Flying Information
An Interview with Vic Campbell -
Mr. VBlades
By Mark Fadely
We have the opportunity to talk with Vic Campbell of VBlades in
this issue. Vic is a long time R/Cer with a machining and
mechanical background. He was coaxed into the heli blade
making business by pilots who loved the way his blades flew. Vic
has a reputation of producing top quality blades for helis. Now
let’s hear from the man himself.
Hi Vic, thanks for taking
time with us. Tell us a
little about yourself.
Well, I’m 52 years old
and I’ve been married to
my wife Sherry for 22
years. I come from
a background of machining
and auto
mechanics. That’s
what I did before
getting into the
blade business. I restored
and worked on
classic and antique cars.
I’ve had all kinds of motorcycles
and I also
raced dirt bikes. I’m
done with motorcycles now though. I’m too old for that stuff.
I’ve got a new Vet and that’s my toy now. My business,
VBlades has been around for ten years now. I’ve been flying model
helis since 1976! Wow! I guess you can print that! (laughs). I’m
an old fart.
Interesting Vic, I didn’t know you had been in the hobby that long.
You’re really one of the pioneer modelers in helicopters then. What
was your first R/C helicopter?
My first one I built myself. Yep, it was called the Polecat and I built
it from a set of plans RCM (Radio Control Modeler) magazine. I
never was able to get the Polecat to fly though. The motor would
never run right. It was a Fox 25 and it was real finicky. The Polecat
project was scrapped and I got a Revolution 40. It was a Hiller
only control system with a K&B 40 motor. I was able to learn to
fly helicopters with that machine. American Revolution helicopters
made the heli and John Simone owned the company.
Here’s a good quote from the early days of R/C helis, “If you really
want to fly an R/C heli... you can’t. You have to really, really,
really, really want to fly a R/C heli and you might be able to” -
(laughs). Our equipment was so bad. They all flew on 27mhz AM
so if someone keyed the mic on their CB radio they might shoot
you down too. Practically every time you went out to fly, you
crashed.
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I wish the MHT shop was this clean and organized!! |
Man! I see what you mean about having to really, really, really,
really want to fly them. You had to be pretty persistent in the early
days to stick with the hobby.
That’s why it aggravates me so much to hear guys complaining
at a fun fly. They might say, “my gyro isn’t holding good enough”,
or there is some little minor thing going on with the heli. They
have no idea what it was like in the beginning and all the trouble
we’ve had. I’ve quit several times because we simply couldn’t afford
all the repair costs. In those days every time we went out and
flew we came home with a crashed heli. It was only a matter of
how much crash damage there was going to be on any given day.
I was also making blades for our helis at that time. I would make
rotor blades for my buddies and me to use.
 |
You want them weighing how much? |
When did you get back into flying again?
About 10 or 11 years ago I had driven to Oklahoma for a dog show.
Sherry and I were in the dog breeding business at that time. I was
still getting Model Aviation Magazine and on our drive out,
Sherry noticed an ad in the magazine for a helicopter fun fly
in Oklahoma City. We drove by the heli event and as I drove
up I noticed a heli go down behind a fence and I told Sherry,
that one’s gone. Then it popped back up and did several other
tumbles and low flips! I was watching someone fly switchless
3D for the first time and I thought, Wow! That is amazing.
I could not believe a model helicopter could fly that way,
especially since I knew how poorly our first generation helis
flew. The pilot’s name was Maury Spratt (By the way: an early
MHT pilot profile subject). Maury is really responsible for
me starting the VBlades Company. I started flying and making
blades again and Maury was my test bed for all the new
blade designs we were trying. This was in the early days of
carbon fiber and we tried some of it around the wood core
blades that I had been making for years. The wood blades were
too flexible for 3D flying. When we first tried wrapping the wood
cores with carbon fiber we didn’t know what to expect. The
first sets that came out of the molds looked great! Maury and I just
stood there and looked at them. Then we picked them up and began
to twist and bend them and found out how strong and rigid they
were. I started making carbon blades for couple of friends and for
myself. We went to an event in Mt. Pleasant Texas. Maury and I
were flying our new carbon blades and Ron Lund from Rick’s
R/C was there. Ron looked at our helis and saw how they flew.
Then he asked if I would sell him some of my blades and I
thought about that. I hadn’t really considered selling the blades
to anyone but I said, sure. Ron ordered 10 sets of blades and just
like that VBlades was in Business. We were not setup to massproduce
blades for sure. I was sanding them in my bathtub! It
took a long time to make those first 10 sets and then a week later
Ron ordered 10 more sets. We’ve been behind in production
ever since. The demand for our blades has been great.
