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| My thanks to wattsuprc.com.au for the supply of the blades for this review. Align recently released their new 315mm 3K carbon blades, this is Align's first set of true carbon blades..... Shape : symmetrical Length : 315mm Width : 32mm Weight : 47g / set |
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| The Align 315 blades are a full carbon fiber material, rather than a mixture
of carbon and plastic as in previous offerings. They are straight forward
polished black carbon fiber. The blade roots contain brass bushings for
strength in the blade root hole. I couldn't find any recommendations for
maximum rotor speed, so in this test it will get the standard 2850 RPM
I run on my 4S T-Rex. Fit and finish of the blades is nice although not in the realms of SAB blades, with smooth lines and silver stickers on the upper blade surface. Blade stiffness longitudinally is very good and as these are only 315mm there is less length to flex. Chordwise stiffness is also good with little or no flex. I checked blade balance and for carbon blades it was quite a bit out. Four inches of electrical tape was required to get it spot on, this is not good for carbon blades which normally are already perfect and don't need this sort of work. Align clearly don't do any blade matching like SAB do as part of their quality control. Here are a few pictures of the blades followed by the flight experience and summary.... |
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| Flight Testing Conditions were favorable for blade testing as temperatures were about 7C and the wind was blowing at a steady 2-3 mph with no gusts. All in all good conditions apart from the fading light due to the very early onset of darkness this time of year. The first job was to get the tracking right....and it would have been nice if I had actually remembered to do this. Having powered up I lifted off straight into a flip, realizing mid flip that tracking was way off and almost hitting the ground inverted due to the extremely slow flip that ensued. After landing, giving myself a sharp talking to and adjusting the blades I then went back for some more. The only comment I would make on this is that it is quite odd for a machine that is 'in track' to be some wildly out of track after just changing the blades, this was a good 2 inches out of track !! I might expect some minor deviation but this was quite excessive. All I can put it down to is the previous blades were the Align 325 pro wood blades which have more flex in them and this might account for the difference. Anyhow, getting them into track was a straight forward affair, after which they behaved themselves for the following two flights. I could see the light starting to fade, so as usual it was going to be a rush against time to get the flights done and results recorded. Initial hovers were stable and there is certainly no indication in the hover that the blades are of a shorter 315mm length. These blades are a bit heavier than the longer 325 pro blades that were taken off, so I assume this extra weight is adding to the stability. So moving on, I did a gentle climbout into circuit to have a cruise. Attitude was good and stable, no excessive pitching up or down and collective control was progressive as one might expect of a reasonable set of blades. Moving into a faster circuit and harder turns the roll rate is reasonably quick, certainly as quick as the 325 pro carbon blades, possibly slightly quicker. Power through the turns is good and again stability in this flight mode was accurate with no unwanted characteristics. Back down into a hover and some climbout tests ensued. Power delivery is good but weaker than the 325 pro blades, this is much as I expected, longer blades nearly always produce better climb rates. These blades are also heavier than the 325 pro so the motor is swinging similar weight but with a heavier disc loading due to the reduced length. All fairly predictable. Moving onto aerobatics / sport flying. Rolls were almost snap like with the whole thing being over very quickly and needing quick collective timing to keep them flat rather than barrel. Loops were a little less comfortable than with larger blades, I found myself needing a lot more positive collective in the last three quarters of the loop in order to get a good pull out. This caught me out a couple of times, resulting in more dive at the end of the loop than I wanted and the exit being lower than the entry. Pushing on into 3D and flips were easily accomplished and quick to complete. Here I noticed that although the collective is less powerful on these blades than larger blades, once you get used to introducing more collective to accommodate the whole thing smooths out nicely. The collective response on the blades is actually quite crisp and I found that flips could be easily maintained at a constant height as the collective response was very predictable and not delayed as you would get on a more flexible or softer blade. I followed flips with some inverted flying, reversals, inverted push ovens, some short tic-tics and some inverted hovering just to round it off. All accomplished fairly comfortably, I was still struggling a bit with the larger collective inputs required but this is more of a learned response rather than an issue with the blades. Conclusion Align have produced another good set of blades, not spectacular but functional with no unwanted characteristics. The only negative point is the balance of the blades which was significantly out. Having flown 320mm blades or longer for the past 6 months going back to a shorter blade caused me personally some problems. Particularly in having to relearn my collective inputs and add a bit more here and there but aside from this the blades gave me no reason to comment negatively. I ran these blades at over 2800 rpm which they handled well with no sign of tracking problems or visible or audible complaint. The general flight characteristics are stable, marginally less so than a longer blade and with a very respectable roll rate. Given all of the above I can recommend these blades as they provide good performance at a reasonable price. Nothing really shines through as breakthrough performance but I don't think this is the point. These blades I'm sure are meant to be day to day work horse blades for general flying, 3D or whatever takes your fancy. If you have these blades rate them using the TrexTuning rating system....... |
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