Dave Payne
Hello to all our vintage helicopter enthusiasts
My aero modeling started in the 90’s flying fixed wing models but whilst learning to fly in the in between times of flying I decided to have a try at flying a model helicopter as the club I was in catered for both types of models and my very first helicopter was a Morley Bell 47G that was very second hand at the time of purchase, after a short while of ownership the clutch failed and I found the lack of support from my local hobby shop for the model frustrating and being told to just throw it in the bin and get something that would fly set the passion for my Morley to be flying again one day.
A new Hirobo Shuttle ZTS was purchased and I started to teach myself to fly the marvelous flying machine, after the purchase the same model shop gave me a new Hirobo clutch liner to try to get the old Morley going. After getting the Morley back up and running although I had decided on the best route was to use the more modern Shuttle to learn with as the spares were at hand and to keep the Morley and try again with it once I could fly. The Morley had the odd outing in the better flying conditions but was suffering with a very worn out engine in 2005/6 the Morley was slowly restored but had a new engine fitted, this time a four stroke engine.
As the spares were hard to come by I found a few on eBay and ended up buying a box of spares that included two crashed mk3 Bell 47’s this gave the inspiration of building a second Morley as the other looked to bad to rebuild but after the second was built a day of bad weather had the other chassis repaired and rebuilt, armed with the three Morley Bell 47’s the decision was made to take them to the LHC Scale Cup event before the event I obtained a new un-started Morley Mk3 Bell 47 kit and it was built ready for the event where Jim Morley was in attendance and I was awarded the Morley Vintage Cup in 2007 and to date (Jan 2010) I am still the current holder of the cup.
I also own a Kalt Bell 400 Twin fitted with the Baron 60 mechanics that came second hand but un-used although it had suffered a lot of hanger rash.
I fly a verity of scale and pod and boom helicopters the last purchase being a Hirobo Turbulence D3, I will submit in further articles the details of each of the Morley’s and the Kalt.
Dave Payne (RC Model Helicopter enthusiast).
Morley Bell 47G
Standard model with 'box lid' colour scheme; fitted with OS50SXH engine and modern radio gear.
Brought up to date with electric conversion for 22v Lipo batteries, shuttle rotor head and modern radio gear with heading hold gyro. This model received a number of placing in successive LHC scale cup events.
Later version collective head and adapted to use a 4 stroke engine ASP61 with an 18 tooth drive pulley. Head speed is a bit on the low side with this gearing and the model would be better with a 20 tooth or even perhaps a 22 tooth pulley.
Another build with shuttle rotor head and modern gear plus a more powerful OS46SXH engine.
Kalt Bell 400 (TwinRanger)
This model was purchased third hand but un-used although it has suffered a lot of hanger rash it is effectively a new machine, it has the Baron 60 mechanics with the Kalt black rotor head and a wire drive tail. Hi-Tec servos are fitted with a CSM 180 rate gyro and powered by an OS61SFN rear cone start engine,
This machine is in flying condition but only after swapping the carb with one off an OS50 hyper as the original carb suffered tuning problems due to the seals being perished through standing, the fuel tank bung was also perished and replaced with a modern bung from a Dubro tank.
The circular ring around the tail rotor makes a huge difference in tail performance and gives the tail a massive increase in power, this model has the most powerful tail of any r/c helicopter I’ve flown to date.
This is the only Bell 400 Twin that I’ve seen although I know that John White from Vario UK has owned one in the past, the only other flying example I know of is in Australia but is fitted with Graupner mechanics.