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VBlades factory. Where is the sign Vic? |
Your company started in southwest Missouri and recently you
moved. How did the move go?
Yes, the move was very good for us. We are near Springfield Missouri
now. There are a lot of good people here to hire for our manufacturing
positions. We did have a lapse in production during
our move though. Having a popular specialized product is good
and bad. We can only produce blades at a certain pace and maintain
our quality standards. Some people get frustrated because
they can’t get our blades. I’ve had people call me up and yell at
me saying that I don’t understand and I should be making blades
a lot faster. Then I tell them, no, you don’t understand! I can’t
just go out and pick blades off of a tree. These things don’t just
get punched out of a cookie cutter. There is a lot of skilled preparation
involved in making each set of blades. I can’t just hire unskilled
people to make the product. It takes a lot of handcrafted
expertise to get a quality set of VBlades out the door. Our new
facility has definitely helped us raise our production levels.
Vic, you’ve been around the hobby for a long time and you’ve
seen lots of pilots. How do you think things have changed?
First of all there has been exponential growth in the hobby during
the last few years. I think that’s due to several factors. It is
a lot easier to get help now because it’s much easier to get a modern
helicopter flying. That means that more pilots are actually
flying and are able to help others. Of course the new gyros have
been probably the biggest advancement for our hobby. The helicopters
now fly the way we always thought they should. The
engines run better and the radio equipment is great. You can take
almost any helicopter today and right out of the box it is capable of flying
better than 90% of the pilots. I see a lot of guys flying these highend
expensive machines when they are just in the hovering stages.
That doesn’t make sense. They think they have to have a heli just like
their favorite 3D idol. That’s okay if they can afford it I guess.
Do your blades come pre-balanced?
Yes they do. Laurel Koll was a very good friend of mine. Sadly, he passed
away recently. Laurel invented the Koll Balancer, which is a device that
balances the spanwise and chordwise CG of rotor blades. We use it on
all of our blades. If you’ve never seen one of these you owe it to yourself
to check one out if you get the chance. It will teach you a lot about
how and why our rotor blades fly. I personally thanked Laurel for designing
his balancer because I can be confident that every set of blades leaving
our plant will be perfectly balanced making for a smooth running heli. I
miss Laurel very much because we had shared a lot of experiences in
the hobby. He was a true gentleman and a major contributor to the R/C
helicopter world.
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Vic and Al Szabo making blades ...... ummm ... taking a break from making blades. |
Didn’t you change your blade composition at some time recently?
Yes we did. At one point in the year 2000 or so there was a real shortage
of light balsa. We never went away from our hardwood leading edge
but we tried a different trailing edge. Well, it never was as good and now
that we have a better source for the light balsa we anticipate never running
short again. The wood cores of our blades are still the same as they’ve
always been.
This was a hobby for you at first. Now it’s a business too. Do you still
enjoy it as a hobby?
Yes, I do still enjoy it. If I didn’t then it wouldn’t be worth putting up with
all the headaches of running the business. I really enjoy going to Fun Flys
and I have met some very good friends in this hobby. I believe that the
helicopter pilots are the best modelers around. I’ve been involved with
fixed wing R/C and cars too. The helicopter community is so much more
helpful an encouraging to beginners than the other sides of R/C. Fun Flys
have made this hobby what it is today. Pilots can get together and have
fun, learn, and get motivated seeing top pilots perform. Most of us don’t
want to compete when we’re at a Fun Fly. We just want the camaraderie
and fun factor of being around a lot of other pilots. What other sport can
you be involved in where you can pit right next to the world champion
and rub elbows with all the other top pilots? That’s pretty cool.
Where do you see for the future of VBlades?
VBlades has had a great beginning. We were fortunate enough to have
Curtis Youngblood fly our blades for many years. Other great pilots like
Dave Storey, Eric Larson, Henry Caldwell, Marcus Kim and so many more
have put our name on the map of R/C heli blade manufacturing. We now
have the Szabo’s, both Alan and Danny, flying our products. We are always
trying to improve our products. In the future we want to stay on
the cutting edge and give the pilots the best flying highest quality products.
Thank you Vic for being open and sharing your experiences from a
manufacturer’s point of view. We look forward to seeing you at a Fun
Fly soon. Keep up the good work. MHT
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