F.I.G.A.S. Hueycobra - FINISHED (story & pics)

[Weaver]

Well after assuming I had to finish the cockpit before doing anything else, I then suddenly realised that the Cobra's cockpit is so open and accessible that I can fit most of the contents after it's assembled and painted, AND that that will make it much easier to mask. Filling it with the masked canopy isn't an attractive option because the canopy is in five pieces to allow for opening panels, so the chance of spray getting inside it would be high.

Having glued the fuselage together, I started thinking about the sling hook arrangement, and playing about with balance points, I noticed that it might well be a tail sitter (yes, even skid-equipped helo models can tail-sit). Put some weight in the nose: not enough. Put some more in the bottom of the rotor tube: still not enough. So, yet again, I had to drill a hole, this time behind the pilot's seat, to drop steel balls into. One of these days I will do nose weight the easy way and shock myself....




Then I put the tail on, and frankly, not a great fit:






Since the FIGAS Huey is going to be disarmed, I cut a circular panel to blank off the turret. As with the rotor, the kit makes zero provision for the turret to rotate:



Note another fit issue there: the solid nose tip is too small for the opening: more sanding. (Early Cobras had landing lights in the nose, later ones had a solid nose and a retractable light under the fuselage. You can see the keyhole-shaped recess for it in the pic).


Here's another potential problem. The models is quite heavy now, and the skid attachment looks fragile. The pegs are too big for the holes and the holes arn't deep enough, so there's a distinct possibility that, in making it fit, it'll end up too loose and be prone to sagging under load. It's way too thin to drill out and reinforce too, and the curve of the struts means you wouldn't get much length of wire/rod in the the strut anyway:



Can't help feeling they missed a trick with that one. There's a panel line around the areas where the ski struts go through the fuselage, so they could have moulded left and rigth struts in one piece with the struts joined by a square-section, fuselage-width plug that fitted into a slot on the underside.

Next up, wing fittings. Cobra wings are external with continuous fuselage skin behind the wing root, broken only by a pair of brackets. However the kit has a big slot instead, so that will need to be filled and the brackets approximated. My idea is that, since the Cobra doesn't have a sling hook as standard, the FIGAS one will have a U-shaped cradle that attaches to the wing mountings and holds the hook underneath it.

[Captain Canada]

The mods you have done are looking good. Sorry to hear the kit is turning out to be such a dog tho, started with such promise !

[Weaver]

The mods you have done are looking good. Sorry to hear the kit is turning out to be such a dog tho, started with such promise !

Well it's far from being a "dog", it's just rather disappointing given all the hype when it came out.

[Captain Canada]

The AZ ones have been going together a dream ! I should really fire up a thread and add some pics. Maybe it was reviewer bias or the fact that there are so many parts ?

[Weaver]

I think a lot of reviews just look at the parts on the sprues, which is fine as far as it goes, but you really need to build the thing to find some of the pitfalls.

I've had a severly stuck mojo and a bad case of lost-in-research syndrome on this one. The latter was mainly to do with how to attach the external sling cradle: finding a pic of the wing mounting brackets proved remarkably difficult and when I did find them, they were about as unhelpfully arranged as possible. Got a plan now though, so back to it this afternoon.

[NARSES2]

I think a lot of reviews just look at the parts on the sprues, which is fine as far as it goes, but you really need to build the thing to find some of the pitfalls.

I'm convinced that's the case at times

[Captain Canada]

Sounds good Weaver ! Good luck and looking forward to some pics.

[MiB]

In Italy "figa" is...pussy. So...is Figas like Pussies?

[Weaver]

In Italy "figa" is...pussy. So...is Figas like Pussies?

LOL: Falkland Islands Government Air Service: real organisation.

You're not the first person to point this out....

[loupgarou]

In Italy "figa" is...pussy. So...is Figas like Pussies?

LOL: Falkland Islands Government Air Service: real organisation.

You're not the first person to point this out....

At least I was shy/reserved enough to point it out privately to Weaver. 
Anyway it's NOT pussy, it's the cruder word.   

[Modelling_Mushi]

In Italy "figa" is...pussy. So...is Figas like Pussies?

LOL: Falkland Islands Government Air Service: real organisation.

You're not the first person to point this out....

At least I was shy/reserved enough to point it out privately to Weaver. 
Anyway it's NOT pussy, it's the cruder word.   

... but aren't most governments essentially a bunch of f*&@s anyway ... 

... in which case Weavers just lobbed a double sided ironic whiff  at us ... 

[jcf]

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner Harold about sling arrangements.

Anyhow on the Bell 214B Heavy Lifter it has a lift point built into the belly that the cable connects to directly.
Other members of the 'Huey' family are similar.


On the regular S-61s there are four brackets, two each side at the hull chine that bolt through to frames,
cables connect from the brackets to the hook assembly.






S-61R (HH-3 'Jolly Green etc.) have a through the belly winch and hook arrangement.

S-58T, again with four point setup.


Based on your backstory, I'd say that a four-point system might be most likely as a field mod for the Cobra, and
probably easiest from a structural standpoint.

[Captain Canada]

Great selection of photos ! Love the tail markings on the Huey....very GAF sabre-ish ! Defo gives me an idea 

[Weaver]

Cheers Jon.

I've done the sling arrangement now: pics later.

I found some on-line manuals for the Huey Cobra and there doesn't seem to be a built-in hook. At least one of the fire/forest service ones has a hook mounted straight to the skin under the CofG, but I don't know what internal structural mods have been done, and in any case, it was in the USA, at leisure, and with (I presume) full support from the manufacturer, rahter than in a hurry in the back of beony with whatever came to hand.

The Cobra's wing mounts to three hefty spars that run through the fuselage, and a service mod was to replace the lower bolts in these with ones that incorporate a large ring that's used to tie down the helo for transport. It did occure to me to have a four-point cable system hanging from these, but the problem is that the wings are some way above the lower corners of the fuselage, so the cables would rub on the corners. Yes, you could put rub strips there to protect the fuselage, but you'd still be doing damage to the cables unless they were the right material. I also don't know what the weight rating of the bolts are: the rings are only on the lower three of five bolts, so presumably you'd be hanging 100% of the weight from 60% of the brackets.

What I've gone with are H-section bars that replace the wing and connect all the mounting lugs, the from these, three U-shaped brackets run under the fuselage and have a plate mounted to them which holds the hook. Probably a bit over the top, but if you were doing it in a hurry with imperfect materials, you'd probably go way OTT with safety margins, right?

[Weaver]

Okay, sling bracket pics.

This is the side fitting. A couple of lengths of H-section cover all the spar lugs, attach to them with spacers, and also carry the belly straps:




The belly straps are stabilised by this plate, and the hook is mounted to the middle one:




The model's got a coat of white primer on it now, so not many steps away from finished. I tried spraying the rotor blades with the dregs of a can of black, but it ran out after literally one squirt, so now I need some more rattle-can black tomorrow.