jbeech
rrAdvertiser
Location: Sanford, FL (Orlando area)
| I'm a little late to this discussion. The Raptor 50 is a fine helicopter. Naturally it has a few areas where we think we match up rather well. I'm also sure you're familiar with the issues involved with the Raptor, so I won't belabor them.
The Tiger 50 is a pretty decent helicopter and I'm proud to offer it to the market. I'm not claiming it's perfect, but it is a remarkably good flying helicopter. You mention watching Marcus Kim flying his Tiger in the video, so let me address that. First of all, Marcus could make a barn door look good, understand? The main reason I have that video is a) I'm proud of how well he flies his Tiger, and b) it serves the purpose of showing folks the basic capabilities of the Tiger. He's flying his with the stock spindle (you mentioned hearing it was weak), and has added harder dampening, a swashball kit ($9.99), and the 3D paddles and flybar (free to registered Tiger 50 owners). Other than that, it's stock!
Regardless, when you get right down to it, all the 50-class helis on the market are pretty good, so it becomes a game of details and features. That's been the puropose of my adverts, to educate folks on what we perceive are improvements to the state of the art (i.e. those which have taken place since Mr. Taya designed the Raptor back in 1997). After all, when the Raptor first came to market the Pentium II 450 MHz computer was pretty much the top dog! Since then, just as there have been improvements in computers and digital cameras, there have been improvements in model helicopters too.
What do you want to do to prep a Tiger for hard 3D use? Well, I think I cover most everything in the addendum to the instruction manual (which I authored). Surf to this link and you can download any or all of the manual (it's in PDF format) as well as the addendum (which I update as I learn things).
Tiger 50 PDF files of the manual and addendum sheets
If you take a little while to read through RunRyder and other forums you'll see the Tiger is remarkably trouble free. Early on there was an issue with bending spindles. The first guy to report it it turns out had cut down some dampers from anohter machine which were too hard (instead of using our harder urethane dampers) and as soon as he changed this, the issue went away. Others, however, we quickly identified as having an issue with excess play in the seesaw arms - but this only affected a very small percentage of owners (less than 10). Nonetheless, they made posts and we didn't hide from the issue and instead worked to determine what was going on and then worked to tell folks how to check fr it and/or correct it. I suspect you'll see the posts about this ceased.
We've also had an issue with the pinion gear and the bearing it rides in coming loose, but again, we addressed this and explained how to fix it. Hence, once again, I suspect you'll see there's not much in the way of complaints about this.
As for improvements, I'm the guy who pulls the trigger on manufacturing. When you hear it from me, there's no guess work as to who is saying what because I'm it. By the way, I'm a modeler just like you are. If I hear something isn't working as well as folks want, or when someone tells me a better way to do somehting, I work to figure out what we can do to improve or upgrade it, oor share what I've learned. For example, one of ur field reps came up with an idea for reversing the tail rotor servo so that you get a straight shot at the tail rotor. Another came up with an idea for improving the collective response of the heli, so i told folks about this as well. If you are interested, surf to this link to learn about an ugrade that's coming.
Beefier main rotor blade grip in the works
Anyway, I appreciate hearing that doorman's post was what you were looking for. He's a pretty good guy and has experience with both the Raptor and the Tiger. Naturally, I am rather biased, so if you take what I say with a grain of salt I won't blame you - but believe me, I'm not the type to try to blow smoke up your skirt either. What you see is pretty much what you get.
Basically, you'll never get that old line, "Really, we've never heard of anybody having that problem!" as we innocently bat our eyes at you. With a Tiger 50 you get a decent heli at a decent price, with fair support, plus access to the guy who makes the decisions (me).
Finally, there are a couple of pretty good stores in your neck of the woods who handle the Tiger, so you can go look at one up close for yourself. There's also a fellow name of JC Zankle up that way who is both one heck of a good pilot, and a nice guy. He might say something useful for you to hear about our product as well. Maybe you can speak with him. PM me your phone number and I'll give it to him.
My 2¢
John Beech - GM (and janitor)
Audacity Models |
) and he showed me the Tiger..... and it got my attention.... so when I returned home I picked one up and set it up..... From DAY 1, this unit has done nothing more then make me happy that I purchased it.... it is nothing short of a "BLAST" to fly...... it is just a solid unit with no bad habits that I could find..... unless having fun flying is a bad thing....
)
