A fun living room "thing" I have just bought a Piccolo from Ikarus. I have taken some small flying steps in my living room now, and it's fun and nice flying. I will tell you some about the model on this page. If we start with how it was to open the box., it felt like opening a kids box with just small pieces and not to many either, but it was neatly pact and the quality was nice too. This is how it looks.

     

As you can see, it's not to many pieces but it's going to be a micro helicopter that only weights 260 gram. Hmmm. How ever, it's just to start to take a look at the instruction and put it together. The instruction are in German, but it's lots of good pictures so it's not that hard to follow. As I said...To work...

     

The first thing to do is to glue the legs on the "body" and then the skids. You glue everything with Ca-Glue, so it's fast and easy to do. Then it's the axle, motor, tail and so on. You should run the engine for some hours before you use them. I ran my engine for 3 hours at 3 V, and that seems to work nicely. There are no problem to put all parts together because the quality is good.

     

You have to keep in mind that all ball links have to move easy. This is best taken care of by put them in to their places and then squeeze theme some with a flattonges Until they run smoothly. You do that to all links but be careful, it is easy to squeeze too hard and break the links. We're getting closer to the core, The PiccoBoard. You have to keep in mind that it is made for a JR radio. Channel 1 is Trottel, 2 is Nick, 3 is Roll and channel 4 is Tail. As for me, well I have a Futuba and I will find that that nothing seems right. That ticked me off and my supplier told me that it is a well known fact, but all you have to do is to fix your radio. I didn't really want to do that because then it wouldn't fit my other models, so I used an old Focus 4 and shifted the channels so it would fit.  And you can also do what I did, I “dissected” my PiccoBoard  to find out how it was constructed and reconstructed it to fit my Futuba. I won't get in on that because it is a bit difficult. Anyway, it works now and this is how it looks! (Now you could choose the channels for the Piccoboard)

     

Well, once you have it, it's only to connect it all. I also solid the servos right ON the board because I thought the contacts took too much space. That makes it able to attach the board on the side and get a right angle attachment witch allows the gyro to work better. I did that after I took the picture above so my Picco doesn't look like that now. The one below is the accurate one.

 

Picture is coming

Picture is coming

   

Another thing with the Board is that the note for “mix & sensitivity” are reversed, but if you check the manual it's not. Well, have you gotten this far it is time to check that everything works and to attach the paddles and the blades. You have to make sure the paddles don't vibrate. I chose to use eight 270 mAhs batteries and that works all right and it gives me an air time of about 3-4 minuets. It might seem short but you can chose 570 mAhs lion batteries instead and that will give you about 8 minuets air time. If you want even more, use Tadiran cells. Some say they will last for up to 15 minuets. Anyway, time to take off… I experienced that one have to be careful with the paddles and Tp. If one are you've  gained a lot. I also think one has to use a trainee rack the first times you fly, it might save some crashes until it is trimmed in. I started to trim in my Picco sitting on the floor checking first that the mix between tail and the main rotor was correct  and that the model didn't twist during light gas. After that was done it was take off and as usual a little nervous and not dare to take it higher up than a few inches, where I noticed the Piccolo seems to have a slight problem. It slides and seems a little “jelloish”. That disappears when you get a little higher. When I fly I use Ikarus 5 gram servos and I run the link at the end of the arm. That can seem to give high sensitivity, but it can be nice to have in eventual obstacles. I did try different gears and found that ten  works best. Now there's only to place the top on and fly around the furniture.  I also made a case for transporting my model. I used the box that came with it, it is perfect for it. All I did was to cut out supports of the pacing material. It's not hard at all and really nice to carry along.

     

I have also made a "bag" to my Piccolo. It's made of the box that it came in. So now I can transport it safer. It's easy to do and you will make it in a half hour.

 

Picture is coming

   

I can really recommend this model for some fun flying during this cold and dull season. It's not much to build and not hard to trim, but keep in mind it's not for beginners. If you have any questions about it don't hesitate to ask me and I will do my best answering. Send me a Mail

  Link to Johan Bjurling’s Piccolo site. See what he thinks. Address är http://hem3.passagen.se/lobju/proj/piccolo.htm   Back to mail page.