Bell 222 UT

[Bluewavestudios]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd give you a little peek at what I will be starting work on very shortly.

I am doing a scale Bell 222 UT - this is basically an Uprated Bell 222 and as such does share the same fuselage - there are some differences in the external appearance but nothing that cannot be easily modelled.

This fuselage will house a set of Kalt .30 sized mechanics (If you have ever heard of John Wallington ex UK Champion and Kalt Team flyer - this was one of his machines that I bought off him a while ago)

I will be doing this in a medevac scheme as most of these particular Helicopters are employed in that role. There are a few nice colour schemes to choose from on the net so I haven't quite made a final decision on which one just yet.

I will be following a nice build walkthrough of the same Helicopter as produced by Vario - this is an excellent guide with some nice scale tips in there too.

This can be found at: V-East Graupner Heim U.S.A. Your source for Scale Helicopters

If you are into Heli's then please check out the gallery and other models on that site, there are some very nice ones on there.

As can be seen from my pics - this is quite a large model even at .30 sized.

Regards.......Mark

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[Bluewavestudios]

Ok Dilemma time now,

Am doing the build on this one but am stuck on which version to do it as,

The first pic is as she was in 1998 as D-HCAN as a medivac Heli - she is now in service with Air Alpha in Greenland as OY-HID. Colour schemes are very similar.

(Now you know where my avatar pic comes from !!)

The nice bit is D-HCAN / OY-HID was built in 1983 as is the Heli I am converting now - original Kalt 1983 mechanics - albeit with some upgrades courtesy of John Wallington.

Check out pics below - OY-HIA & OY-HIE are shown as the sister heli's to OY-HID

Regards.....Mark

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[yak face]

hi mark,that is one BIG helicopter!im sure it will look great in either scheme, personally i like the air alpha one best,wicked looking black and white striping! if i could make anything like that id be terrified of flying it,id just be thinking of all the cost /hours invested in it and the thoughts of it crashing!! good luck im sure itll be fantastic,we'll be watching with interest cheers tony

 

[Sky Raider]

Hi Mark,

This will make a great thread, cant wait to see it progress.

Andy

 

[Bluewavestudios]

hi mark,that is one BIG helicopter!im sure it will look great in either scheme, personally i like the air alpha one best,wicked looking black and white striping! if i could make anything like that id be terrified of flying it,id just be thinking of all the cost /hours invested in it and the thoughts of it crashing!! good luck im sure itll be fantastic,we'll be watching with interest cheers tony

Hi Tony and cheers for the reply, Yes it is a big Heli but then again the bigger they are the more stable they are to fly so not a bad thing. I am very much up to date with my flying skills so taking this one out will be quite nice. I have the full nav light set for this one and onboard wireless camera too. I can't wait to get her finished now !!

Regards.......Mark

 

[Bluewavestudios]

Ok just a little update for you,

I did a clean up of the fuselage shell today and have identified one or two weak areas that need taking care of, they can easily be sorted as they are mostly on the removable top and around the engine vent holes where the mesh is yet to be fitted. I will go to Halfords later and get some fine fibreglass cloth just to beef these areas up a bit. There are a couple of smaller areas elsewhere on the fuselage too that can easily be sorted with a dab of superglue and a bit of model filler.

As you can probably notice the centre post for the main windscreen has a kink in it where the fibreglass has cracked. Rather than try to repair this I am going to cut the main windscreen frame out to it's full outline (only about another 3 mil or so) and then remould a whole new frame to go over the existing blue tinted windows that I have already moulded.

This should be quite an easy job and I will post pics up to show how it is done.

I have one or two other bits marked out ready for cutting so will have the camera out ready to fire shots as I go along. I am looking forwards to doing this one now having had the fuselage in storage for 24 years now believe it or not !! I originally bought it as damaged stock from the old Henry J.Nicholls Model shop at 308 Holloway Road, London.(Later known as 308 Models) That damage was very minor and was easily fixed. I saved £50 on the price of the Fuz then !!

I do have some woodwork to cut out to fit inside the Fuz - question is do I keep it as woodwork or go the whole hog and cut it out of Carbon Fibre sheet..?? Most of the parts are for the retractable U/C which I am not doing on this version anyway. There are one or two major parts there that would probably be best done in carbon fibre for the strength. However I do not want to increase the overall weight unnecessarily.

Pics below show the parts I mean.

So, The Ball is now rolling and I will keep you updated !!

Regards.........Mark

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[Sky Raider]

Ok just a little update for you,I did a clean up of the fuselage shell today and have identified one or two weak areas that need taking care of, they can easily be sorted as they are mostly on the removable top and around the engine vent holes where the mesh is yet to be fitted. I will go to Halfords later and get some fine fibreglass cloth just to beef these areas up a bit. There are a couple of smaller areas elsewhere on the fuselage too that can easily be sorted with a dab of superglue and a bit of model filler.

As you can probably notice the centre post for the main windscreen has a kink in it where the fibreglass has cracked. Rather than try to repair this I am going to cut the main windscreen frame out to it's full outline (only about another 3 mil or so) and then remould a whole new frame to go over the existing blue tinted windows that I have already moulded.

