http://www.beavisoriginal.co.uk

I knew what to expect and surprise surprise, he looked just like his picture!

Beavis has his workshop in the loft so up we went to be greeted by a heli enthusiast's dream. Wall-to-wall helicopters ranging from Airwolf and a Huey, to various X-cells Concepts and others that I didn't recognise. He spent about an hour checking the Baron over and declared that apart from having a servo reversed and not having balanced the blades, it had been put together in the right order! He also checked out the radio programming, which was way over my head at the time, and is only now beginning to make some sense after almost two years!

Michael and I had started the Irvine before so the next step was to go down to his back yard and see if it would get into the air. The moment of truth! Would it all hold together? Beavis said that he'd guarantee it would fly the way it was set up now, so back down the steps and into the garden that was just getting dark at that time of year.

After a couple of attempts, the engine coughed into life and Beavis lifted it immediately into a steady hover at about eye level. What a result! This was the first time I'd ever seen a model helicopter fly and I was fascinated to see the results of all that hard work suspended in mid air in front of me. That first hover was only for a couple of minutes whilst he set a basic trim into the transmitter, then down it came.

There were two problems. First it was getting too dark, and he wasn't happy with the rudder control. Nothing much could be done about the first problem but we spent a little while trying to ease the rudder action. The Baron has a wire tail pitch mechanism that is largely unsupported over the main frames and is generally considered to be a poor design. It was upgraded to a remote servo and carbon rod for the next weekend, but that didn't stop us arranging to meet again the following day at the field for our first lessons!