Heliguy’s BLOG

Mini Pred (£199.99) from Art-tech- this is the Falcon 3D (£179.99) from Art-tech with the red canopy. Make up your mind about the canopy. I prefer the red one my self.

Test flew this today just a hover around the shop -load of power and very stable. Power from the brushless motor was very good (but got very hot due to it being an in-runner brushless motor - heat sinks are fitted and solved the heat dissipation problem). Gyro easy to adjust and produced the stable hover. Blades long and the helicopter is well weighted with a good centre of gravity, battery provided holds in very well -but not much room for a range of different sized batteries- we will experiment with this later.

Battery that is used has a deans connector and it is a pain to connect and reconnect this, initially requires a lot of force (but this will ease). Initially use a pair of pliers to avoid pulling any wires out.
Transmitter very basic (but don’t expect a LCD display on a RTF at this price) but nice and small - I have small hands so found it comfortable. Each switch and pitch knob is marked with a english note which conveys to me they have though about the end user. This makes it nice and clear for the beginners.

*Please note this was a 15 min play, we will see how it stands up to long term torment and destruction after a couple of months.

Other items in the box -training kit, flight sim and cable (not tried), english helicopter manual and manual for the flight sim - not read but looked quite comprehensive from quick flick.

Target Market - Beginner wanting a crack at a 3D capable heli with no build work and the extras. Serious flier who wants an additional practice helicopter for the house or garden (assuming large rooms).

*updated 08/04/2007

This helicopter will carry batteries up to 2200 mAh - go for the 10C battery because the 12C battery is a touch to long.

We have a range of blades that we will be adding to the Falcon section. Including some wood ones a touch longer than the stock blades giving even more stability to the helicopter than it already has - it will fly like a lama v3 with these blades on! 

Ordered from the factory - they told me 3-4 weeks but I will push for a quicker delivery time. This gyro has good reviews, any body have an experience please post in our new forum section….

Forum on gyros

Place your email address here to get an update when we add stock Logictech 2100T

Forum thanks

I would just like to say a big thanks to Joe -he joined the forum 1 year ago today. He turned this place around and created a very knowledgeable and friendly community. He managed to attract some high quality moderators and generally top guys.

It’s a good sign when you can go into your own forum for help articles and to get peoples opinions on equipment that they are using with their choppers -thanks to all the moderators Geoff, Flossie, Flyboy (Brian) , Kevin, Jon and Mark. Thanks to Jon and Mark for your reviews and equipment advice. - You will see most of this equipments make it’s way into our shop over the next couple of months.

Forum upgrades

Added shout box

–Joe told me a few of you wanted this added

Added image upload

–Joe was after this for a while to make it easier to add images to the forum, and control their size.

Added birthday fields

–Just added this because it was really quick and why not.
Being added….

Wordpress integration with the forum members

-An attempt to create more linkage between the forums and the blogs.

Believe it or not I saw the first blog - MarkV2 show up in google under Trex SE -number 7 in the list.

Guest sign up after seeing first post.

This is an attempt to create better ratios betweens guests and members. This is a trial we will see how it goes. Guest will be forced to register if they want to see the full range of posts. Joe was having problems as people were requesting support and not registering and wanted to conduct support over email. This has no long term community benefit.

Calendar
Calendar are always handy.

HS65HB, 56HB in stock -Waiting for HS55 and 50 and Futaba digital tail servo.

RC Helicopter tools sections added -see here.. Will be adding solder and soldering iron soon.

Trex orders… *due in 26th March.

T-REX 450X CDE (CCPM)+430L 3550KV+25A ESC 134.99*
T-REX 450S CF (CCPM)+430L 3550KV+35X ESC 174.99*
T-REX 450 SE MKII(CCPM)+430L+35G ESC+2100Mah 20C - Black 279.99*
T-REX 450 SE MKII(CCPM)+430L+35G ESC+2100Mah 20C - Silver 279.99*

Spares for 450 range due a couple of days after -hopefully.

Trex 450 V1 hand painted canopies due in 25st March.

Falcon 3D helicpopter and 95% of spares due in 26nd March.

New 3D helicopter being tested £79.99 - gold aluminium with brushless motor and ESC.

Silverlit Picoo Z (original) in stock - £24.99 adding soon part of new flying heli toys division.

lipo alarms - in stock testing them out adding soon.

