Unpacking The Fuselage
The first order of business was obviously to unpack the fuselage and make sure that all of the components that should be present were accounted for. After taking an inventory of the fuselage components, mechanics, engine and other miscellaneous items I had ordered I set everything out and just looked at all of this stuff. The first thing that I thought was where to begin. The instructions would be a good start! So with that said I went through my Airwolf instruction manual to see what was ahead of me so I could determine what, if anything, in the first step would need to be modified. The one thought I kept as my "Golden Rule" for this project was "Think twice and cut/glue once". |
Openings and Wood Work
Here we go! I started with the fuselage by cutting out the necessary openings for the windows and air vents. I chose at this time NOT to cut out the landing gear openings. I used my Dremel tool with a fresh cutoff wheel to achieve a good clean cut. NOTE: When working with carbon fiber or fiberglass it is IMPORTANT to use eye protection, wear a face mask and pick up some latex gloves from your local pharmacy to protect your skin. In going over the fuselage before cutting one of the first things that I noticed was that this fuselage appeared to be cast out of the same mold as the Bell 230. Not a real big deal but this did mean that the
cowling air vents and Turbine exhausts were not in the correct position for a true scale Airwolf which was originally a modified Bell 222B. |
| I found two extremely helpful visual aids when working on the detail of this aircraft. The first was the Columbia House video collection of the Airwolf series that I had been collecting and the second was a series of 54 constructions photos of the real helicopter that are posted on the Airwolf.ORG website. I had made my cuts on the windows and doors and all that was left was the vents and exhaust openings. Using videos and website as reference I was able to make the correct vents and exhaust openings in the top of the fuselage. I did this by making a small drawing of what the vents should look like taking into account the spacing between each opening. I then took my small drawing to work and made a copy enlarged to the correct size but printed on a full sheet of computer label paper. I then took the label and positioned it over the top rear cowling and cut out the openings using my template as my cutting guide. It was perfect! Not only was this my first modification idea, it worked too! |
| I decided next to assemble the landing gear. There wasn't much point in doing all of the wood work when the landing gear would have to be assembled even for a dry fit of the bulk heads. One thing you will notice with the Vario products is there are very few written instructions. Everything is very well illustrated in explosions and drawings but little explaining just how everything should be done. This really isn't a problem as long as you take your time and study the drawing before doing any cutting or gluing. With that said I started assembling each landing gear strut. The retractable landing gear for this model is very well machined and operates in a very scale manner. The suspension lowering kit is included with the landing gear and I highly recommend using it since it will make the aircraft more stable on the ground. Each landing gear strut went together without any problem and the suspension was very smooth. |
| Now that I had my landing gear assembled, I removed the the woodwork for the landing gear bulk heads and the mechanic supports and made a dry fit of everything to make sure all of the pieces would seat or interlock with each other properly. The woodwork is very well made and I have few problems getting it all to fit together properly. I then followed the diagram and assembled each landing gear bulkhead using medium CA glue to tack it together and then finished it with 30 minute epoxy. I chose the 30 minute because it allowed enough time to let me work with the glue and wasn't as runny at the 15 or 20 minute versions. |
| I now had my finished bulk heads which I then installed into the fuselage again using CA to tack it into place and finishing it off with the 30 minute epoxy. Before installing the rear landing gear into the wing pods I made my measurements on the wing tips to make my cuts for the extending machine guns and outlined my area with 1/8 inch red masking tape to use as my cutting guide. This worked out pretty well but it did take a bit of time to get the top and the bottom of the wing tip to come out even. Once this was done I installed the landing gear assemblies into each wing tip leaving 3/8" lip around the inner part of the wing for it's installation onto the fuselage itself. I let this all sit until the following evening. |
| Once again I did a dry fit of all of the wood work that made up the framework for the mechanics to be mounted to. Once I was satisfied with how it fit together I tacked each piece in place with the CA glue then followed with the epoxy to finish the job. Again it was time to wait and let this section dry. |
| The time had come to attach each wing to the fuselage. NOTE: In the instructions you are supposed to drill a hole in each end of the wing tips which is to be used for installing the retract rod. What I did was to install the retract rod first and then attach my wing pods. This does two things it eliminates the need for the extra hole and also helps to keep the wing pods firmly against the fuselage for gluing. Now for attaching the wings. For this I used the same 30 minute epoxy but added micro balloons to strengthen the joint. I new this would be an area of the helicopter that would be under tremendous stress especially in the event of a hard landing. I secured both wings in place with strips of 1" masking tape and let it sit for a day to let the epoxy dry. When I came back to work on it the next day I wasn't really concerned with filling in the gap between the fuselage and wing tip. I was more concerned with getting the woodwork for the mechanics assembled and glued into place. |
Once the wing pods were dried I installed my retract servos and did a test run of the retract mechanism. The system worked flawlessly, very smooth and timing was perfect. Now to work on the tail section. Again I used the CA glue to tack each piece of wood in it's spot and then follow it with the epoxy to secure it. There isn't much to the tail section of this model. Just follow the plans and you shouldn't have any problems. Once all of the woodwork was in place I lined up the tail section with the main fuselage and secured it with masking tape and drilled the upper hole that will be used to screw the tail section to the main fuselage. At this point I chose not to glue the two pieces together since it is a lot easier working with the main section without the tail being in the way. What I did do however, was to add another screw hole at the bottom section since this will be a vulnerable point with vibration. It really isn't necessary to glue the pieces together until you are ready for painting or for test flying.
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| More coming soon! |
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