Raptor 30 or 50

[shuglu]

Hi All

Been lurking a while now and decided to sign up and take the plunge.

I am looking to purchase my first heli and have seen and heard much advice. I have settled on a Raptor, but have been advised against the 50.

Is this sound advice?

I have been traing myself on Realflight 3 which is great, but can't tell how realistic it is as I've not flown a real heli yet.

Great forumn by the way and any advice would be much appreciated.

[Ade_Law]

it depends on you budget and how quickly your are likely to get on with helis.

30s are good because they are cheap on fuel and some of the spares are a bit cheaper.

but once you get out into the circuit the extra power is useful. the 50s are also more stable as well so helps with a nice stable hover.

what is your reasoning behind the raptor? Its a good heli but there are a couple of other options.

where abouts are you based? your choice can be affected by what the local guys fly.

Ade

[shuglu]

Hi Ade

I'm based in london NW10. I haven't looked into clubs yet, but will do ASAP.

The Raptor looks to be well supported with spares and upgrades and a favourite intro brand. Would you have suggested otherwise?

My budget would allow for a titan 50, although I am yet to look at radios, field box, starter, gyro etc. but would like invest to grow into, rather than out of, if it were practical to do so as a novice.

I have about 5 hours on the Realflight sim and can hover (nose in and tail in if thats the right term) and do circuits flying the impala trainer.

Shuglu

[Ade_Law]

I have been flying the Knight 50 from skyline since november. Its great spec (lots of metal) flies brilliantly and is very durable (as I proved in full public view on saturday!)

its only 310ukp. To get a raptor 50 to the same spec your looking at almost 500ukp.

the only downside is that spares are only available from skyline models at the moment but the quality of most local model shops means that your probably going to buy things mail order anyway. At which point that argument becomes irrelevant.

http://media.putfile.com/Ade-June06-58

Ade

[sidy2001]

I must agree whith Ade the Knight 50 is very stable and great to learn on but in Ade's hands it is awesome. Also Skyline Models have next day delivery which is great if you need spares in a hurry

[Disc]

I'll just cut in and say the Knight in Ades hands is amazing and because its a 50 a bit more stable than a 30.

As for skyline.. Their my choice for spares at the moment for the Raptor
next day everytime. Shame they don'y carry many Century Swift parts or
maybe they could explain to Century how to stock parts better

(Swift is back together hopefully test flight on Thur/Fri or the weekend)

Midlands maybe good but they have lost 2 of my orders.... Not happy
about it but hey Skyline have had 350 pounds out of me because of it!

As for radio gear generally it depends what the local club use as it makes setting up easier. gyro's the futaba 401 with the 9254 is good for a begineer and easy to setup. Transmiter the Futaba 7c is a very capable tranny and will handle a Heli well. About 110-120 for the Tranny only.

Raptor vs Knight.... hard to say having seen Ade fly the Knight only but
if you want to learn to fly then hit 3D hard later the Knight will do it.

Seen Raptors fly they all fly the same and well.... Crash the same as well!
When you show up at a site with a raptor people won't ask much about it but take something diffrent they will talk all day.....

Raptors are common spares all over the place just avoid the Bling you won't need it.


I am considering a Knight 50 maybe next year the Raptor will stay the 30 size but a 50
Size heli would be nice.

[Leebert]

Having seen the Knights on Sunday (metal & plastic), I was very impressed.

Ade: what was the servo / gyro / motor spec?

The only thing I would say is that the Raptor is straight forward to set up (relatively) and loads of people will be able to help. The Knight is CCPM and there's more to it to avoid any control interactions etc. I'm speaking as a newbie though, it may not be as bad as that sounds.

Cheers,

[Ade_Law]

my knight has what most would call the standard equipment for 3d flying.

OS 50 hyper/MP2
futaba 9252 on the ccpm,
futaba 601/9151 gyro
CSM rev-lock and DS811 servo.

CCPM isnt difficult to setup. there are a few basic ground rules that you have to follow, nothing too time consuming but follow those and you will never have any issues.

Ade

[Disc]

Ade:

Whats the price of the plastic Knight?