New Walkera 52 battery being tested - we are looking for brushless motor and ESC for this chopper - any ideas email me.

Robbe Heli command , 3D version and software in stock 26st March.

Heliguy is looking to expand its range of contacts and suppliers but when I go to place orders there is an endless wait for stock to arrive. Let me give you some examples….

From ESKY I ordered the first batch of HoneyBee King Feb 2006 - never received those from the factory had to use my agents in China to acquire them and actually got them Nov 2006 (never got any from the factory!). Cool still not produced - ahh but they did sell me spares - no use to man nor beast if there are no choppers! - You live and learn!

Align - Trex I hear they have the worst production and yes I have come to believe it as true. I went to order from the UK distributor to find the majority of Align products out of stock - poor Keith had had them on back order since November. He’s between a rock and hard place! I can’t even grey import these because they are out of stock (no names mentioned). Align why produce hand painted canopies? Great idea - but not practical! Double your work force - run the factory 24 hours a day for a few months?

Moving on…

Heliguy wants to introduce it’s flying toys division aimed at the under £60 gift market. High quality, good instructions and well packaged! I pick my line and ordered my choppers (7 of them) - every one I put on back order because they have no stock! Only got a moderate amount and unsure if they can ensure good supplies up to Christmas.

Falcon 3D - I have been waiting 2 months for these. Decided to bring this is as competition to the King and to alleviate possible stock problems I know I will encounter. Already ordered the second batch even though I haven’t got the first!

Back to the King… The MK2 is coming out supposedly - when will we see it? How long is a piece of string? I know the US versions will come out first we’ll have to wait in line after the USA. The production of these new lines has been a giant farce ESKY sort your self out and treat us better!

Ripmax - back to the UK. I rang up recently to order the 401, Futaba 6 HELI and S3154—-Guess what? Out of stock! Back ordered to middle of April! Is there any excuse for Ripmax distributing Futaba? They have been doing it for years and still they can’t get it right! No sympathy for these guys sort it out. Revenue dropped 1 million for these guys 2005/2006 (when I checked out there company accounts) - long may it continue!

Amerang-group. Ordered HS55, HS65, and HS56 - all out of stock - shipment due any day I’m told. Any excuse - on servos - no! Amerang have been doing Hitec for years! Their revenue increased 2005/2006 I suspect this is down to their exclusive collectables division - where they have got the market sown up real tight that no one else can get into the market. Directors paid them self £250,000.00 dividends - just for interest.

Lets get onto the UK as a whole as it is a unique area. Exclusivity rules. There is one place that nearly every product is bound to be exclusively distributed - here in the UK. What does this mean? Higher prices. *But wait just a second as the distributors haven’t got it that easy. Import duty and VAT - this is set by the Government and not to say the high cost of living here all makes it more difficult for a UK based distributor than other places in the world (except the poor old Germans who have got it even worse!)

So what about us being out of stock? Well the things we order from the distributors we wait in line with all the others, we moan and grumble whilst doing so. The things we buy from the factory directly e.g. EK50206 Lama central holder we have got a few angry emails about this - some of them telling us to get new suppliers! In retort I would love to, and yes we should have ordered more but we never expected them to go out of stock for 2 months. In a perfect world I would order 500 of each one but then I would be bankrupt only to find it had become obsolete anyhow with the factories next super duper offering.

Time to get off my soap box, have a great day.

Joel

P.s. I am working hard to improve things.

Here we will detail issues we are addressing and new stock on order.

Forum, the new posts image is not woring properly. New posts should have a red H beside them, this is only working in FF 1.5.0.10. This is on our bug fix list…

Work is occurring on the discount codes input, to allow multiple items entries and multiple spares with applied discounts. 1/2 DONE you can now add what you like and the get discount on one code.  *The other half of this is we are adding the ability to add as many codes as you like.

Sales confirmations are being changed to text only to prevent garble on certain mail client when the email is received.

Java script image codes have been added to all forms to try and stop the spammers using our forms and bandwidth to spam us and others. DONE

Spektrum DX7 radios are on back order with the UK distributors, expect to see them soon. We will be supplying them with the AR6000 receivers. There is not much point using the other full range receivers with a helicopter as the AR6000 range is over 1500 ft.

Protech Zoom 425, 450 EP and IC are due in soon as soon as the manufacturer has them we will have them soon afterwards.

Falcon 3D helicopter will be with us hopefully Mid March at £179.99 including VAT.