Twister 2025/2026 Science Olympiad Helicopter build instructions

hi there I'm Josh Finn from J&H Aerospace and this is the build video for the 2025 twister easy from J&H Aerospace this is the simplest and easiest

helicopter available for Science Olympiad helicopters competition and in general probably one of the easiest to build helicopters on the market period

that's for rubber power this aircraft uses 3D printed hubs top and bottom and plastic propeller bearing all sheet BSA flying surfaces so it builds in about 15

minutes so with that description given let's get started with the build you will need the following tools and materials to build out your twister we'll need a pair of needl nose

pliers these need to be in good condition with um texturing that allows you to grip the propeller shaft a good quality bottle of superglue

this is Bob Smith medium CA we do not recommend thin CA but medium CA works well you can get Bob Smith uh Mercury adhesives Satellite City or uh gorilla

CA if you can get it in bottles like this you want a Bott of CA accelerator uh zap um which also sells a good quality CA sells this uh this is Bob

Smith brand you can also get Mercury or Satellite City Lock in forceps are very useful for tying your rubber

Motors you can see how they lock in place pair of scissors again for trimming your rubber Motors this rubber lubricant is the type

that we sell it's a silicon oil uh but you can also use uh Super Lube silicon oil or um radio control car uh shock

fluid that's silicon base or something of that nature armorall uh or son of a gun also work well lastly you will need a Winder it's

not fun to hand wind helicopters get a Winder so that you can actually do this we will Begin by installing our rotor assemblies into this helicopter so

the first step is to remove this red plastic propeller so that we can add our propeller hubs to it so what you want to

do is grasp this elbow on that propeller shaft end right there and you want to squeeze and I didn't squeeze hard

enough you want to squeeze very very hard on this piece of wire so that you can bend and straighten it it should hurt when you're squeezing it once you have straightened that piece

of wire the propeller will slide off you can retain this for other projects and for fun but you're not going to use it as any other part of this helicopter

the bottom rotor Hub has this stub in it the stub faces out from our propeller shaft assembly just like

that now grasp this propeller shaft slightly in from where you made that bend so a little further in if this piece were to break off where you bent it that's fine you can go a little

further in in we're going to grasp this slide everything forward and again we're going to put a death grip on this pair of pliers and we're going to use our

thumb to press very hard against that to get a firm 90° Bend just like this we don't want any curvature in the propeller shaft we just want a sharp

Bend right there take CA glue with this piece held like so squirt glue up and down this

shaft like that and now slide this all the way down like that we're going to kind of let this free hang

below and try to it all perpendicular just like that so we want this shaft perpendicular water in both

dimensions you see I've got to scooch it over just a little bit there and now we can take CA accelerator we can squirt a little on

there now notice I have kept this bearing well below that area so I don't risk getting any glue into my bearing let's go ahead and pop a motor stick

loose from the sheet and so we can go ahead and test fit our nose our bearing down here at the bottom we can see that it's very loose so we'll just slide it back off

for now the next thing to do is to install our top rotor Hub so we're going to

install the top rotor Hub with these bevels facing downwards so if I drop it in here you can see the orientation I

have it positioned so the beveled faces are on the bottom the flat face is on the top so we're going to take this back out all right we're going to put

glue in this little slot and then we can drop this guy back down in there get it in as Square as you

possibly can in this Dimension and in this Dimension next remove rear hook assembly

here and it is going to glue on so that it's covering that little triangle so the hook is facing towards that upper hub

just like that remove two of your blades from the blade sheet and we're going to start by gluing

these onto the bottom hub assembly lay this in place place on that bevel so you can see how we have this oriented gluing it to the beveled face

on the bottom we'll come over to the other side we'll do the same thing we don't want the blades off like this we want them

parallel just like that so now we have nice pitch angle between them to keep the blades from breaking easily remove two of these little

triangles going to bead of glue across glue them on like that and do the same procedure for the top rotor you're again going to glue

