Sudenkorento hits the bench

[The Rat]

Here's one I've entertained thoughts of for over a year. I was sitting at the dock waiting for the contestants to come back during a fishing tournament, and idly rearranging my tackle box, when the sexy smooth lines of a Rapala lure gave me a whiffery epiphany. Not quite the right shape for a conventional aircraft, but my twisted mind saw a rotor on top.

Now, any good fisherman (or even lousy ones like me) would be loathe to use a perfectly good lure for a model, so I had a couple of options: use one anyway and hope to be able to disassemble the project afterward, or find an old one that was cosmetically okay but no longer any good for fishing.

As it turns out, neither option has come up, but rather a combination. My daughter was taking sailing lessons in July, and one day lounging near the shore she spied an old lure bobbing in the water - a Rapala! The hooks had long since rusted away, and it's got a few scratches, no doubt from some monster pike, but it's otherwise usable. One problem; Meagan is a keen on fishing too, and she made me promise that after the project is done I will disassemble it, re-equip it with hooks, and she can use it. The engine housing will be good old balsa, attached with putty and smoothed to a semi-convincing shape, some lumps-still-to-be-found will be stuck on as engines, a rotor from who-knows-where will be scrounged, along with some landing gear and tail rotor, and done up in Finnish markings I will have a -

Sudenkorento!



The name is Finnish for dragonfly, and it will be used for various roles, such as monitoring fishing boats, shipping surveillance, search and rescue, ASW, etc. The blue lump on the Canadian twonie is a canopy from a long-dead Kinder Surprise toy aeroplane, and will be used as the base for the main rotor.

I have a penchant for rotors with at least five blades, but don't know where to get one. If any of you can suggest a kit to pick up I would appreciate it. How about a 1/72 Sea King? Something tells me that should provide blades of about the right size, but if any of you have one please measure the blade length and let me know. The lure is 12cm long in case you're wondering.

That diving lip on the front will be used to hold something that will be explained as either a honking great radar or a weapons system.

[RotorheadTX]

Airfix Sea King rotor blades are roughly 12.5cm long (from hub centre to tip).

[The Rat]

Airfix Sea King rotor blades are roughly 12.5cm long (from hub centre to tip).

DANG! Waaaaaay too long. I could cut them down, but that leaves me with a Sea King with no rotor when the time comes to build it.

Thanks for the info though, now I know what not to splurge on. Sounds like 1/144th would be about 6cm, too small. It would be nice if somebody sold rotors by the inch that could be cut to size.  ^_^  

[RotorheadTX]

Give me an idea of what you want in span and chord, and I'll have a look in the spares box.

Are you going to give this one a tail rotor too, or have you considered a Kamov-style counter-rotating rotor?
Perhaps Kaman-style "egg beater" intermeshing rotors?

On first view, your fishing lure reminded me of the Hafner projects:


But there were also some very attractive early French helos that didn't go into production:

The Farfadet


The NC-2001

[SinUnNombre]

Hmmm, interesting. I might have to borrow this idea, but maybe with a diffrent type of lure, if you don't mind that is. I think a Rattle-Trap might be a really nice shape for a chopper, too. http://www.gaot.net/Picture%20040.jpg Be sure to post some pics when you get them.

Jon

edit: The one in that pic you posted might not be a bad shape for a "we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-missles" era jet. Hmmmm.....

[The Rat]

Give me an idea of what you want in span and chord, and I'll have a look in the spares box.

Are you going to give this one a tail rotor too, or have you considered a Kamov-style counter-rotating rotor?
Perhaps Kaman-style "egg beater" intermeshing rotors?

Thanks Tony, I'll keep you in mind. I've just realised that I was poking around a local hobby store the other day, one which is relocating in a few weeks and is having a major 'clearing out'. Just as the boss beeped me I had found a bin of half completed kits and bits that might have pieces I can use, I know there was at least one chopper fuselage visible in there. Unfortunately I had to rush off, but I'll get back there soon, maybe tomorrow. For some reason this project wasn't on my mind, so I forgot to spend a few extra minutes delving into the pile.

From the rough measurements I just did it looks that blades of around 5cm would be good, but as for chord, well, perhaps I'll roughly sketch some parallel 5cm lines and and see what looks right.

And I had my heart set on a conventional main/tail rotor combo, looks nice and it's easier to configure. Since I'll be disassembling this model once it's done (and photographed a bazillion times!) then the tail rotor can be one of the props from my 1/200th Breguet Atlantic, it looks like a suitable size.

[retro_seventies]

soooooooooooo....

fishing tackle group build?

[SinUnNombre]

soooooooooooo....

fishing tackle group build?

I was just thinking that.......


Get out of my head!!!

Jon

[Jschmus]

If you could find multiples of the same rotor, could you not do this as a "flying banana" type, with rotors at both ends?  Or maybe like the Russian super-heavies, with the rotors mounted on pods outboard of the fuselage.

[The Rat]

Or maybe like the Russian super-heavies, with the rotors mounted on pods outboard of the fuselage.

Now there's a cool idea!    But it is not to be, at least on this project. As I said the model will be disassembled after building, so I won't be all that ambitious. But you've given me fuel for thought for any future stuff.