Hi Guys, I stumbled on this site by doing a search on Rubber Powered Helis and my designs popped up along with a link to a sketch posted here of my MIA RB500 heli. So it caught my interest as to who was doing a sketch of it and it led me here. I decided to join to give you a bit more info and help you out.
May I say, that there is no need to reverse engineer my designs. All you had to do is contact me directly at MIADSGNS@COX.net and request more info.
As you can see I am still around, although I have moved on to other more elaborate projects.
History
My original company MIA Designs expanded to MIA Micro-FLIGHT, back in 1999, but the Rubber Powered helis I did, have not been forgotten. None of the stuff I have designed is really forgotten, only placed on temporarily hold, until the grace of our heavenly father decides it is no longer in our control.
I don't often get people e-mailing me for Rubber Powered Helis, or stick and tissue helis, as some folks prefer to call these models, but I have sent out full size plans in exchange for a small fee to several people who have requested such while I still had plans available.
I still have the master drawings of all my RP helis done in vellum, as was the typical way, back in the day, before the internet went wild.
With this in mind. Let me say that the MIA RP or RB, Rubber Powered or Rubber Band Helis as you've already seen it and as it comes up in Google search when you key in MIA Rubber Powered Helicopters, all were available at the time I was selling them in kit form. The only ones not available were the more free-style designs in the background of the display I showed in one of the Chicago Hobby and Model shows, back in the day. See photo.
The original MIA MD500 Rubber powered heli Kit
When I was selling the rubber powered heli kits, 80's early 90's, I had been in constant contact already on several projects with Flying Models magazine and had sent to one of their columnists, Earl VanGorder, who was publishing my micro heli work, in general, back in those days (Flying Models 1993), a full kit and he did a multi page spread review of it which came out on Flying Models March 1994.
The Kit came with all the balsa stick and the plan itself (big sheets) was the "tissue" covering for the heli. Now some of you may be wondering why use the plan paper to cover the model. Well, this was a decision I made considering that I wanted all the graphics laid out on the covering and it was a lot easier to simply use the plan itself, color as you wish, trim it and apply it with paper glue to the balsa sticks. The model was indeed a bit heavier than one covered with traditional light tissue, but considering the size of the model and the rubber power I was using in those days, it was not that critical. I demo'd flight at the Chicago Model and Hobby show and many people were very interested.
Now I also did the same model in color tissue and a few of my customers at the time took the same model and covered it in monocote, silkspan, and similar even, so the option of covering was not limited, if you were not too concerned with weight.
OK so weight is very important in a rubber powered model, but it depends how it is build also. To keep the model lightweight, using the plan as covering, I elected not to cover any areas that did not need covering such as the top and bottom to save on weight and these actually improved flights since there was less drag on the verticals of the model being only side plates, if you will, made from balsa and paper. Now these areas were x-reinforced with balsa sticks to give the rather boxy but 3-dimensional scale like structure more mechanical rigidity, while keeping it as light as possible, with the given components, for the reasons mentioned.
The power pod was a drop-in assembly, a simple long rectangular frame, that extended below the belly of the model, to house a powerful rubber motor and keep it from being too distractive and within the scale and required power of the model.
In similar fashion, my other designs, the Bell 47G, Hughes 300, Bell Huey and Long Ranger kits, were a balancing act of material selection, looks and power to give as best of a satisfying flight with a look that was more realistic than any previously designed Rubber Powered stick and rubber heli-. After all, this is one reason I started designing rubber powered helicopters, it was because the stuff available, at the time, was mainly sticks with opposing props powered by a few strings of rubber and I wanted something more realistic. This is basically the gist and direction I took with all the rubber powered heli designs you see still on my pages and also when you search on Google MIA Rubber Powered Helicopter. In fact it is these helis that paved the way to my electric heli designs, later turned into full RC Kits that I was offering back in 1999 before any company had a micro heli of the type, size and weight I was making in those years.
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