Removing Rigid Metal Tube from 900MHz Antenna Whip—Impact on Shield and SWR?

Hi,

I am taking apart a 900Mhz antenna whip so that it should not be so rigid.

I want to install it in a quadcopter and need to flex it to install it alongside one of the legs.

The antenna (picture attached) consists of:

outer plastic tube
braided shield
inner plastic tube
center conductor

They have soldered the shield to a hollow rigid metal tube. I want to know if I can remove this metal tube, and have just a shield.

Since it is not connected to the center conductor it should not affect SWR, or is the larger amount of metal
acting as a ground plane of sorts, and I cannot remove it?

Thanks for your help.

This looks like a dipole antenna. The center conductor is half the dipole and the tube is the other half. You need both halves.

You can try something like what is in this RC camera website.
http://www.rc-cam.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2821-low-cost-diy-900mhz-omni-dipole-antenna/