Constructing the body of the craft is a long tedious process. The RotorWay drawing for assembling the body panels are not dimensioned and only show how the panels are positioned. The construction video and manual roughly shows most of the construction process for the body. However, there's a lot of judgment and creativity required here. This part is more art than engineering. The body panels are formed so they roughly fit together. Until they are all fastened together, there is little rigidity to the body. The idea is to get the body parts "hung" together with as few fasteners as possible and then start trimming and fitting. At this stage, pushing on one body part can cause other body parts to move. Pushing body parts around, you can get some pretty strange looking configurations. Throughout the process you have to stand back and look at the overall body shape to determine if it looks approximately correct. As the body parts are hung, it starts to become obvious where you have to trim to make them fit. Then the process becomes fit, trim, fit again, trim again...etc. The entire body is attached to the cabin seats and not attached to the airframe anywhere. The seats are attached to the frame with 6 bolts. It' a very interesting configuration. As the body panels are secured with more fasteners, the body becomes surprisingly rigid. As this phase progresses, the ship begins to look deceptively complete. You wind up with a fairly complete looking chopper except it has almost nothing on the inside. |
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| As we got started to work on the first step in getting the body put together, my brother Vince dropped by on his new SUV (Harley Road King). He let me take it for a spin. The only thing I can say about the experience is pure exhilarated pleasure. This machine handles sweet. Thanks Vince! |  |
| The first step in fitting the body is to mount the main rotor shaft so you can make sure the body parts don't interfere with main rotor directional control components. So, the bearing housing and bearings have to be mounted. The lower bearing flange has a steel reinforcement that has to be cut to fit. Chip and I had already ruined a band saw blade trying to cut it. Vince stepped in and showed us how to ruin a hack saw blade as well. |  |
| I finally got fed up and pulled out Big Bertha. I have yet to find anything that can stand up to this tool. It got the job done quickly. You can see Vince standing in the background next to the fire extinguisher wondering when the garage is going to catch on fire. OK, so the extinguisher is out of date and lost it's charge. I forgot to tell him :-) |  |
| This is the main rotor shaft thrust bearing. Everything hangs on this bearing. The bearing is sandwiched between the two halves of the bearing mount. The mount had to be cut along the back edge to fit properly on the frame. I was needlessly concerned about cutting the mount and getting the bearing lined up properly. It turned out to be no big deal. |  |
| The frame was moved outside to mount the main rotor shaft into the bearing. The garage ceiling was not tall enough to allow the MR shaft to be lifted above and into the bearing. It occurred to me after this was done that the main bearing could have been slipped onto the rotor shaft and then the whole thing bolted in place. Sometimes if you step back from the RW instructions and think about the task at hand, you will find easier was of construction. |  |
| You can see what the frame looks like with the main rotor shaft mounted. The cinder blocks strapped to the front is to counter balance the weight of the tail boom. |  |
| In order to get the frame back into the garage we had to cut a slot in the molding around the door frame. Chip is the carpenter. It was such a close fit that we had to remove the wheels and drag the frame back in on the skids. I'm lucky; my garage is taller than most and I didn't have to remove the rear landing gear like many of the builders to move the chopper in and out. |  |
