Heliup Gorilla Gear
| Reviewer | Ashley Davis |
|---|---|
| Review Date | 13th June 2007 |
| Manufacturer | www.heliup.com |
| Model | Gorilla Gear Undercarriage, Paddles & Tail Blades |
| Unit Cost | Undercarriage: $18.95 Paddles: $11.98 Tail Blades: $5.99 |
The following is a review of the Heliup gorilla gear which consists of undercarriage legs, flybar paddles and tail blades. The undercarriage legs are the same "almost indestructible" undercarriage legs reviewed by TrexTuning several months ago.
The flybar paddles and tail blades are new items and I will concentrate on these in this review.
The machine that will be used to test these upgrades is the new T-Rex SE V2.
Two sets of gorilla gear
Undercarriage legs
Programmable flybar paddles
Tail blades
Programmable Paddles
The programmable paddles can be fitted with or without the supplied weights. Without the weights the paddles are very similar in size as well as weight to the standard paddles supplied with the T-Rex SE V2. Where they differ is in their shape.
What makes these paddles unique is that they can be weighted to change the way that they respond in the air. They come supplied with two metal bars which insert down and into the leading edge of the paddle. Once in place they cannot come out in flight as they are held in by centrifugal force. There is a small hole on the outside edge of the paddle which can be used to push the weight back out of the paddle should you want to remove it.
My expectation is that the standard paddles without weights added will be the all out 3-D configuration. Adding weights should produce a more stable and slower responding helicopter. Adding the weights will make the machine more suitable for a beginner learning to hover or fly circuits I suspect.
Tail Blades
The tail blades are a fairly standard plastic blade which in comparison to the T-Rex SE V2 standard blades are slightly more rigid. The profile of these blades is also different to the standard blades although the overall area that the blades can displace air with is likely to be the same. My expectation with these tail blades is that they be similar in performance to the standard blades.
Flybar weight partially inserted
Flybar weight partially inserted
Tail blades
Programmable paddle with weight fully inserted
Flight Review
Let's start with the tail blades. The way I tested these blades was to determine how far I could push the helicopter before the tail blades would let go. This involved manoeuvres such as tail slides and fast backwards flight. I also did some high-speed funnels to see how the tail would hold in what is effectively sideways flight.
When pushed hard the tail blades will let go and I was able to make this happen in inverted backwards hurricanes as well as flying backwards into a fairly strong wind. You do have to push quite hard in order to make these blades let go and the point at which they let go is almost identical to the standard blades that come with the T-Rex SE V2. I suspected this would be the case from my initial look at the blades before fitting them. Performing at the same level as the standard blades is not a bad thing as the standard blades are actually quite good.
For the paddles I wanted to check full throttle forward flight and get a feel for responsiveness in 3-D manoeuvres. What I was hoping for with these paddles was that the high-speed forward flight characteristics would be better than the paddles supplied in the T-Rex SE V2 kit. The standard paddles get very elevator sensitive at high speed.
Whilst these paddles do become more elevator sensitive at high speed they are nowhere near as sensitive as the standard paddles. This meant that I could fly at full throttle without feeling overly nervous about the elevator response. The paddles exhibited this better high-speed characteristic regardless of whether the weights were fitted or not.
The next thing I checked was the responsiveness for 3-D without the weights fitted. In this regard I found the paddles to be very similar to the stock T-Rex SE V2 paddles.
Having finished testing the paddles without weights it was time to see what difference adding weights would make. Fitting the weights is very straightforward, they are just inserted and pressed into place using a finger.
In the hover the helicopter does feel less twitchy but not as stable as I was expecting. Therefore I decided to try some 3-D to get a proper feel for how much the weights had dumbed down the response. I was quite surprised to find that 3-D is still very achievable with the weights fitted. Some manoeuvres are not so easy to perform, such as fast tic tocs but bigger more flowing manoeuvres were much easier to perform. Instead of coming away thinking that the weights were for beginners I felt they were more suited to somebody learning 3-D who wants to take some of the twitchiness away. Manoeuvres such as backwards inverted hurricanes and pie dishes were more stable with the weights fitted and therefore easier to control.
| Pros |
|---|
| Virtually unbreakable undercarriage |
| Good performance from the tail blades |
| Very good high-speed flight characteristics from the paddles |
| In 3-D mode the paddles are nice and responsive |
| With weights fitted the paddles would suit somebody learning 3-D and are not just focused on a beginner |
| Cons |
|---|
| Tail blades don't offer a performance improvement over the standard T-Rex SE V2 blades |
Conclusion
The gorilla gear combination of undercarriage, paddles and tail blades is an interesting one. Certainly the undercarriage is very well worth having as I have never managed to break one. The paddles offer two different configurations to suit how you want to fly. Fitting and removing the weights is extremely simple and could be performed at the field. The only items in the group that don't offer some improvement over the standard issue parts are the tail blades. However, they do perform almost identically to the standard tail blades which as I said earlier is no bad thing. They are there to allow colour matching to other gorilla gear components rather than provide performance gains.
Corrado of Heliup advised that many paddle users are cutting the weights in half and fitting them as this offers a nice balance between 3D performance & stability.
Overall I think the different components offer durability and performance improvements and therefore get the thumbs up from me.
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