MIA Little Nellie Foamie Version Sept 2009

[MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello)]

A Rare Look At MIA's Foamie Little Nellie.

This model was designed at around the same time and posted on You Tube, Sep 2009. The foamie MIA version was a prelude to the a more elaborate MIA micro Little Nellie full body rc autogyro model of the famous James Bond 007 Little Nellie.

Working strickly from photos, at the time, I was able to brew this model in one evening . The head design took me a little while longer as I could not decide wether to do it simple or complex, but I wanted it to look the part and then some!.

I did not have good photos of the real aircraft and my access to Mr. Ken Wallis or his real aircraft was not possible because I don't live in the UK, secondly because I did not want to bother him with emails, not sure if he was accessible directly via email, and finally, I wanted to take up the challenge of doing it and seeing what the end result would be, all on my own, with no outside help whatsoever.

I was not looking for publicity but to seee if it could be done. I never seen the glass half empty even when pre attempts at Littlle Nellies in model form had shown limitations, perhaps from older technology, as later on I became aware that some of the previous attempts, especially from Micromold had some very clever details, one being the clutch drive take off from the Wheel to prerotate the rotor.

I moved on with lots of hope as I had engulfed myself deep into this build. Was it a total success off the board, no, I had my share of dissapointments in the process of getting it to finally fly as good as it did for the type of model it was at the time. Still is, just my interest in that particular model has faded but I thought this would be a good interesting topic as many may not have access to the full story behind the development of all the RC Little Nellies in the world.

My RC Model refence at the time was also a faint photo that had been posted in a forum and I was able to make what looked like a helicopter rotor flybar assisted Little Nellie attempt made by Micromold (UK) back before my time.

I had learned from the internet search, before making this foamie model model that the real Wallis Gyros had some very special features that set them appart from the early Bensen and Brock gyros and that was the offset rotor head.

No RC Model Autogyro that I knew of at the time and I had done extensive research on such, also, utilized an offset head, most of the RC autogyros some rc autogyro enthusiast were doinmg, used simple universal joints and some more complex but without consideration for the offset geometry that the larger real counterparts had been using and I had been incorporating into my designs as well for the same reasons as he real ones have.

So here goes me being different but wth a real purpose (if you read the advantages of the offset rotor head which nowadays manyRC gyros that hace come to te scene have implemented) , I designed all my RC gyros with the offset geometry in scale and the foamie MIA Little Nellie had it also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited By MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello) on 11/07/2013 06:30:42

[MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello)]

(I had to break this post in two sections, as forum does not allow lengthly posts so here is the other half)

 

Making a replica of the Rotor head (An interestign note on some small weights attached to the rotor head)

I came accross a photo of a museum quality Little Nellie that looked like it weas on display at the time the 007 movie was being promoted and I was able to make the rotor head details from such enough to make a replica in miniature. I also came accross another photo of Mr. Wallis Gyro, in a newpaper article which talked about some rotor weights. Intrigued by this, I set out to find more about it in an almost virtual reality form, as I only had the text from the artice that read" when the rotor head is at a standstill the weights lock the rotor and prevent them from see-sawing laterally, when the rotor is in motion and above 200 RPM the fly-weights unlock the rotor. With this information I made a replica head with these features and I used tiny springs in a similar manner the real Little Nellie had used to hold the rotor locking weights. I was able to test this under an air conditioner compressor fan and I could sense the action of the mechanism in minaiture. It was a fun and interesting experience. Wether this can a benefit beyond the typical rotor head designs of present RC autogyro model work is yet to be explored beyond my description here, as I never really moved from this finding forward for simplicity and lack of time.

The MIA Protractor Offset Gimbal Head Idea

Thinking of ways for me to easily set the angle of attack on the model I came up with a protractor built in to the rotor head gimbal parts and this is the only one in the world that I know of with this setup and for obvious reason, I was after, at the time I did not know what the exact angle of attack would be on the model being that it was a scratch design and I wanted to set it easily at the field and also use it with different head arrangements (i.e. dual bladed , tri blade, semi-rigid, flex, spring loaded, independent restricted and single free moving teeter rotor head).

So here is the video of the proof of concept. Real day job work that came into view, at the time and got me really busy, forced me move away from this project and no further refinement was made to the model. If I were to revisit this model again today, I would not change a thing. Except some more efficient teeter blade design than what I did back then.

Edited By MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello) on 11/07/2013 06:19:35

[MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello)]

Photo of the whole model in detail. I never showed this photo in full size before but I am getting older and it does me no good to keep these photos to myself.

[MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello)]

Here is a close up of the unique rotor head stricly built from some not very high res photos and some text about it, of the real deal. Looks a bit unorthodox, add to that the protractor section I added on my model and it is like.. what is that? Well, there is always a reason for things.

[MIA Micro-FLIGHT (Mario I. Arguello)]