RC Chinook Bicopter

I used to fly 3D helicopters (up to 700 size) a few years ago and slowly moved away from them due to the high cost of parts and batteries. But there was one copter I always wanted to build, a remote control Chinook. Unfortunately, I didn't have the equipment/knowledge to design and cnc carbon fibre plates, or even the budget to get such plates cut externally. Anyway, fast forward a few years, I purchased a 3D printer and learnt to use 3D CAD modelling software. This allowed me to build a remote control VTOL aircraft with only two points of lift in a bicopter configuration:

This VTOL aircraft flew really well and got me thinking... could I move the motors from the roll axis to the pitch axis and build a Chinook fuselage around it? So I built this...

Here is the build video if you want to see more information about it:

These videos were uploaded on a weekly basis, but you can view them all at once!

Due to poor weather, it was time to start on the scale fuselage. I decided to build it out of 5mm depron foam because it was relatively easy to work with and light weight. It did cross my mind to 3D print the fuselage, but from experience of 3D printing planes, the time required to save as much weight as possible just wasn't worth it for this project. 

As I only had 5mm depron sheets to work with, I ended up layering a few sheets together to then sand into the shape of the Chinook nose section. Although not 100% accurate to scale, I think it looks pretty decent.

Time for some foam safe spray paint!

A few more finishing touches with a marker pen, some tri-blade props (yes those tri-blade hubs are 3D printed!) and a pair of 3D printed fake turbines.

In conclusion, it is possible to build a remote control Chinook with some multi-copter knowledge and a 3D printer! Although it doesn't achieve controlled flight in the exact same way that the real Chinook does, it is a much simplified version and still looks pretty cool. I hope this is of interest to some people and shows what can be done with a 3D printer and some foam!

Thanks for having a browse through my article! I wanted to add some more text about the project so it didn't seem like I just wanted to post the videos, however, I feel the videos explain A LOT more than what I could put into words!