A Sport Flying Helicopter

[David P Williams]

I've owned and flown Raptor 50 helis for years. They were (are) relatively inexpensive and capable of far more than my basic sport flying (stall turns, loops and rolls, the odd flip) abilities and requirements. I have fitted them to scale bodies for affordable, easy to fly, satisfying scale models. Spares have always been widely available and cheap.

A couple of weeks ago, following a few months layoff, a rusty thumbs moment resulted in a boom strike and the funky chicken in the middle of the patch. No problem, I thought , work out what parts I have in my spares box, order up the rest online. What a shock when I find that all my usual heli sources - plus a few others - are 'out of stock' of most Raptor parts. Not popular/fashionable any more, everyone's gone Trex. I ended up having to get a couple of bits second hand off ebay. Then at the Weston Park show yesterday there was a trader offloading Raptor kits and a bin of spares at half price.

So - time finally to try to sell all my Raptor stuff it seems, and re-equip with currently popular stuff with good spares availability. The problem is, no-one seems to make a 'sport' class heli model any more - everything has to be '3D capable' full of carbon fibre and blingy bits, and correspondingly more expensive. With my requirements and ability I'm quite happy with plastic parts and simplicity, just as I'm quite happy with basic fibreglass blades and a basic 50 heli engine. I don't need 'Hyper power' and Muscle pipes and flybarless and endlessly configurable gyros.

So I, and I suspect most other average club heli flyers, end up paying way over the odds for models that are way more capable than we need, and many of them probably never do more than hover. Even if I bite the bullet and go for a Trex600 it doesn't seem possible to buy a basic kit - it has to be 'combo' at £600 plus.

OK, rant over, but this is seriously making me think of giving up with helis and sticking to fixed wing.

David

[WolstonFlyer]

Hi David

Have you had a look at the kits here, I have the 450GT and found the quality to be good. I have now made it FBL but the original flybar head worked fine.

Most of the parts seem to be compatible with original Align parts, the HK450 seems to be a 'clone' of the T-Rex 450 Sport.

They also do a 500 and 600 size kit.

**Link**

[David P Williams]

Thanks for that - I should have made it clearer in my first post that I meant nitro helis. I have a Trex500 and a mini Titan325, and they're OK for non-I/C days at my club or down the village football pitch but a) I prefer the stability of the bigger helis when it's windy (quite often) and b) I find the whole battery management/short flight times thing a bit of a pain.

I actually bought a HK600 kit but wasn't impressed with the quality and sold it on. The heli forums also seem to indicate that these kits need a significant proportion of parts replacing with genuine Align parts to make them usable or reliable.

David

[Djay]

Hi david.

I buy most of my Raptor parts for my Titan 50 from Tower Hobbies in the Sates.

They have every spare going at good prices.

may be worth stocking up on the popular replacement parts in case the UK shops do not get any more stock.

The Raptor 50 is still in my opinion the best heli ever made for learning or general sport flying.

When I was learning I put wooden blades on, slowed down the head speed and the heli was as solid as a rock, even go hands off and it stayed put.

I have T Rex, 250, 600 and 700, plus various other small leccy helis, but fly the Raptor all the time rather than the others.

Darryl

[WolstonFlyer]

Sorry I didn't realise you meant IC, I should have checked.

Have you looked at Midland Helicopters, they seem to still stock quite a few parts for Raptor 50 v2 and Raptor 50 titan if that helps.

**Link**

[David P Williams]

Yes thanks, in fact that's where I got the bulk of the parts from last week, but quite a lot of items are 'out of stock'.

My complaint is really more that there don't seem to be any learning or general sport flying nitro helis produced any more, you either have to go electric or 'Extreme 3D'

David

[simon burch]

Just because a helicopter is 3d capable, doesn't mean it can't be set up for sport flying. I don't quite understand your post. If you want to stick with a plastic raptor, there are loads on ebay or going secondhand. I'd be surprised if you could ever in out of spares.

The market has moved on. The average sport flyer does want carbon which is why nearly all the machines on the market are now carbon framed as designs have moved away from plastic. Designs have moved on.

The Align combos are great value if you want everything, but most shops will split if you only want the bare kit.

Due to the popularity of simulators and the e-flite helicopters such as the mcpx and the 130x, a lot of people don't really learn on a larger machine anymore. You can get some of the painful learning crashes out of the way before investing in a bigger machine. As you said, electric has become dominant so the choice of nitro machines is more limited, but the can all be set up to suit your flying style.

Simon

[David P Williams]

I understand all that Simon, my point is that I am paying for capability that I do not need. I don't buy a ferrari when I just need a car to go shopping. The average sports flyer only 'wants' carbon etc. because that's what the advertising tells him he needs. As in many other walks of life, people are being suckered by the marketing.

David

[Djay]

I agree totally with David.

 

as an average sport flyer I do not want carbon, or have any interest in bling for my machine.

