Thread: 700e DFC Head - My Thoughts :)

Much the same as I did for the 550 here, just a quick page of thoughts on the new 700 DFC head.

Initially I wasn't going to bother with a DFC head on the 700e. It flys pretty awesome as it is, and to be honest I was dubious about the extra size, weight and cost of the 700 being put at risk with the lower DFC head. Then I get a text from Sacko "Have you seen the DFC head on heliaddict's for £45?". Natural heliaddict instinct took over, and before I knew what was happening I'd paid for it (cheers Swale). I spent about an hour building it up (mainly fighting the loctite on the feathering spindle bolts!), then plugged in the vbar to check/change the geometry. It requuired a slight tweak, in actual fact, the geometery would appear to be slightly better as I had to move the sliders up a little in to the green - that can only be a good thing.

Here it is after fitting and setting up, plus first shot with the new Buckers Cano-FX canopy...



And a comparison to a 700e v2 with the original head...



So off I went to the ARA field this morning, and was greeted by no wind, and mostly blue skies! Perfect for a maiden



And on it's 4th flight...



So final thoughts? It looks awesome, most noticably in a hover It's seriously low, more so than I first thought TBH. I flew it pretty hard on the maiden, and it flew very very well. It feels quicker on the cyclics, and again, the same as the 550, sharper on the stops and direction changes, I like it a lot. I've also found the included dampers to so far be better than the original dampers? Bizarre as they are visibly the same, but as of yet no slop or free-play in them, unlike the dampers in the original head after the first flight! It has also unloaded the motor, again the same effect I found on the 550. Check out the second video above, almost 4 minutes in to a reasonably hard flight, sustained 4 point tic-tocs with ease. The blade noise since fitting this head is pretty evil, very loud, to the point that a few of the guys at the field commented if I'd done anything else to it. I did try reasonably hard to boom strike it, and again all was good, thankfully! It's not going to crash well (as all the DFC heads won't!), but as Laurence would say, these things are for flying, not crashing

Is it worth the upgrade? I'd say so, more so if you already have a v2 with the blade grips already fitted. After sitting it along side Dan's 700e with the original head, it really does make it look tall and lanky, so on that basis alone I'm happy

Originally Posted by lee_m

thats amazing flying!
How many crashes and helicopters did you both go though to get that good? LOL

Quite a few