Helicopter from 1977

In the beginning

In the beginning, it wasn’t called Technic, it was called Expert Builder. This continued until around 1984. Expert Builder sets were focused on understanding physics and mechanical construction and functionality. Things like gears, levers and pulleys were staples of Expert Builder sets.

This is one of the early Expert Builder sets. Expert Builder debuted in 1977 with the release of 4 sets: Forklift (850), Tractor (851), Helicopter (852), and Car Chassis (853).

Helicopter

Helicopter

852 (954) is the rarest of these. It was only sold for about two years and is also the only one that didn’t came with ‘book’ instructions. The helicopter is huge! It also has a number of features including properly geared main and tail rotors, and a tilting mechanism operated by levers in front of the pilot/copilot seats.

It looks better in any other color than yellow… No surprise, pretty much anything that isn’t a bannanna looks better in any color but yellow.

UPDATE

I found a 40th anniversary version built studless and have included pictures here of my own version.

Studio Files

852 - Helicopter (Main model)

Helicopter (40th anniversary studless version)

Gallery

Original

Studless

Footnotes and References