Vintage RC Helicopters - Joe's collection Vario Airwolf

Vario Airwolf

Bought in Sep 07 when I was still an early learner and nowhere near ready for it however, the seller was only asking for £700 so what the heck.  Set up onboard the ship and test flown which surprised me at how stable and relatively easy it was.

In Feb 08 and back home on leave I felt more comfortable flying it away in figure eights however during a fast decent, the aerial was pulled up into the blades (securing band snapped) and it snapped leaving only a bit left coming out of the Rx.  Luckily it was only about 50 metres away and I managed to land it though the under rockets caught a stone in the field and tipped it on its side causing the blades to hit the dirt.  After the whack I picked it all up and as can be seen in the photo above the damage was not too bad (pilot's may not agree though).  I didn't count the blades as they were a cheap standard pair and the expensive Vario reflex blades I had already bought had not at that time been fitted (lucky escape there....).  Cost me about £30 and it was off again.

Repaired and running again in May 08 however the engine was proving a little temperamental and difficult to adjust and during one circuit it died; unfortunately just after I had made a downwind turn to land at about 5 meters high but moving slowly.  Luckily I had been recently practicing auto-rotation with my pod and boom models so with wheels up I made a reasonable decent but pulled too much back cyclic to stop forward momentum and landed tail down.  There was one loud bang as the helicopter stopped moving and with full pitch on the blades it just sat there, nicely upright whilst the head slowed down.  The tail had broken up just in front of the fin but being at full positive pitch it was actually not a boom strike but was caused by the tail rotor catching the ground.  Seriously lucky and apart from the body damage it had stripped the teeth of the cogs in the gearbox; again it cost me about £30 to repair (though the tail area now looks very 'ragged').

Didn't get to test fly again until Jan 09 when once more on leave but the engine would not run reliably and died every so often once warm with symptoms indicate that the engine was starting to lose compression.  It's a heavy helicopter for a '60' size engine and so requires an engine at peak efficiency to fly properly; intention is to fit a low hours Webra 75P5 or maybe even a Webra 90 (if it will fit) as an upgrade.

Tested once again in Feb 10 as plug also found to have blown but again after a few minutes the engine cut.

Mar 11 and full check of body highlighted the need for a significant amount of work required so decided to retire the model and transfer the mechanics into another model.

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