Radio Control: Helicopters
By Larry Jolly
Take a second look at this month's photos! That is the University of Virginia's medevac Boelkow BK-117 — the only trouble is that the patients had better not be more than nine inches tall, because this is Ted Schoonard's one-eighth scale model. I have never seen a more perfectly reproduced scale helicopter. This achievement certainly places Ted at the apex of American scale chopper pilots.
I've seen a lot of scale helicopters, and many are pretty much the same eye-catching paint job on a glass fuselage. What is unique about Ted's BK-117 is his incredible attention to detail. All of us could take a lesson from him. Note the perfect cockpit detailing and the four-bladed rotorhead.
The build
This model started out as a Schluter BK-117 glass fuselage. The mechanics are Schluter Champion; the rotorhead is a four-bladed unit. Power is supplied by a Super Tigre .75, and control is by a JR Century Seven helicopter radio, utilizing five servos and a Futaba gyro. The corrugations on the tail boom were accomplished by splitting Nyrod and gluing it in place. The BK-117 was painted with acrylic lacquers and utilized some incredible masking.
For those of you not already envious of Ted's achievement, I have to tell you that he completed this masterpiece in only two months; this was, of course, along with his other duties at World Helicopters. It is no surprise that this model had the top static score in scale at the 1985 AMA Nationals at Chicopee. It was a shame that technical difficulties kept the BK-117 from realizing its true potential. I'm convinced that a national championship is in this model's future. Congratulations, Ted. We are all proud that models like yours show everyone who views them just how far our hobby has come.
Getting into scale
So, you'd like to try scale? After you see a miniature like Ted's BK-117, it's really easy to get bitten by the scale bug. I think that, at heart, everyone would like to build scale models that simulate the full-size prototype, but how do you go about it?
First, let me say that there is no way I would claim to be able to match Ted's work. As you can see, Ted is an artist, and that puts him in a totally different category. However, there are a few things that are universal in modeling, and good technique will go a long way toward improving any model.
The first thing that is important to a successful project is adequate prior planning.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