This should be quite an easy job and I will post pics up to show how it is done.

I have one or two other bits marked out ready for cutting so will have the camera out ready to fire shots as I go along. I am looking forwards to doing this one now having had the fuselage in storage for 24 years now believe it or not !! I originally bought it as damaged stock from the old Henry J.Nicholls Model shop at 308 Holloway Road, London.(Later known as 308 Models) That damage was very minor and was easily fixed. I saved £50 on the price of the Fuz then !!

I do have some woodwork to cut out to fit inside the Fuz - question is do I keep it as woodwork or go the whole hog and cut it out of Carbon Fibre sheet..?? Most of the parts are for the retractable U/C which I am not doing on this version anyway. There are one or two major parts there that would probably be best done in carbon fibre for the strength. However I do not want to increase the overall weight unnecessarily.

Pics below show the parts I mean.

So, The Ball is now rolling and I will keep you updated !!

Regards.........Mark

Looks like this is going to be a beut. Didnt ralise that you were going to make your own parts. Cant wait to see more Mark.

Andy

 

[Bluewavestudios]

Just a little update for you,

Dropped an e-mail off to Air Alpha based in Denmark last night for some more pics of their Heli's. They no longer own these machines but did oblige with some very nice photo's as seen below. These should help me nicely with my model. They are superb photo's too !!

A very big thanks to Air Alpha for being very Helpful in supplying the photo's.

I have had to reduce their size slightly to fit on here but I hope you enjoy them all the same.

Regards.......Mark

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[subzero]

Hi Mark.

Thats going to be one nice machine when finished, thanks for wetting our appetites.

Regards Sub.:woohoo:

 

[Malleus]

Hi, I just joined because of this post. Have you made any progress?

 

[m1ks]

It is quite a big body for a .30 sized, and I always thought my Ergo 30 was quite chunky, most of the scale models I've seen have been based around .60 sized frames, I used to fly with a fellow who had a Kalt Baron and seem to remember him mentioning them stopping building Heli's? I recall him having concerns about getting spares and such and ultimately bought a TT Raptor.

Are Kalt still making models then?

 

[T. van Vuuren]

Any progress on your 222?

I just got hold of a set of fuselarge moulds for the 222 :-D

You are correct abuot it being a BIG helli ! This one is a Graupner mould and will fit most 50/60 with slight chop of the boom and a 90 as is.

Can't wait to mould one to see how it looks.

Theuns

 

[M.D.S]

Hopefully will get some pics up soon, The build on this one was slightly delayed pending getting the right engine which finally came up on ebay and I got one at the 2nd attempt !! Been a little distracted with a few other things too, built another 2 cars and took in a Raptor 30 v2 for repair as it was going for sale, I ended up buying it complete with a very nice radio set and accessories. (It only needed a new flybar !!) Needless to say I have been out having a lot of fun flying it. Now the colder weather is here I am back to building so will post pics up soon.

Regards........Mark :D

 

[yak face]

Hi mark welcome back,good to see you back with us,cant wait to see the 222, cheers tony

 

[T. van Vuuren]

The 222's seem to be coming out the woodwork now! I just managed to get the first layup in the mould today, Will have to see how good it is later.

Theuns

 

[spanner570]

Mark, as a follow on from Tony's post, it's great to see you back on the forum again.

Cheers,

Ron

 

[subzero]

Any new pics of the build....how far have you got?.

By the way have you seen the TT Mil fus for the .50 Thunder Tiger mechanics its awesome.

Regards Sub.

 

[M.D.S]

View attachment 46502Update on this one - got sidetracked on a few other projects since this last post including taking in another Heli (A Classic 1980's machine too) I will be posting more on here shortly

As you can see since my last pic - that sheet of liteply has been transformed into individual components, all cut & rounded out by hand. Papered both sides (seals & strengthens the wood) finally coated with cellulose dope - 2 coats each side and sanded after each coat to give a perfect finish ready for painting. Paint is aircraft interior grey on the final assembled modules...pics to follow

Mark

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[M.D.S]

Final test fitting and trimming of all those parts above has been done and the fuselage checked out with a spare set of mechanics to check mounting positions etc. Final step is to check and repair any remaining blemishes on the shell and then I can commence the spray job. I have all the markings and logos all prepared on the computer. When the paint job is done they will go on.

In the meantime I have acquired another 3 Helicopters, a Thunder Tiger Raptor 30 V2, An original rare 1980's Heim Lockheed 286 and a Graupner Heim Ecureuil AS-355

Ps...the machine in the background of the pic is a 1990 MFA Sport 500 under restoration and conversion to a collective pitch head and full MD 500E Fuselage.

Mark

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[M.D.S]

Latest news on this one is that it is now Flybarless, I haven't bought one of the new fancy heads for this but have actually used original Kalt parts and modified the head. This has left a very tidy setup with only 2 linkages from the swash scissor mechanism to the rotor head, exactly as on the real 222 - it works perfectly and looks very scale indeed

Mark.