the same place.

	To sum it all up, I am delighted! I think it's a well designed, easy 
to maintain, stable, responsive and even good looking piece of hardware. 
Either I'm a natural heli-pilot (*not* very likely - more like hellish!) or 
this chopper is very easy to fly. It seems that every time I take to the air 
with it, I have a great time with fewer and fewer 'incidents' and fits of 
panic. The only trouble is I start getting cocky and end up having more 
destructive incidents.

	I love it!

	Lots of thanks must go to Andy from Frontier Models for all his help
and encouragement, especially for getting wet with me at Bath!

Ken.

P.S.	I hope I haven't been too boring!

    Last Friday my new Concept 30 showed up. I spent the weekend putting
    it together. The instructions say it should only take 5 hours to
    assembleand another hour at the field to trim. What I ended up with was
    a little different. I think I had around 9 hours in the assembly and 5 
    minutes inthe trim. After getting some glitches squared away Monday I
    went out Tuesday morning for the maiden flight. 

    Flight conditions were sunny with a brisk 10 mph wind out of the
    North-West with gust to 15 mph. Once I got the engine running the
    Concept 30 got light on its skids and lifted off the pad needing a lot
    of right rudder trim to keep the nose from swinging. That was it for
    adjustments. The blades were in track, cyclic was perfect, and the
    collective/throttle mix would be hard to beat. All I had to do to get
    this amount of perfection was follow the manual.

    I had left the one allen wrench I needed to adjust the rudder trim back
    on the work bench so I limited my flying to hovering and some low
    figure eights. I had expected the 30 sized ship to get bounced around a
    bit in the wind but it was as steady as a rock. I was going to compare
    the Concept to my Cobra but I thought of an even better comparision. 
    Flying the Concept 30 feels like flying my friend's GMP Stork. Very
    stable. It amazes me that a 30 sized ship would compare so favorably
    (as in I can't tell them apart) to a 60 sized ship. 

    Right now I'm running a stock DX Concept with the heavy flybar paddles.
    When I get more comfortable with the Concept 30, I'll replace the heavy
    aluminum paddles with the plastic paddles and see how a more responsive
    Concept compares to the Cobra. Speaking of changes, when I was putting
    the tail rotor together I noticed that it would be really simple to
    change the two-bladed tail over to a 3 or more blade tail unit. If I
    get some spare time and money I may do just that for the fun of it.

    Overall, I guess I have to admit I'm more impressed with the little
    beast than I thought I'd be. The only thing I can think of that would
    make it better is to have it bigger.
                                                        /     \ /
Dan Eaton - Demented                                   /      / \ 
            Dragonfly                                 /       #  
            Pilot                                    /        #
                                                    /        #
                                                   \       # 
                                                  //@@@ #
                                                 / l @##  .  
                                                /   #@   .
                                               /        .
                           @                  /       \.
                          _/\
                            /\_
                            l 
                                                       

Congratulations Dan, 

    Welcome to the C.C.O.C. (Contented Concept Owners Club).

Kyosho certainly seem to have hit on a winner with this 'little beast' (which 
for some reason has been nick-named the Condom in our local club). As regards 
making it better (who said "Big is Best" ?), I have heard a rumour, _only_ a 
rumour mind you, that a larger version may be on the horizon. Judging by the
number of guys around here who are putting OS 32's into their toys and
burning up the skies (if you look at the opening in the cooling shroud for
the cylinder it looks like it was meant for a 32), a 50-60 sized Concept
would be very well received. 

    Just to get up-to-date, since April, I have had many hours of fun getting
to grips with the little bu**er. Once the initial frequency of boom-strikes,
heavy landings and all-out crashes reduced to a managable level, I decided to
make it look more like a real chopper so I bought it a new suit of clothes,
namely the Kyosho Hughes 500 E bodyshell. I find orientation a lot easier
with a bodyshell on, so I decided to try and find a shell for my Mini-Boy
too. There don't seem to be many of these around but I have discovered that,
with a bit of surgery to the woodwork, the Hughes 500 shell should fit quite
well so I've gone and bought the EZ Jet Ranger shell for the Condom. Both
ships are grounded at the moment, 'cause I like to be a little different, and
rather than just put together the supplied bits and stickies like every other
Joe Punter, I am trying to think up a nice original paint job for the Jet
Ranger, and the Mini-Boy is 'under the knife'. 

