Devil's Advocate..

[Ade_Law]

not yet. he wussed out and put the normal head on. told him to stop being such a girl :-)

Ade

[Stuart]

Well atleast he has both to play with + spares to keep him going. I'm sure he'll be swapping heads back as soon as he get's used to it. Its too tempting not to put the Avant head on...

[Steve]

£500 for a 50 is a good machine (I hope!).

I was considering a Sylphide 50, having been so impressed with my JR 30 sized heli, but that's..... errrr... £650 ish I think which is a big pile of dough!

50s are the helis for me - they have as much (if not more) power to weight ratio than most 90s and are therefore just as athletic in the air, and at an affordable price. 90s are out of my league.

When a 90 hits terra firma unexpectadly, it's generally a write-off, simply due to the weight of the helicopter pilling into the ground. 50s are much lighter, so generally come off in a more repairable state - that helps in the financial stakes as well.

[Ade_Law]

definitely. Problem is that with high start price also follows high spares costs. MA and JR are not know for good value spares.

its going to take a lot to get me to put the knight down any time soon.

Ade

[mchristyuk]

Ade,

I think the brush that tars JR with the high priced spares is a little unfair these days. Generally their bread and butter models are very very competitive on spares prices.. e.g. Airskipper 30 Kit £229.99, Spindle £2.24, Flybar (x2) £4.25, Mainshaft £5.75, Boom £8.45, Dampers £1.45. Compare that to their Raptor equivalents: Raptor 30 Kit £224.99, Spindle £5.49, Flybar £4.00, Boom £6.99, Mainshaft £7.48, Dampers £2.49. The top end machines such as the Sylphide and Vibe are more expensive.. for obvious reasons!

What could I do to get you to swap your Knight 50 for an Airskipper 50 for a good thrashing?

Hey Stu.. how is your Vibe going? Get the test flight in last weekend?

Cheers

Mark

[Ade_Law]

your right, not really played with a modern one. but...

something i found with the sceadu is that the common spares are cometitive but the little bits of plastic that you do break like the flybar carrier are commically expensive.

how does the airskipper compare?

Bring one to a show and let me have a twiddle :-)

Ade

[mchristyuk]

Hi Ade,

Flybar seesaw including the 4 bearings (2 for flybar, 2 for rotation) is £19.95 and the one piece flybar arm which the washout connects to is £6.95. The Scedeau Evoltution for the sam parts is Seesaw £6, Bearings, Flybar arm £4.99 and bearings £12.98 + £13.99. Grand Total JR £26.90 Hirobo £37.96. Part for part plastic wise they are pretty similar but more often than not the JR parts come with new bearings at a much lower price than buying the bearings separetly. Anf if you do break the flybar seesaw in a crash the chances are you will want to replace those little bearings anyway.

Airskipper undercarriage £9.95, Tailrotor gearbox plus pitch plate is £12.75.

I'll see what I can sort out with getting my hands on one for you to play with..

Cheers

Mark

[Stuart]

Mark,

Got to the field, didn't even get a chance to unload the car and the heavens opened. Been so busy at work that I didn't get a chance all week. Busy doing some DIY today and praying for the weather to be fine tomorrow. 140 degrees is all dialled in now.

[mchristyuk]

Hi Stuart,

I was out Wednesday evening and it was blowing a gale.. not much fun!!.. Weather here is fantastic at the moment... however I have a BBQ and some DIY + Car maintenance that is taking up this weekend . Hope you get some good weather tomorrow.

Cheers

Mark

[Stuart]

Well things are looking positive for tomorrow.....the rain that was forecast is now not 100% from the BBC site it look's like good be a reasonable day. Then again I've been down this road many a time before.

Just noticed that MR R is deleting posts from the Synergy forum request post...

[Steve]

I had a good look at a Knight 50 today at Wings & Wheels and I have to admit that it does look like a lot of metal heli for £300. However, it's definately got that look of bits of different Hirobo helis all mangled together - bit of Scuttle, bit of Sciddly-Doo etc etc.

I was definately impressed with the all-metal head, metal frames and tail casing.






Oh, and was impressed with the JR Airskipper 50 for the same money as well.

Didn't make any kit purchases - the wife was with me! Just an OS 37 for my Voyager and some other bits'n'bobs.

