450 Lord Help Me!!!!!!!!!! The Scratch Building Bug Has Struck Again.

James M. Lewis

Armed Forces
Hi everyone,
Yes as mention earlier, I'm rebuilding my wrecked Hughes 300C into a pod & boom heli. And practice like hell to get this down to a fine art again. But I'm also going to step out of my comfort zone and " Go Where Jim Lewis Has Never Gone Before". Can't believe I'm saying this but will scratch build a Sikorsky S-64. Always loved a challenge. Thought about this last evening and wanted you to know first thing today. Have kick this around with my late friend John Wilson about this last year on and off. This would be built in his memory. When I was in the army was selected for additional training to work on the avonics systems for the CH54 Tarhe also known as "The Flying Crane". Never was assign to them in Vietnam but instead assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division worked and flew on the "UH-1D Huey". The army eventually phased this bird from it's inventory and invested a lot of money in the CH47 Chinook as it's heavy lift helicopter. Sikorsky after much modifications came out with the newer version, The S-64 for civilian use. Can see this on you tube. Vario makes a kit but cost way too much for my pay grade and larger size than I want to build. Nice looking but calls for larger and more expensive parts. My bird will be at least 3' long, 1' high & 10" from rear wheel to rear wheel under the fuselage. I'm partial to 450 size birds so will use existing components. Will have to do a lot of shopping on line to find the extension part of the boom that angles that portion to 45 degrees for the tail rotor. It can be belt driven or torque rod. If they make them any more and figure on how to run the push rod from the rotor servo to the tail rotor itself. One idea that makes sense the rod is so thin, might just run it straight from the servo arm to the tail rotor. There by extending the tail servo as far as possible from the gyro. Will need to find a multi main head to handle 360 mm blades. I'll use the main frame as my base and fit it with all the required components inside. Then I'm thinking about making a bass wood frame screwed together attached to the bottom where you'll mount skids so there won't be any weight/stress on the fuselage because everything is secured in the main frame. Either thin styrene, thin bass wood or cardboard sheets screwed for covering the frame. Cab/rear windows are easy using thin plastic sheet from food items. Everything will be screwed in place no glue anywhere. Have to do some serious research on line and draw this on CAD using my computer. Then comes making scale plans like I had making flying model airplane kits when younger. Can I pull this off not sure, knowing it will take months to build before a maiden flight. All your comments both positive and negative are greatly welcome and appreciated in helping me decide if this project is practical.
Best regards,
Jim
 

fran11784

Goblin 380 Supporter
A sky crane? O hell yeah, love the idea. We fly at the wave church early Saturday mornings. You should come out some time Jim..
 
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