Wish list for the Helicycle

[rightstick]

Hi all,
I have been an avid admirer of the Helicycle for some time now, and enjoyed reading, and following the posts here.
I am in the beginning planning stages buying and building. My question is if you had it to do all over again how would you design the workshop/hanger, and what are a must have for options on the ship during the purchase process? I also spoke to Blake today and he said that a new option available in run #7 is a new, simpler mixer. He mentioned that the original required a lot of maintenance, one option to consider.
I want to incorporate as may useful items in the workshop as I can before I begin building it, and your insight would be invaluable.

[StanFoster]

Rightstick- Welcome to the forum. You will not be disappointed with your Helicycle choice. You need a good miter box, bench disc sander is handy. The mixer has been improved and is an upgrade . Mine works great and i dont have to do any maintenance on it. I would get the MFS configured to NO instead of NC. The battery cable helps if it is #2 size. .................................... I would have a cable reinforcing kit put on the landing gear. .................................... A small sealed backup battery isolated with diodes for the governor is another layer of redundancy. A morosso oil cooler keeps my main transmission in the green even in 101 degree temps. ..................................Heavier metal switches should be substituted. A standpipe in the oil reservoir................................. Dual return scavenge lines both to the oil reservoir . ............................. An aux fuel tank extends your range. The fuel lines all switched to 3/8 lines. The manual fuel shutoff valve needs a beefier one. An Andair gascolator sure is a nice addition. .................................................. ...........Have a switch showing you if your backup battery is charged......................I recommend oil pressure switches for both the main transmission and the turbine that turn on lights in the dash..............I recommend running several blank wires in your wiring harness for stuff you may think of later..........................Larger fuel filler hole for duckbill JetA nozzles, or the 1.5 inch roundpipe JetA nozzle...............................extra storage bins under the seat down into the lower fuselage are handy................. I have an in the cabin fuel level hose with a red floater showing exact fuel level at all times.........................alternator magnets bonded with J. B. Weld and with foam sealant applied between. This keeps a magnet that lost its bond from jumping to the next magnet. .........................................collectiv e degree gauge for power checks....................................These are just off the top of my head pet improvements I have done. I know there are more that I cant recall right now. Stan

[ylf]

I built mine in an airport hangar with no heat or A/C so those would be my first choices I would like in a workshop.
Some other items and tools:

- An overhead hoist of some sort for lifting parts like the transmission and engine into the frame and later for lifting the entire helicopter for weighing and balancing.
- Heavy duty work benches
- A good parts bin to organize all the parts and hardware
- Sharpies and blue masking tape for marking hole locations etc on finished surfaces
- A complete set of number and letter drills, .246" and 3/16" reamers
- Bench sander
- Vice
- Angle grinder with thin cut off wheel for cutting just about anything, works great on fiberglass
- A set of drum sanders for your drill for shaping holes and edges in the fiberglass
- Drill press
- Good lighting, free standing movable spot lights
- An area for painting parts
- Card stock for making templates of parts before you start cutting and bending
- Shelving or ways to hang parts like the doors, fins, windshield, etc on the walls out of the way
- A lot of power outlets
- A friend who is a machinist and/or access to a mill and lathe helps a lot with some custom parts and some of the precision hole drilling


As for options:

- I would recommend the new mixer, it's a bit pricey but it's much easier to set up and you will never have to adjust it to remove slop later. (wish it was available before I finished my ship)
- Half doors, full doors if you plan to fly when it's cold
- Trans oil cooler
- Normally open MFS
- Backup governor battery
- Assembled/balanced tail rotor
- Factory welded controls
- Throttle and collective friction
- The optional transmission lift strut
- Epoxy a screen "dome" over the outlet in the engine oil tank before putting the halves together
- A better oil cap for the engine oil tank
- Add sumps at the lowest points in the fuel tanks
- Gascolator/filter (10 Micron)
- Oil pressure light(s)
- Filtered terminal strip for the governor box (may be standard now)
- Hap's battery boxes make battery mounting easy (if you're over 200 lbs)

Mike
5-12

[rightstick]

Thanks for all the great recommendations! I've had the pleasure of comunicating with both of you guys via email recently. I have such grand plans for this machine, and I'm sure it will be way more work than I think it''ll be, but I can't wait to get started. I''ve enjoyed following both of your builds. Thanks for your hard work so guys like me can understand what I'm getting myself into!
Scott

[baronpilot]

All MFS are now NO, but better yet is a mechanical fuel valve hooked to a cable. That is what I installed. Also, a dual tach from Doug S and his mechanical governor is also a good idea IMO. I also like Stan's gear improvement and the backup battery is good if you are going with the electric governor.

[j bird]

A band saw with a metal cutting blade.

[Duvan]

Ylf

Can you please explain more about "- Epoxy a screen "dome" over the outlet in the engine oil tank before putting the halves together" I dont understand

Can you refer to photos ?

Duvan

[hillberg]

keeps debris from entering the oil pumps via oil tank

[Duvan]

Ok, I understand now

Thanks
Duvan

[ylf]

The oil tank is two fiberglass halves with a hole for the oil pump line fitting in the bottom corner. You can form some fine screen into a dome shape (to increase surface area), center it over the outlet hole and epoxy the edges to the inside surface of the tank. Which will, like hillberg said, prevent larger debris from getting to the pump. I don't have any pictures because, unfortunately I didn't hear about this mod until after I had joined my tanks halves. The other option, like Stan did, is to add a short stand pipe to the fitting so that debris will settle in the bottom of the tank below the standpipe.

Mike

[StanFoster]

Mike- I made a little standpipe on my oil tank outlet. I had fluctuating turbine oil pressure one day and discovered the 1/4 inch outlet elbow had a small bb size piece of fiberglass in it almost blocking the very small hole a 1/4 elbow has. A standpipe now prevents this from happening. I got rid of those pipe threads going into fiberglass! Not good enough for me to trust not coming out sometime and losing the turbine oil. I replaced the two scavenge line fittings going into the tank. I fashioned a thick aluminum plate that I threaded pipe nipples into. I then used J.B.Weld epoxy and riveted these aluminum plates on. No more cheesy tank connections. Stan