Super-e-Heli-Baby

Since the reactivation of the vintage Schluter Heli-Baby I got a lot of requests if an electrification of the model would be possible. Also there were requests about the collective pitch mainrotor of the Super-Heli-Baby. For reproduction of this head veterans have equipped me with all the original parts and particulary with original drawings from the Super-Heli-Baby. After first calculations I recognized that it would be not possible to make a replica of the Heli-Boy head. The costs especially for the bending tools were simply too expensive in relation to the expected number of parts. So I looked for another solution. The result was the use of the rotorhead and swashplate from the Century Swift 16 that is on the one hand similar to former Schluter rotorheads and on the other hand they are all over the world available, especially in north america. The Super-e-Heli-Baby is a perfect coupling between the vintage Heli-Baby and a modern time machine. It flies best with either 5s or 6s batteries and actro 18-4 or 18-5 special modified motor with extra long shaft. With a 4Ah battery the flight time is 10 minutes about. A small Jazz 55-6-18 controller with BEC is good enough and cheap Futaba 3001 servos on the swashplate and GY401/S9254 on the tailrotor used in normal mode (no AVCS) are good equipment. The flight items are super calm, you can and must fly it like a small scale-model which is causing a lot of attention.

Because I looked especially for a long life-time of the model the Super-e-Heli-Baby was tested intensively. I have flown the model in extreme heat, coldness, stormy and rainy conditions and there was never a reason to stop a test. After 120 flights the test phase was finished and the rpoduction of a small series started.   One of the main experiences with the collective pitch controlled model was that the mainrotor speed had to reduced to about 1750 rpm and the rotor response was still good on cyclic defelections. In opposite to the original SWIFT head the damoing must be modified because nobody will do aerobatics with a Heli-Baby. As additional advantage of the reduced main rotor speed the response of the direct driven tailrotor is also much smoother now and of course the flight time is longer compared to the fixed pitch model. The actro 18-4 that is working well with 6 cells in the fixed pitch version should either be replaced thru an actro 18-5 or the number of cells shouold be reduced to 5s. As controller the Jazz 40-6-18 is good enough with 18-5 and 6s, but because the price difference is only small I recommend to use the Kontronik Jazz 55-6-18. Always fascinating is the flight optic when the model flies deep and fast against the sun away and the contour of the pilot is the only what you can see from the front section. So I give here the recommendation to use in each case a pilot puppet from the GI-Joe or Action-Team series. It is necessary for the correct CG and give the model the right outlook and a better recognization or higher distances. You will be astonished how fast the model becomes in forward flight and how fast also it becomes smaller.   With the high load on the rotor plane the Super-e-Heli-Baby flies rock stable, aerobatics except turns and pirouettes are so impossible. But this would also not fit to this nice model. The best use will be either for beginners training or as trainer for scale flying with low risk. The combination from the soft damping and the wooden rotorblades gives the model also a nice flapping sound of an original. Because the flying of the Super-Heli-Baby is like an addict I recommendn to use at least three battery packs.

The following film was made in Ashland/Nebraska in front of the SAC-museum:

• Super-e-Heli-Baby   (19,8 MB, wmv)