First Flight:

Assembly proceeds rapidly now, as all parts have been previously fitted. The passenger seat is installed, followed by the remaining front body panels. We won't install the rear panels yet; to facilitate inspection for leaks etc. during initial flights. It's time to finish things off, so decals are added, which really give a nice touch & make it look the professional job that it is.

The elastomeric rotor bearings are fitted, along with main rotor blades. Initial balancing is carried out, although there will be a lot more refinement to accomplish later.

Now it is time for the Certificate of Airworthiness to be issued by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, as required by Australian law for helicopters. We had co-ordinated the timing for this & arranged to fly the CASA engineer to the Whitsundays for a couple of days to complete the inspection & issue the C of A. This proceeded without problems & his few recommendations were immediately followed.

Crunch Time: Kevin gets to strap himself in & see if it really flies, while I get to watch & take photos -- I am definitely in the right place this time! The photo shows the very first lift-off & what do you know -- it flies! Not content with that, Kevin disappears for some time, playing around in the sky. I get brief glimpses through trees but it certainly looks like a success story. He returns later, quite happy about it & I'm over the moon, of course! Neutral cyclic has the control column to the left, which is not ideal; so fiddling is needed & this was fixed with one adjustment.

Further flight testing followed. This involved accurate blade tracking, lead & lag adjustments; both for the hover & forward flight, so this was time consuming but important. The main rotors have to be both statically & dynamically balanced & you have to test every time something is changed to see the result but time invested here produces a smooth aircraft. I got to help airborne as well by taking the odd notes & ensuring that it would auto-rotate successfully with 2 people on board.

Finishing touches now -- the interior is finished, as shown in the photo & the Talon is complete, except for the doors; it's still too hot here for those.

That completes the build, which has been accomplished by the 2 of us in less than 7 weeks. However, I still need to learn to fly it. I have done 14 hours training so far but need a lot more than that for my licence. At least, I have the incentive of a lifetime -- a shiny new Talon, ready to be flown -- by me!

Rear View.

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4
Section 5
Section 6
Section 7
Section 8