Fixed wing flyers do not buy a 3d capable machine to learn on, they go in stages , from trainer to sport model, then if they want carbon, they buy a 3d or similar machine.

With helicopters, some of us just want to fly as a club flyer, and would like to be given the choice of buying an ic 50 size general sport machine, that if we wanted to , could be upgraded.

But the manufacturers keep telling us we need full 3d carbon machines, when the opposite is true.

Just produce a stable rugged, reliable sport model and it will sell well.

Many of the people at my club will not buy helicopters because they are carbon, which is just to much for them to invest in, even if you can set them up as a trainer. They just want basics.

The raptor fills this niche perfectly.

Darryl

Edited By Djay on 16/06/2013 16:51:32

[Dave Bran]

Please don't give in and join the MisAligned...............

How about a Hirobo SDX? A damn sight better made than anything Align branded!! (and I do have 450s, 500's and a 600 to know)

You may not even know they even exist as RipoffMax try desperately hard to ensure that nobody sees they sell them.

I still fly the forerunner, the Sceadu Evo (I have 3 of) and even a Sceadu (1of) which has a more restricted head but aeros SOOOOO smoothly through loops and rolls, piros and stall turns........ They are great secondhand buys, and parts, though expensive, and superbly made, fit properly, and NEVER seem to wear out. Oh, and the manuals are second to none

If you break something Midland keep good stocks or good quality s/h parts are avaialble from Eddies Heli Bits on EBay

SDX - **LINK**

[David P Williams]

Thanks Dave, I'll have a look.

[simon burch]

I'm sorry but I don't agree. Model helicopters have evolved into the latest machines you see today. The only parts in some machines which are carbon are the fins and side frames, which can be replaced with cheaper G10 if desired. Why produce a model which is only good for a beginner, when most of today's machines can be set up perfectly for a new flyer or an expert.

Raptors are great machines, but they can self destruct in a crash and cost you just as much as a modern machine to repair. If you want a plastic moulded model, then go for a secondhand Raptor or the Hirobo models, the choice is yours. I don't see the argument of manufacturers forcing 3D machines onto flyers, things have just moved on. To be put off flying helis because they have carbon bits is a bit strange, but there are still plenty of plastic options.

I own a Logo which is predominantly plastic, but I'd rather stick one of my carbon framed models in than that one!

Edited By simon burch on 16/06/2013 18:54:21

[David P Williams]

I guess we'll agree to disagree. The emphasis on carbon vs plastic is misleading - it's not just that, it's the standardisation of what used to be 'tuning' or 'upgrade' parts, with the associated increase in cost. All this is overkill for a sport model, and certainly overkill for fitting into a scale fuselage.

I would rather not be reliant on second hand ebay sourced stuff, but it seems I either do that or pay the price penalty. Maybe it's being fairly newly retired that has got me counting the pennies and focussing on value - a year or two ago when I was earning, I would have just followed the herd and bought whatever the current fashion was.

David

[Allan Bennett]

Comparing helis to fixed wing is, I believe, not valid when you're talking about a beginner's progression: With fixed-wing you start with a high-wing trainer, and then you can progress to a mid-wing or low-wing model if you wish. The point is, they have completely different flying characteristics which cannot really be altered very much.

The modern heli though, in my experience, is a sort of all-abilities model. You can set the same model up as nice and gentle for a beginner like me, very responsive for 3D, or somewhere inbetween for a more-experience flyer who wants to fly scale.

Even though I have no interest (at the moment) in 3D, both my T-Rex 500 and 550 (both electric) have carbon frames, though I do believe that fibreglass was an option for the 500 when I bought it. In five years the frames have been one thing that I haven't managed to break

[simon burch]

David,

I know what you mean about the cost. I wouldn't dare add up what my fleet would cost to replace. WIth most modern machines, there is not really anything worth upgrading, they tend to come ready to rock.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting parts for your Raptor. One of the benefits of moulded parts is that they tend to break rather than bend so second hand parts normally do the job. I've seen complete unflown Raptor 50's go complete for less than 250 quid, the price of being in a fashionable hobby I guess.

I hope you stick at the heli's and your crash doesn't put you off.

Regards,

Simon

[Piper Cub]

Got to agree with this. It seems if you want a 600 size heli, you have to pay for all the whizzy bang bits you may not need or want.

Sure, these heli's can be set up for docile sport \ scale flying but, you've paid the premium for the 3D that you dont want.

Prices for helis are getting stupid even for 600 size machines. I saw someone on another forum say 'if you cant afford it, go lump it!' Well yes, that'll ensure a continual batch of newcomers to the sport, wont it?

Hirobo Sceadu's are reasonably priced but have you seen the price of the dedicated hirobo electric conversion kit? You can buy the lepton for not much more so you have to make the right choice first time.

There are some 3rd party conversion kits ranging from £50 to about £100 but some of these limit the side of motor or dont look like they'd last too many years.