heli1.jpg (23934 bytes)Just about got the hang of hovering my Ikarus ECO Piccolo electric model helicopter. Designed for indoor use, or outside if VERY calm. Flies for about 4 mins on the standard pack of seven AAA NiCads, though you can get Tadiran Lithium Manganese Dioxide cells that do up to 17 mins. They're lighter too. The Tadiran cells and the special chargers required are available from WES-Technik and RCS Technik

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The clever bit. One side of the electronics board consists of a standard mini 4 channel receiver (for main motor, tail and cyclics) and the side that we see here has a little board with the piezoelectric gyro, two speed controllers (for the main and tail motors) and a mixer. All straight rods and tubes are carbon fibre. The blades are glass-filled Nylon.


Video (700KB, Quicktime) of me flying it in the bedroom. It's quite tricky in a small room because you soon run into your own prop wash. Fortunately it's been quite calm recently and I've been flying it quite a lot in the garden.