T-Rex 600 V-Blades
| Reviewer | Ashley Davis |
|---|---|
| Review Date | 6th March 2007 |
| Manufacturer | V-Blades |
| Model | 600mm V-Blades |
| Unit Cost | £80 / $130 |
The following is a review of the 600 mm V-Blades suitable for use on the T-Rex 600. I purchased these blades as I would be flying in competition this year and I wanted an accurate set of blades. I was flying BBT blades but I found these too slow and not particularly accurate.
Thanks to Thomas for the pictures below:
Sticker
Blades with holograms 
Blade root 
Balancing plug
Build Quality
Obviously V-Blades are at the premium end of the blade market and therefore you expect a quality product. The blades are nicely finished and have the very well known holographic stickers on the tips. However, in comparison to something like Radix blades they do not have the same quality look and feel.
The blades are symmetrical in profile as is typical of a 3-D blade. They are also precision balanced at the factory and identically matched. These blades are well known for their extreme stiffness and the 600 mm variety are no different to any other blade in the range in this regard. Both longitudinal and torsional stiffness is extremely good.
Flight Review
V-Blades are well known for their accuracy. What is meant by this is that the helicopter will go exactly where you put it due to the precision control that these blades provide. Much of this precision is down to the superb rigidity within the blade. Certainly on the T-Rex 600 my immediate feelings when changing to these from my previous blades was that the helicopter was flying much more accurately. This meant that controlled and precise manoeuvres were much easier to achieve.
The downside to having an extremely stiff blade is that it is not forgiving when performing pitch pumping manoeuvres. Because the blade has very little flex all of the air resistance to pitch changes is soaked up in the blade. This can be felt in flight in that these blades tend to bog down more easily than a more flexible blade. My experience with the T-Rex 600 was that my amp draw increased and the number of rpm lost in tic tocs also increased. Whilst the blades will bog down more under load they are also much more crisp to respond to collective inputs. Again this is down to the stiffness of the blade. The blades do provide good lift and power and they are quite a quick blade in terms of roll and flip rate.
One area where I lost performance over my previous blades was in autorotation. The V-Blades are lighter than the BBT blades that I removed and their autorotation performance is certainly not as strong. However, I do consider that BBT blades have a very good autorotation performance and therefore I would not go as far to say that V-Blades have a poor autorotation performance. I believe they are fairly average in this regard.
V-Blades are not what I would call a 'slippery' blade, they are designed for tight 3D and so they don't have the big F3C type charcteristics that you can feel in a blade like the Radix. Certainly Radix seem much faster through the air but less accurate in the tight collective based 3D moves.
| Pros |
|---|
| Nice finish |
| High-quality |
| Precision balanced |
| Supremely accurate flight characteristics |
| Cons |
|---|
| Expensive |
| Average autorotation characteristics |
| Boggy |
Conclusion
I am not disappointed with these blades. They are supremely accurate and were a considerable improvement upon my last choice of blade. However, on an electric helicopter increased amp draw is not desirable and blades that bog down are also undesirable. I run an extremely powerful motor in my T-Rex 600 (NEU 1515) and therefore this problem is much reduced. With lower powered motors I can see that these blades would potentially not be very practical. They are expensive in comparison to other manufacturers blades and I'm not convinced that the advantages that they offer can justify the price. If you can afford top of the range blades then they are an excellent blade and their accuracy is outstanding, but if you are learning 3-D and crashing regularly then I can't see that running them would be cost-effective and a cheaper alternative would be preferential.
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