About the video: MarioIArguello wrote: http://www.micro-flight.com Foamie Helicopter 3D Original design by Mario I. Arguello of MIA micro-FLIGHT (www.micro-flight.com) 600 size! 32" Rotor, 13 ounce! Foamie heli body and blades.

I have, over the years, made several "foamie heli designs" using foam sheet surfaces and a 3 channel radio with elevon mixing, much like some of the 3D hovering planes of today. After many attempts and tweaking, I was succesful with them, but the lack of not having precise control, like on real RC helis steered me into the MIA 3D Foamie Heli, which I put together a few years back, this is a combo of a foamie with standard CP micro heli mechanics for the ultimate in a lightweight structure with more precise control, than a simple foamie, with an airplane prop attached to the top.

The rush to come up with a very simple RC heli has been a great motivation for RC model enthuisiasts, and, over the years, the world has seen many variations. As modelers, many of us have made interesting contraptions, I've seen some some and most likely you have too, but I am sure that this particular helicopter design is probably your first of a kind, as there is no other similar helicopter made in the way I've made this one, at the time of this posting.

If you like to build from scratch and have succeeded at making a somewhat pseudo Foamie heli hover/fly somewhat decent, you probably wanted to make things a bit more elaborate, in order to have a more realistic heli control. This is in particular, neccesary, in the area of the rotor head, as it is the rotor head control system design, that allows one to control a heli with precision, otherwise, we are stuck with the limited airplane surface controls, as in hovering foamy airplanes, or vectored controlled, pseudo helis.

There are ways to cheat and get some good results, of a rather pseudo simpler RC helicopter, though, some have already touched based on a design that is not far from the Kyosho Hyperfly (remember? ), with no tail control, forward speed and cyclic only. This Hyperfly heli was popular when it first came out, several years ago, it was cheaper, and it appeared easier, and for some, it was, but the interest for many, soon wore off, because it was not, what some of us would consider, a "Real RC heli". I still think the Hypefly was fun and still is with its limited control capability.

I am a strong believer in "light helis" that comsume very little power, though, this is also the reason why I prefer a basic FP simple lightweight heli over say a totally bling out 3D T-REX or bigger machine that requires a bit more brute power. This is also the reason why most of my better known RC Micro helicopters have been simple and lightweight. See my other You Tube videos on my micro helis for 2006 for a glimpse at my other designs.

A simple IFO like heli is great fun but eventually we all move on to more complex setups as our piloting skills improve. Perhaps the midle ground for this is something like the MIA 3D Foamie Helicopter.

This MIA 3D Foamie Helicopter, is extremely lightweight and has a very low rotor disk loading. The Body along with the main and tail blades, which were made from scratch, are all FFF (fan fold foam) or BlueCor to some people. I had to modify the mounting and flybar paddle distance and weight to get it to work more in line with this, almost, 600 size helicopter.

Remember Hobby Lobby's Hughes 500 FP, first electric 500 size heli sold by such hobby store? such helicopter used a Graupner Speed 600 motor, this goes back a number or years and perhaps some of you were not around or may not remember way back then, but my MIA 3D Foamie heli is full CP, at the same size, as such, but at a very small fraction of the weight! HL's Hughes 500 was/is. Can we call it a foamie? I am not sure, but to me it is. This MIA 3D Foamie heli does everything the big boys do and is much easier to fly, on a calm day, because of its larger rotor disk to light weight ratio.