Joe Bessette

I was given this fuselage and mechanics many years ago when I started flying helis. The mechanics are a Schluter Mini-Boy, but I have no idea who manufactured the fuselage.

The mechanics are complete and I have been slowly, over the years restoring it. Now that I have came over to the scale side I want to get it back into the air.

Any one have a guess as to the manufacturer of the fuselage is?

I am fond of vintage/antique helis and still fly a Futura , a JR Vibe 90 and a couple of Raptors regularly.

With Helidirect now reselling FunKey and Fusuno fuselages , I, would like to pose a question.

What makes more sense, getting a "conversion" fuselage and having to figure out which mechanics are best suited or going the Roban route and get the fuselage WITH mechanics specific to the fuselage?

I personally cannot go with Vario due to cost. But the other two options are/will be pretty close in cost and achievable. I lean towards Roban, due to the fact of being an all in one setup as opposed to getting a fuselage and adapting mechanics to it.

Just wondering what others think?

A little while ago I had posted about adding a 5 blade head to a new Roban MD500e with TREX 500 mechanics. Well here it is all done. Just waiting on weather to test fly.

I ended up using an Egodrift 4025 1220kv motor with 14t pinion for a target of 18-1900 rpm on 6s.

After reading through the phasing article in the article section and the Brain setup software, phasing seems like it's right.

Time will tell.

So I was able to get a Roban 500 size MD500 from MotionRC. I have a TREX 500 for mechanics in it and was able to get a couple flights on it before our field closed for the winter.

If I was to replace the head with a 5 blade head, do I stay with the same blade length or go smaller to keep the load on the esc and motor manageable? For all practice purpose, it is an older TREX, pretty much stock with a HW 100a v3 esc.

Since the field is closed until April, I use this time for maintenance on all my planes and helis.

Since I was removing the Shuttle mechanics from the FK A109 for a good degreasing and inspection, I thought I would give the fuselage a new look. I removed the tricycle gear and added skids to make a stand off (way way off) AW109 Trekker.

I used a set of skids for the FK .30 size JetRanger and took an inch out of the cross tubes to make them a bit narrower. I am really liking the look. Next I will figure out a way to close the holes from the gear and maybe change the exhaust to the baloney cut exhaust. Skids will also be painted , just not sure what color yet.