You have a casual RC heli and want a really cool rotor craft? Then you are in the right section!

Of course you could buy a pre-fabricated kit of VARIO 6400 Air Crane, but that model would be 2m long! Mine is just a handy "pocket" heli of the 450 class (80cm long fuselage).

Step 1: Fuselage Build-up

Materials used:

Aramid/Fiber glass sandwich panels

Depron (expanded Polystyrol, 6mm and 3mm)

Plywood 1mm and 4mm

Aluminium

Steel

Brass profiles

ABS profiles/Sheets

ABS from 3D printer

Step 2: Tail Rotor Modification

I bought a modification kit of a Company I do not mention here. The kit contained such a bad Quality of parts and material that I threw away everything but the belt. This for safety reasons. If you Research in the internet you will quickly know what kit I mean (450 heli class).

The kit I got was not well designed: one pully came as a injection molded part and was not round at all. even worse, the pully was mounted on a screw thread. This is bad engineering. Further, the structure was not stiff enough.

So I desided to improve the design and build it up again. See Cad data at the end of this instructables.

Step 3: Building the Landing Gear

To build this landing gear with springs inside, you Need a lathe and a milling machine. CNC is not required.

The front gear is soldered brass and has an integrated spring as well.

Step 4: Integration of Mechanics

The Elite Blade B450 3D mechanics just suits into my heli carcasse. Everything must be built to resist the vibrations and forces acting during flight.

Step 5: Detail Work

Designed on CAD and printed on a 3D printer (3Dhubs.com) in ABS. The engines and other parts are printed in several parts and then glued together and sanded.