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So,
After buying an AR7200BX on a whim after flying a 3GX for the last 3 months I took her out for a maiden today.
Type of flying is sport, barrel rolls in FFF, Loops, flips, the odd half piro flip here and there, tic tocs (As of today) and general circuits and forwards flight.
I have been flying with the 3gx since I got the heli in February. I started flying at the end of December.
I didn't really have any problems with the 3GX, although I did notice its quirks ( for example if you go full tilt forward flight and try and do a loop quite often the nose will pitch up slightly, and then level out again - creating a huge "bounce" and continuing on straight Despite the fact youve had constant backward elevator)
Apart from that no real issues. I had the backwards drift issue but that turned out to be vibrations caused by horribad motor bearings. I also had issues with things like not being able to do tic-tocs, but put that down to my ability.
So this afternoon I got a chance to fly it on the BX. Setup took me all of about 20 minutes, but it is the second time I've run through it.
I set everything standard pretty much except the control style to "transmitter". I was using 100% DR and 20% expo.
On first flight the cyclics felt very slow, and the tail very fast. I just hovered it around really, didnt do much.
Landed her and set the cyclic pitch response parameter to "increased" (Solid red) from normal (2 steps up) and also the pitch boost setting to increased (Again 2 steps up)
This made the heli feel a lot more lively. One thing I noticed is that 20% expo on the BX seems to be a lot more expo than 30% on the 3gx. With 30% on the 3gx I found the heli very digital and twitchy. Not a problem as I kinda like it like that, but different to the BX. With the 3gx I'd never really use the full extent of cyclic travel, I'd guess only ever going to about 70% cyclic for all of my moves.
The BX however I found I was hitting the "stick stops" when doing acrobatics, which isnt a bad thing (After all I can just increase my dual rates to get faster flip and roll)
I liked being able to use the full stick travel because it made me feel like I had more control resolution.
So anyway, after making those changes, I started to give it some "stick" (For me) and the differences are nice. I wouldnt say night and day just yet, but I've only flown it four times and no doubt have more setup to do.
Things I really noticed that were different:
Going full tilt FFF into "The wall" felt alot more stable (I think thats the name? Go mid stick when going really fast, point the tail at the ground and use positive pitch to stop the heli on the spot) The move made absolutely no oscillations at all, it just stopped dead and sat there waiting for another command.
Full tilt loops work nicely. No more stupid weird unexpected inputs.
Much less of a "digital" feel on the controls but still VERY stable. I Hovered inverted 6 feet off the ground hands off for a good 10 seconds I reckon.
Tail consistency seems improved in FFF/FRF (although I was working on setting this up properly on the 3gx using the PC Parameters and making good progress)
I can now actually do tic tocs - I found with the 3gx I'd lose altitude and make lots of noise in the process (Blade noise) with the BX there is less blade noise and maintaining altitude is easier. However it feels a little less direct - the heli seems to react to the pitch input first and THEN the cyclic.... e.g when going from positive to negative pitch and then from rear elevator to forward elevator, the heli seems to stop, start moving from the pitch, and THEN start to rotate from the elevator. I also noticed this if I jammed both sticks forward from a normal hover, the heli would rise and tip forward slowly, then as full pitch was reached it would then speed up its elevator induced rotation about half a second later.
Also noticed (when testing if I had to adjust the pitch up compensation or whatever it is) that if I flew FFF and went full positive pitch the heli would stay on its elevator heading, however if I then went full negative I would also get some forward elevator in the mix so the nose would be pointing more at the ground.
All in all really positive first flight, the best I've had for a while. The small problems I've outlined above are things I could not outline with the 3gx - I now see that it wasnt predictable and consistent enough to be able to say "This is what it does wrong"
So despite the faults with the BX (That I can probably dial out with settings over time) Its performed GREAT out of the box, given me confidence, and seems very consistent in the way it performs (Which after all is what we all look for, isnt it? To have a predictable control method)
Would I recommend a BX over a 3gx? Definitely.
Am I going to keep the 3gx on my 700? After flying the BX500 and the 3GX700 back to back just now, definitely not. All of the weirdness Ive mentioned above with the 3gx is still there with the 700. It just didnt fly as nice as the 500 did.