Been unable to find a price for it.

Also the Knight looks stronger than the Raptor overall.

Ade is it?

[shuglu]

The knight looks very good compared to the raptor, thanks for the referal Ade.
Will this Heli be suitable for a novice and what is CCPM? This heli is only available as part built, is this preferable as I've read that building your own from the ground up is better (I would enjoy the challenge). Sorry for the obvious questions.

Shuglu

[Leebert]

IMO CCPM is harder because you have three cyclic servos controlling pitch, aileron and elevator combined.
Looking from the top of the rotor head with, say, the nose pointing to the top (12 o'clock). There are three servos that can move the swash plate. One at 10 o'clock, one at 2 o'clock and one at 6 o'clock. to move forward (i.e. towards 12 o'clock) the front two servos (10 and 2 o'clock) move down and the rear servo moves up. This tilts the swash plate forward and the heli moves forward. For pitch, all three servos move up or down together. (I sure that could have been explained easier). The bottom line is, all of the servos are interacting with each other so the mixing has to be spot on.
On a raptor, each of the three servos do one control each - aileron servo, elevator servo and pitch servo. Easier for a newbie to see what's going on and fault find (well, I think anyway - I'll let you know how easy it was to re set up my CCPM t-rex when I finish repairing it!)
Sorry if that has confused more than it has helped!
Cheers,

[Disc]

I Would agree with Leebert Raptor set up is easier than the Knights.
Just because on the manual mixing on the raptor and its not CCPM.

But if you join a Club you will find someone to help you.

[Ade_Law]

I believe the price of the plastic knight is going to be under 200ukp.

the knight is definitely stronger. Its been in hard a number of times and always comes out pretty good. I am yet to do a major part of the frames. The crash at the weekend did tweek the frame slightly around the throttle servo but thats not part of the main structure.

there are a few key parts on the knight which are cheap and easy change which appear to take the main crash loads. This saves you bending the more expensive parts like you would do on other metal grips etc.

The battery tray is just a bit of sheet alu held on with a couple of M3 bolts. These take the front canopy mounts. So you dont bend the main frames in a crash and frontal impact bends the tray too.

the other main part on the metal knight is the pitch arms, these are 6ukp a pair and bolt onto the blade grips with 3 small bolts. Again they are easy to change.

CCPM and Mechanical mix is how the servos are made to control the swashplate.

On mechanical mix there is a linkage that makes it so that each servo controls each axis of the swash. So one servo makes it go up and down for collective pitch, another makes it tilt left/right and another makes it tilt fore/aft. The advantage of this is that the mechanical setup of the servo geometry wont give you anything too weird if you get it wrong. The down side is that any slop in the system will show up in the controls.

On CCPM (in this case 120deg 3 servos CCPM) you have one servo connected to each corner then the transmitter has electronic mixers built in to make the servos work as a team to make the swash move as above. The advantage is a mechanically simple linkage system meaning low slop. You also have much more power to the swash as the loads are shared evenly accross the 3 servos where as mechanical will load the pitch servo more than the others. The downside is that if you dont get the 3 servos working as a team properly the swashplate will not travel completly flat through the collective pitch range meaning the trim will change this is often refered to as interaction.

A lot of people make a bit fuss about the CCPM setup and interaction. But follow a few basic rules in the early stages of setup and you will have little or no problems.

its worth noting that some mechanical mix helis suffer from interaction too due to badly disigned mechanical. There is little or nothing you can do about this its just the way some helis are. <cough> century hawk </cough>

Ade

[shuglu]

Does the part re-built knight kit offer an advantage over other brands, and will the heli need to be checked over pre assembly to avoid factory inconsistancies. I have also read than a few parts should be upgraded (ball links), have you had to do this Ade?

Shuglu

[Fixxxer]

Got to agree with Ade that I find CCPM easier to get along with once you know how it works... that said it took me a bit of head scratching the first time so for a complete novice perhaps a mehanical setup is the easier option especially if there is no knowledgable help close at hand (forum aside).

Do knight have there own website with a bit more detail as I'm considering getting a 50 heli and have also been looking at the titan.