[Ade_Law]

the knight is cool very good heli for the money, its going to take some beating as far as i am concerned.

but... just because something is good doesnt mean something else isnt better.

half my job is giving well rounded unbiased advice and i cant do that unless i have experienced the equipment myself.

had a play on Thomas's (was stuart's) avant today, "interesting" machine. not setup or equiped as i would have it and the motor was a little down on power from what I am used to but seems a nice machine non the less. He wussed out on the head tho! :-)

Ade

[Raptorite]

Amen to that one brother Ade! it's really not easy giving unbiased advice on models and equipment when you havent tried it yourself. Often I find people are asking about things they have heard about from one obscure place or another, usually as a result of a web search.

The trouble is there are just so many different models and other equipment about it is difficult to pass judgement on it all. Maybe the distributors and/or some of the larger retailers should host open days/weekends where people can come along and "test drive" some of their kit for themselves. The motor industry does it, so why not the model helicopter industry too.

Cheers,
Pete.

[Dodger]

Hi Raptorite, thats the way I would like it to be also. As many of our customers (at Skyline) will know we are more than happy to let people try out our models before they buy. We don't do open days as such but whenever we're at our various fields people are more than welcome to try the models out. In fact, its the way I would prefer everyone to buy if possible, maybe we'll give the open day a go soon. In the meantime, collar us at any fly-ins and convince us your going to be careful!!

Regarding Stuart's original post, well yes the whole RR thing does suck (my personal opinion of course) and this is one of the reasons we have never advertised there. I am advised that this potentially costs us a lot of business but in my opinion the cross over between commercial gain for the site and impartiality have been severely compromised over the years and this is just one more example. Naturally in this instance Bob and I have an interest in the Synergy so it has been more noticable, and of course not surprising.

Although we have a very close involvement with Synergy (it will be distributed by our sister company, Climb Out) the Skyline shop will also stock the aurora and we are looking forward to seeing and flying it very soon we hope. However, as Stuart has pointed out, we have not seen the model yet and despite our contacts have not heard any reports of one flying. Obviously Augusto has a great reputation and I hope he is able to teach Jason a thing or two and get his design to work straight out of the box. The fact is that it has taken Jason and Todd quite a while to arrive at something that they (and we) regard as a genuine step forward in 90 size performance, durability and cost of ownership.

For sure we would have liked to have had it 12 months ago, but the fact is the N9 has had an enormous amount of testing, fine tuning and re testing. Believe me, they could have got a machine out quicker and it would have impressed a lot of people back then, but as many people who have witnessed these machines being used for the past 5 months would hopefully confirm, they have exceeded our expectations in every way.

Having said that, we are the first to recognise that it will not be everyone's choice, and quite rightly so, fly-ins would become a very boring affair without the variety of machines and flying styles. Without question these new machines should offer customers new levels of durability and performance which is natural progress. It is disappointing therefore to see forums like RR adopt such a bias when both should be greeted with equal enthusiasm.

I'm sure both Midlands and Climb Out will do their very best to promote these models to customers in the UK; most of the UK dealers have now been sent their promotional N9s so you should be able to examine them in more detail and start making your mind up as to what floats your boat!

Roger, Skyline

[Raptorite]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for your positive response, it's really nice when out of these sorts of discussions comes positive results for the good of the hobby. The try before you buy I'm sure would or perhaps in your case, is very popular.

The fact you have never advertised on RR is in my view commendable, there just appear to be so many undercurrents going on there for some reason, which I'm sure is not doing the hobby the good the site was intended for.

I suppose with any prototyping and research and development projects such as the synergy, there is always the "We could make it a little better" syndrome, it is often difficult to know when to stop, call it a done deal and get the final product into production and ultimately circulation. So from that point of view I can see where the extra year or so in time has gone. Having said that, there is also the question of managing expectations, in this hobby the biggest of these by far is always going to be the delivery date. This I feel is one area that could do with a little attention. A leaf could be taken out of the project management book here, in as much as it is common practice to exagerate the completion or delivery date by what would seem at first to be a rediculous amount, only to pull it back in later. Better to be seen to deliver early rather than late. In the long run I'm sure the final product is well worth the extra wait for many people, as you quite rightly say, it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

The one and only brief encounter I have had with a synergy was when you and I looked at the GV1 on yours at Charmouth.

Cheers,
Pete.