On another note, I inverted the 700 for the first time today
After buying an AR7200BX on a whim after flying a 3GX for the last 3 months I took her out for a maiden today.
Type of flying is sport, barrel rolls in FFF, Loops, flips, the odd half piro flip here and there, tic tocs (As of today) and general circuits and forwards flight.
I have been flying with the 3gx since I got the heli in February. I started flying at the end of December.
I didn't really have any problems with the 3GX, although I did notice its quirks ( for example if you go full tilt forward flight and try and do a loop quite often the nose will pitch up slightly, and then level out again - creating a huge "bounce" and continuing on straight Despite the fact youve had constant backward elevator)
Apart from that no real issues. I had the backwards drift issue but that turned out to be vibrations caused by horribad motor bearings. I also had issues with things like not being able to do tic-tocs, but put that down to my ability.
So this afternoon I got a chance to fly it on the BX. Setup took me all of about 20 minutes, but it is the second time I've run through it.
I set everything standard pretty much except the control style to "transmitter". I was using 100% DR and 20% expo.
On first flight the cyclics felt very slow, and the tail very fast. I just hovered it around really, didnt do much.
Landed her and set the cyclic pitch response parameter to "increased" (Solid red) from normal (2 steps up) and also the pitch boost setting to increased (Again 2 steps up)
This made the heli feel a lot more lively. One thing I noticed is that 20% expo on the BX seems to be a lot more expo than 30% on the 3gx. With 30% on the 3gx I found the heli very digital and twitchy. Not a problem as I kinda like it like that, but different to the BX. With the 3gx I'd never really use the full extent of cyclic travel, I'd guess only ever going to about 70% cyclic for all of my moves.
The BX however I found I was hitting the "stick stops" when doing acrobatics, which isnt a bad thing (After all I can just increase my dual rates to get faster flip and roll)
I liked being able to use the full stick travel because it made me feel like I had more control resolution.
So anyway, after making those changes, I started to give it some "stick" (For me) and the differences are nice. I wouldnt say night and day just yet, but I've only flown it four times and no doubt have more setup to do.
Things I really noticed that were different:
Going full tilt FFF into "The wall" felt alot more stable (I think thats the name? Go mid stick when going really fast, point the tail at the ground and use positive pitch to stop the heli on the spot) The move made absolutely no oscillations at all, it just stopped dead and sat there waiting for another command.
Full tilt loops work nicely. No more stupid weird unexpected inputs.
Much less of a "digital" feel on the controls but still VERY stable. I Hovered inverted 6 feet off the ground hands off for a good 10 seconds I reckon.
Tail consistency seems improved in FFF/FRF (although I was working on setting this up properly on the 3gx using the PC Parameters and making good progress)
I can now actually do tic tocs - I found with the 3gx I'd lose altitude and make lots of noise in the process (Blade noise) with the BX there is less blade noise and maintaining altitude is easier. However it feels a little less direct - the heli seems to react to the pitch input first and THEN the cyclic.... e.g when going from positive to negative pitch and then from rear elevator to forward elevator, the heli seems to stop, start moving from the pitch, and THEN start to rotate from the elevator. I also noticed this if I jammed both sticks forward from a normal hover, the heli would rise and tip forward slowly, then as full pitch was reached it would then speed up its elevator induced rotation about half a second later.
Also noticed (when testing if I had to adjust the pitch up compensation or whatever it is) that if I flew FFF and went full positive pitch the heli would stay on its elevator heading, however if I then went full negative I would also get some forward elevator in the mix so the nose would be pointing more at the ground.
All in all really positive first flight, the best I've had for a while. The small problems I've outlined above are things I could not outline with the 3gx - I now see that it wasnt predictable and consistent enough to be able to say "This is what it does wrong"
So despite the faults with the BX (That I can probably dial out with settings over time) Its performed GREAT out of the box, given me confidence, and seems very consistent in the way it performs (Which after all is what we all look for, isnt it? To have a predictable control method)
Would I recommend a BX over a 3gx? Definitely.
Am I going to keep the 3gx on my 700? After flying the BX500 and the 3GX700 back to back just now, definitely not. All of the weirdness Ive mentioned above with the 3gx is still there with the 700. It just didnt fly as nice as the 500 did.
On another note, I inverted the 700 for the first time today
.. Very well worded 
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