Anyway, good luck with your new baby, 


CONCEPTion is the BEST fun!

Ken.

>Kyosho certainly seem to have hit on a winner with this 'little beast' (which 
>for some reason has been nick-named the Condom in our local club). As regards 

    'Condom' huh, I like it. Now that you mention it, that indestructable 
    plastic they use on the canopy does have a latex look to it. 8^)

>making it better (who said "Big is Best" ?), I have heard a rumour, _only_ a 
>rumour mind you, that a larger version may be on the horizon. Judging by the

    Bigger is better. No doubt about it. That being the case, if the
    designer of the Concept 30 can scale it up to a 60 sized machine
    without looseing something in the translation, he'll have a helicopter
    that will beat any on the market today. The scale up is probably a lot 
    easier to say than do though.

    I went out this morning to put the second flight on my Concept and
    found out there is a difference between it and my Cobra. The first half
    of the flight was great. Then I was sitting in a hover about 5 feet up
    when the tail started swinging all over the place. I got it down ok and
    found that the gyro was bad. I disabled it and had a go at flying
    without the gyro. You have to be real quick on the sticks to keep from
    getting in trouble even with the ATS helping. In contrast, I flew my
    Cobra for about six months without a gyro. The extra mass does help
    damp the tail response.

>make it look more like a real chopper so I bought it a new suit of clothes,
>namely the Kyosho Hughes 500 E bodyshell. I find orientation a lot easier
>with a bodyshell on, so I decided to try and find a shell for my Mini-Boy

    I'm trying to resist the temptation to put a scale fuselage on the
    Concept.  Doing so would probably require getting a different muffler
    since I'm running the OS28 with the new MACs wonder pipe. Since both of
    my Cobra's are now destined to end up in scale ships I'd like to keep
    the Concept in a pod and boom configuration. You're absolutely right
    about the orientation being easier with the bodyshell on which may make
    me change my mind down the road.
    
 
>well so I've gone and bought the EZ Jet Ranger shell for the Condom. Both

    What are these shells made of? The pictures I've seen of the Kyosho
    Hughs 300 conversion look like they use the same plastic for the body
    shell as they did on the canopy. Must hold up well to the abuse but be
    difficult to paint if true. The EZ ads claim they use an automotive
    plastic. Whats the deal here? If I were to put a scale fuselage on the
    Concept it would probably be the EZ Bell 222 UT. What did you do about
    the tail rotor since the Concept has its rotor on the left and the Jet 
    Rangers should be on the right?

>Joe Punter, I am trying to think up a nice original paint job for the Jet
>Ranger, and the Mini-Boy is 'under the knife'. 

    Coming up with an original paint scheme for the Jet Ranger can be a
    bit difficult. That's why my Jet Ranger is painted up in a Canadian
    Armed Forces scheme. If I had another one to do I think I'd try the US
    Navy scheme that one of the photo pac places offers documentation on.

Dan Eaton

>    when the tail started swinging all over the place. I got it down ok and
>    found that the gyro was bad. I disabled it and had a go at flying
>    without the gyro. You have to be real quick on the sticks to keep from
>    getting in trouble even with the ATS helping. In contrast, I flew my

   I haven't tried flying without a gyro yet, but I once spent an interesting 
half hour trying to figure out what was wrong, after a minor confruntation 
with mother earth dislodged both tail blade ball joints and I had snapped them 
back on the wrong way round. The net result, of course, was that he tail was 
reversed, and with the gyro helping it along, that thing would just hop up 
and spin round like a top.