these on that bottom beveled face these two have to be reinforced I've got a blade that's not wanting to stay put so we'll hit it with some accelerator

now you can see I have re reinforced the bottoms of both blades next from your motor stick fuselage part

sheet remove one of these top caps and pop a little square out of it we're going to put glue on this small

end so that it slides right through just like that flush with the end these are the vein assemblies that

go at the top your helicopter probably will not be able to fly without these and all you have to do with these is run a bead of glue down and onto the

top cap and they will attach just like that but you need this glue right here um otherwise they will tend to fly

off you can also Mount these kind of sideways on the um on the fuselage where that you would

have the mount um like so but you you have to do all of them that way if if you want to go that route otherwise they don't line up

correctly and that is a stronger way of assembling it so now we have that vein like so and that will help stabilize the

helicopter in flight this bottom bearing as we have mentioned tends to fit very Loosely so you can mitigate that behavior by

breaking a piece of scrap material out of your blade sheet you can see stick it sideways in here use it as a shim so the motor stick

fits on see fits tightly in there this propeller shaft has to be on the same side as that hook typical starting length for a

rubber motor for the Twister is about 10 in so to make a 10-in loop we need a 20in strand so we measure 10 in

sorry my rubber is Tangled a little bit here and then we'll measure 10 in again and we'll cut that at that

length before we tie this rubber to prevent it from cutting itself we want to squirt a small amount with this lubricant on

here just like that we tie one knot and I'll do this slowly form a

loop and pull the rubber through that Loop tie this off then we can do the same thing a second

time now holding this all tight put a tiny dab of glue on the very first knot that we

tied just like that now we will fully lubricate the rubber motor now squirting a little bit more lubricant on and we want the rubber to

be slimy to the touch so that it's easy to handle just like that we have videos demon demonstrating the proper way to wind and load rubber

motors for these aircraft however some students don't possess all of the equipment needed to do that so we're going to show you how to do this with a

paper clip a binder clip and a regular Winder clip your binder clip in place on a chair take your paper clip and bend

one end out now we're going to lock the other part of the paper clip through just like that load your rubber motor onto this

hook get the knot pretty far back and now load the paper clip through between the propeller shaft and the motor

stick for fully winding this rubber motor you want to stretch out four times the relaxed length in this case that would be 40 in and wind in about 60% of

your turns at that length we're just going to give a partial winding so I'm gotten past a full row of knots into the second one I'm working my way

[Music] in rubber feels relatively tight I can now slide that on on slide our paper clip out and now the

aircraft is wound and loaded with your helicopter wound partially like this don't expect particularly long flights but we can get something decent you can hold the

helicopter by the motor stick and let go um obviously I have a hand holding the camera and there we go as you can see these do tend to

wander around a little bit and that's K cuz they stay pretty much in one spot there like that don't let them land in the kitchen sink all right as you can see uh

helicopter flies pretty nicely I landed with more than a full row of knots left which is suboptimal so that means I should look at shortening this rubber motor slightly uh so that I can land

with a little less than one row of knots this one probably came out I don't know maybe a little heavy I don't know check by weighing these they do sometimes come

out underweight sometimes overweight it depends so with that said optimizing your rubber motor length comes down to if the the plane's coming down with a

whole lot of turns left shorten the rubber motor if it's Landing with not enough turns left meaning less than a half a row of knots

then you should go to a longer Loop of rubber we have classes uh in the form of indoor flight University available which

show how to understand the flight of helicopters how they remain stable how they operate and how to optimize them also a very extensive description of how

to test and to break in and to wind rubber motor to get maximum flight times I hope you'll check that out on our website again that's indoor flight unit University once you've mastered the

Twister you can move on to other helicopters like the tornado and hopefully ultimately to the hurricane or something of that nature we hope that you've enjoyed this video and that you've learned something and we'll see

you around