darthdrk

Just thought I would post a pic here also.

Spiro

Nice Job

My little bird is almost finished now. I will post some pics up and give you a couple for your web site when I have them. I do have two questions for you:

1) How did you go about making the wing stubs / pylons. I am wondering how they attach and how they stay straight out. Perhaps a little sketch would help explain.

2) How has flying with dark, camouflage, or olive drab paint been affecting your flying. I am hesitant to paint mine so darkly. As it is I feel I have a hard time seeing where everything is pointing with the stock canopy painted up bright!

Thanks again for providing the LMH community with such great bodies.

Spiro

darthdrk

First, The paint dosent seem to bother me at all as far as orientation. It may if i was flying far out and getting sun blinded. Far out to me is 100 ft or so. I personally think its really cool looking with a foilage backdrop. It dosent blend as much as you may think. Im thinking of doing a Camo version, Which I think would look even cooler, say with desert tan and OD green . On the Weapon pylon mounts I made them from 3/8 balsa about 3/4 inch wide for out riggers and base mount where it mounts to the fuselage 1 1/4 x 3/4 out of the 3/8" thick balsa. I made the base and hollowed out the center (not all the way through) and inserted the out riggers into the holes(They are angled up a little bit) and hit it with some CA glue. I actually have mounted these with screws from the inside of the fuselage. Two small screws for each side. Test fit the weapon mounts screw them to the fuselage. Then take them back off and use thin CA glue and cover the base mount( the screws will hold alot better in the CA'd balsa.

Spiro

As a side note to this threads topic, your stylish littlebird, I am trying a couple of various camo schemes on stock canopies to see how they affect my ability to fly accurately. An interesting outcropping of this effort has been some non traditional camo schemes in bright colors. Some I have tried are similar to tiger stripe paint jobs on fighter planes, if you are familiar. I am going to test fly a new canopy paint job this afternoon. If things go well I should have a pretty sharp looking littlebird paint job in the next day or so.

One other question about the MD500 canopy. I am not getting the best joint between the upper cowling and the main body. All of your pics show these lying flat on each other, where mine have a small gap in places. Any hints on how to make this fit well?

Spiro

darthdrk

Heres a pic of how mine looks. The flatness all depends on the positioning, fwd and aft, left and right. Its not super flat itself.
Send me some pics when you get done Id like to post more pics on my website. Also take some of the stock canopy color scheme.

Spiro

How did you go about outlining the doors on your MD500? I have my paintjob pretty much done and everything looks fabulous. I would like to put a very thing black stripe around the outline of the side doors as you have done on your littlebird. Pics to come soon

Thanks in advance,
Spiro

darthdrk

Actually the fuselage was one of my earlier fuselages which was before The doors and windows was molded in the Fuselages. I used a permanent black fine tip marker to outline the door frames and I used an adhesive backed black sheet of vinyl to make the windows. I masked off the front windshield and used black gloss krylon spray paint.

Spiro

Darth, what marker did you use? I have tried a sharpie before and this worked ok, but eventualy came off from the fuel mist.

Spiro

arctic-choppers

once again i am impressed with the work of drthdrk. One day soon i may actually feel brave enough to purchase one of your fuselages. Hey you probably already checked it out but if now check this out. www.wright-flyer.net/desertaviation/index.html Once you get there click on the compache. Or you could go to general discussion and look at the heli missiles thread.

darthdrk

thats the marker that I used, a sharpie.

Spiro

Here are some pics of my LMH done up in Darth’s excelent MD500 body. I always have been a big fan of the AH-6 Littlebird. I won’t loose sight of this one as I zip low through the trees Not quite ready to fly here, but the body, gear, and tail are pretty much done so I paused for a photo op.

Spiro

Spiro

Pic 2/3

Spiro

Pic 3/3

Let me know what you think.

For what it is worth,
Spiro

colstonman

very nice, wht do you in the way of t/r protection, the stock tailfin comes down and prevents the t/r from hitting the ground and stripping gears, what do you do?

darthdrk

Ok, ok, Im now throughly jealous. Questions: i need to know what or how you modified the Landing gear. And what you used to make your mini guns. Shoot me a good"Outside in the grass" pic and Ill get it up on my site.(hurry up) . Colstonman, It has a tail stinger that helps to prevent the tailrotor blades from striking the ground.

colstonman

Oh, it does reach down far enough [duh]

gmaster

Spiro.. now THAT is killer... we gotta see a pic of it in flight.. that is so awesome.. almost model like..

Mini Boy

SPIRO!!!

That is one COOL body!!
Of course, I have to give a bit of the credit to Darth Industries, but YOU did a GREAT job on the installation, paint and detailing. CONGRATS!!







One thing, though ... a lot of Darth's pictures have that neat crop duster spray tube hanging under the body. Is that some kind of an option?

Keep up the good work, and the great pics,

Russ

gmaster

heh.. thats his antena for his receiver.. instead of cutting it and using a Deans antena.. he just runs the wire thru a plastic tube similar to r/c cars..boats..planes.. a lot of people do that so they can use the receiver on another vehicle.. it would look better with a deans or something similar where it is hidden.. keep the 'fuselage' theme going.. from up in the air it should look killer...

amazing... keep the pics coming

Mini Boy

Thanks Gmaster!

Russ

darthdrk

Ok ok guys, thats not a spray tube for a side job doing crop dusting. Its for shootin automatic spit balls. Im searching out a spot to put my deans antenna on my crutch where it will work ok with all my bodies. Geeeeeeezz..... But you guys are right. I guess my other aircraft will be hanging in the garage for a while cause Im having to much fun flying my LMH. Just came back from the park. i was tempted to try a loop but chickened out. I remembered what happened the last time. Look at Spiro's Avitar, hes flown his inverted If he can do that I know I can do a loop . But he does has one awesome lookin Heli body. I guess he moves to the head of the class. Hes got the best MD500 that ive seen yet.

Spiro

Thanks for the replies. Everything I did was very basic so I should be able to get a short list together for anyone who is interested. Mostly I would like to thank my buddy Matt who is responsible for the great cammo pattern, color scheme research, some of the scratch building and generally putting up with my insanity. He also did the test cammo job on a stock canopy. I had two unbuilt stock canopies sitting around and we built one to try out this paint scheme to see how things looked before committing to the real deal. That canopy also looks killer. I will get some nice in flight pics of both this weekend.

Thanks again,
Spiro

Spiro

I made a short txt file describing most of the details for this project. If you are interested feel free to download the file and / or shoot me any questions.

Spiro

darthdrk

Heres an 500E-530 style real Ah-6

darthdrk

heres another