Micro Helicopters
One
thing that to seems to cause a lot of uncertainty is which micro heli is the
best one, well there is no simple answer to this as they all have their own
place in the market so to help you make a choice I have laid out the basics of
each model.
All
the micro heli's are battery powered, a IC (internal combustion) engine at this
size would not be very practical and would be a noisy messy little thing which
is not really what you want for flying around the house anyway!
First
of all these models are small, really small, to give you some idea of what size
they average out at about 510mm rotor diameter, about 480mm long and weigh in
the region of 300 grams all up, compare this to a average 30 sized glow model
like the Raptor 30 V2 which has a rotor diameter of 1245mm, is 1150mm long and
weighs about 3000 grams! Because of
their small size they do not and can not have the same stability as a larger
model but their low mass does allow them to bounce much better than larger
models so survive a crash that would re-kit a larger model.
Ikarus
Piccolo
The
standard Piccolo was I believe the first commercially available Micro model, Ikarus
took a totally different approach to how to design a helicopter and came up with
a couple of clever ideas to make the model very simple which has huge advantages
on this size model, it keeps the weight down, which is always important with
electric models, it keeps their production costs down which keeps the end cost
down, it makes the model simpler to build and maintain and less to break in a
crash.
What
they did was to make the tail rotor fixed pitch and drive it with a very small
electric motor so there is no mechanical connection between the main and tail
rotor so no fiddly little gears, tail pitch linkage etc, less to build and less
to damage. The other thing they did
was to develop the Picoboard, this is a combined receiver, gyro and speed
controller all in one unit, this keeps it as small and light as possible and
again very simple, you can also add a simple heading hold module to the
picoboard gyro.
The
main and tail rotor blades are plastic so will take a lot of abuse, the main
blades have a lot of washout and are undercambered so are very efficient
allowing it to run at a very low rotor speed which cuts down some of the drag
and so improves flight time, as well as cutting the amount of energy in the
machine. To make the model even
tougher they have designed the rotor head so that in the event of a crash the
whole rotor head unclips so taking a lot of energy out of the crash, it always
makes any crash with the Piccolo look far worse than it actually is.
All this means that the Piccolo is a very simple robust model and also
very light so gives very good flight times.
The
Piccolo's low main rotor RPM and
low weight do work against it when the model is flown out side as it is easily
pushed around by even a tiny breeze but there are a number of things you can do
to it to improve it's outdoor performance, a out door pack with different blades
which increase the rpm or go the whole way and fit a collective pitch upgrade
which ups both the stability and the rpm but makes the model more prone to crash
damage and more complicated to set up correctly.
Ikarus
Piccolo Fun
There
is also the Piccolo fun which is a economy version of the standard Piccolo, the
main difference in the actual model is the fun is without any bearings and has
plastic bushes in their place, these bushes do have more drag than bearings so
cut down the models performance a bit but as there is only a total of 6 bearings
in the Piccolo anyway it is very cheap and easy to change the bushes out for
bearings anyway.
The Fun is also normally sold with the standard Pico board rather than the Pico
board plus which is supplied with the std Piccolo, the standard Pico board is
only four channel and has no provision for fitting a Heading hold module, so if
you think you will ever want to fit the Piccolo into a scale body with retracts
or convert it to collective pitch or want to fit the Heading hold module make
sure you get the "Pico board plus"
Ikarus
Piccolo Pro
The
Piccolo Pro is the latest version of the Piccolo and is it's bigger meaner
brother, it uses much bigger motors, a collective pitch rotorhead, higher
voltage battery pack and a autorotation unit, the main rotor blades are weighted
symmetrical wooden jobs which helps to give the model extra stability, if you
purchase the model in a package deal it comes with the heading hold module for
the Pico board which further improves the models stability.
The
model likes to run at a high head speed which improves it's stability but does
make it more likely to damage itself or what ever it hits in a crash (fly it in
to yourself and you will know it has hit you although I don't think it will do
more than give you a good whack unless it hits you above neck height!)
Currently
I would say the Piccolo Pro is the most capable "out of the box" micro
model and will certainly loop, roll, flip, fly and hover inverted and even auto
(but it's not the model to learn auto's on) It's probably a little faster than the Hornet in forward
flight but both models are as fast as they need to be for their size, any
quicker and they would be out of sight in seconds!
MS
Hornet
The
Hornet is a very different design to the Piccolo and is far more like a shrunken
conventional model helicopter, what this means is the Hornet is technically a
nicer model but the extra complication does mean that you have to be more
careful when building and setting it up, it won't stand up to a crash as well as
the Piccolo (but it's still pretty tough) and there's just more to break.
It uses fibre glass main rotor blades and even has a carbon fibre shaft
drive for the tail rotor, carbon main blades are a optional extra.
The
stability of the model is maybe a little better than the standard Piccolo when
you fly it around inside or in flat calm weather but where the difference really
shows is in any wind or if you want to fly the model faster than a brisk walking
pace, the Hornet is very happy to charge around the sky up to about 30mph and is
capable of mild aerobatics including loops, 540 stall turns, barrel rolls etc.
By comparison the standard Piccolo can't really by flown above a brisk
walk because it's low rotor rpm makes it unstable at any sort of speed.
MS
Hornet CP (collective pitch)
This
model has the potential to be the most capable of all the micro models but is
let down a little by the supplied motor and battery pack which are the same
items as used in the standard fixed pitched Hornet, these are fine when used on
the standard Hornet but just don't produce enough power to let the Hornet CP be
as capable as it should be, at the time or writing I am not sure what the best
option power wise is for this model but I am sure a search on run ryder or
similar forum will come up with a number of options, MS have just released a
brushless motor package for the Hornet which should be worth considering.
The
Hornet CP is based on the standard Hornet but with a completely new rotor head
and swashplate and uses 120 degree CCPM so you have to have a radio which is
capable of 120 degree CCPM to fly this model (almost all modern computer radio's
are CCPM capable)
One
thing to bear in mind with this model is it is fairly complicated (for this type
of model) so there are lots of places where special attention to the control
system is needed to make everything as smooth but slop free as it should be.
There
is now the option of purchasing the Hornet CP ready built and this will get
around most of the potential fiddly build problems with it but you still have to
install the servo's and make sure everything works freely.