>    I'm trying to resist the temptation to put a scale fuselage on the
>    Concept.  Doing so would probably require getting a different muffler
>    since I'm running the OS28 with the new MACs wonder pipe. Since both of

   Major problem number 1. Getting a silencer to fit inside the fuz was a bit 
of a pain, especially since I didn't want to cut any holes in it. I 
eventually found one of those 'universal' things that you can fit to almost 
any engine, any way round you want (ish), but the damn thing keeps falling 
apart and has caused more damage to the shell than if I had got a more 
sensible unit and cut a nice neat whole in the side. I'll do things 
differently with the Jet Ranger.

>    What are these shells made of? The pictures I've seen of the Kyosho
>    Hughs 300 conversion look like they use the same plastic for the body
>    shell as they did on the canopy. Must hold up well to the abuse but be
>    difficult to paint if true. The EZ ads claim they use an automotive
>    plastic. Whats the deal here? If I were to put a scale fuselage on the
>    Concept it would probably be the EZ Bell 222 UT. What did you do about
>    the tail rotor since the Concept has its rotor on the left and the Jet 
>    Rangers should be on the right?

   Major problem number 2. The Kyosho shells are indeed made from 
ploypropolene (sp?), the same as the original pod, which does require a 
special primer which I found at a car accessories shop (bleedin' expensive it 
is too!). I painted the Hughes 500 with this SPECTRA Plastic Primer and 
applied colour with those PACTRA paints they use on model car bodies, with a 
final coat of fuel proofer which also gave it a gloss (ish) finish.
   The EZ bodies are made of polycarbonate (I think) which should be a lot 
easier to paint, but will probably be more suseptable to damage in the event 
of a mistake (very rare event right? :-)).
   As regards the tail rotor, with the Kyosho shells - tough! But the EZ 
shells (well the Jet Ranger anyway - I have yet to see the Bell 222) are 
designed to fit Condoms, Shuttles and Kalts so they have optional tail 'pods'
to fit either way round. I was tempted to just turn the tail gearbox over and 
re-route the pushrod, but I was advised against this due to the tail blade 
rotation direction (something about the blade advancing _into_ the main rotor 
downwash and therefor gaining efficiency the way it is designed) so I think
I'll just build it 'by the book' for now. Either way, if you're looking for 
_true_ scale, I don't think you'll get it with these little babies :- the 
shells are designed more to FIT than anything else, but they still look good!

Happy langings,

Ken.

Just got this off the UUCP net.

Bye          --+--
Kay R. Fisher  |
---------------O---------------
################################################################################
From: [email protected] (Duncan Missimer)
Subject: Re: Heli chat
Date: 18 Jan 90 21:42:19 GMT
 
For anyone who is contemplating buying a Concept 30.
 
	- The kits used to come with a plastic+asbestos clutch
	bell which just has a layer of grease between it and
	the clutch shaft. Pure garbage. This caused me no end
	of grief. If they still come that way throw the bell
	away and get the new metal bell and the two optional
	ball bearings for it.
 
	- The SE kit comes with a support for the tail drive
	wire which has a small metal bearing. This bearing
	will eventually wear through the drive wire with 
	results as you might expect. Everyone at our club
	replaces this support with a piece of brass tubing
	held in the center by two of the DX supports. Details
	available upon request.
 
	- The head and gears set up extremely tight and need
	to run for quite a while before they loosen up. I'm
	not sure if they ever stop loosening up. 
 
I'm finally reasonably happy with my Concept, but for a while
I wasn't. I still have my first bird, a Shuttle XX, which is
more reliable but not as zippy. 
 
I expect that the Legend is easier to work on and more 
trouble-free than either of these.
 
By the way, has anyone heard of a ZX conversion kit for old
shuttles?
 
I went straight into choppers with no R/C background
so it was pretty frustrating at first. I could never have
gotten anywhere without the friendly and generous help
and time of the members of the Silicon Valley R/C Heli.
Assn.
Anyone who is remotely curious about R/C copters
and lives in or near Santa Clara County should drop by
the club field on some weekend morning. The field is on
the west side of Gibraltar (Av, Way?) in Milpitas. Gibraltar
is just west of Milpitas Blvd. between 237 and Montague.
 
Duncan Missimer
[email protected]
408-447-5390