Bell Huey Cobra

This ¼ scale model of the famous Bell Attack helicopter is one of the biggest model helicopter currently flying in the UK, and first one ever to be fully registered with the CAA / L.M.A in the Over 20 kg category.

The model is completely scratch built over a period of almost 10 years and during that time there were many trials and issues to overcome as no one had ever attempted a model of this size before.

The model had a rotor diameter of 3.1m and weighs in at 22 kg. Power is supplied by a Zenoah 62cc petrol motor.Construction is based on a fiberglass fuselage made over a foam master without the production of a mould. All mechanics and gearboxes are hand made. The tail rotor blades are cut down "60" size blades and the main rotor blades are made from a glass / carbon composite by a company in Germany. The main blades turn at 650 rpm giving a very scale like “chop” “chop” sound when the model is flying.

In addition to the normal flying controls the model has working navigation and head lights and real electrically fired rockets and smoke canisters. 

Cyclic control is via 4 No 20kg torque servos in an "45deg" setup so providing 80kg of cyclic force for both pitch and roll. The tail pitch servo is mounted in the fin and drive to the tail rotor is by a spiral wire drive more commonly used in powered chimney sweep equipment !

Radio link is provided by Futaba 2.4 ghz equipment and twin 6014 receivers powered by twin 2400mha 6v nicads.

Bell Huey Cobra

These photo’s are from the Cobra’s first show outing of 2010 ,after its winter refit that included installing 2.4 Ghz  radio gear. Many thanks to Steve Mitchell for  once again supplying these great photo’s