MS Composit have released some Zoom/T-Rex carbon fiber blades. My thanks to Skyline Models for the supply of these blades for review. The details are as follows : Shape : symmetrical Length : 280mm Width : 33mm Weight : 25g / set
	The MS Composit blades are a solid carbon fiber blade. They are very stiff and compared to the Align carbon blades significantly lighter. The blades are finished as polished carbon fiber and do look very good with the gold MS logo near to the root.
	First task was to balance the blades, a quick check on the blade balancer proved this to be completely unnecessary. Both blades were matched on CofG and weight. Good stuff.
	The blades are somewhat different at the root to the Align blades. All Align blades including the carbons have a brass bushing in the bolt hole. The MS Composit blades just have a 3mm hole drilled directly through the carbon fiber. This should be perfectly strong enough to handle the forces on these little blades. The blade tips have a slight rounded profile.
	The blades are extremely well made and finished and perfectly matched for CofG and weight. The price on these blades is also very reasonable. As these blades are only 280mm in length they can be run with the stock boom without fear of tail blade clashes. The blades are symmetrical in profile and are therefore ideally suited to 3D as they will perform exactly the same inverted as the normal way up. Initial runs on the power analyser showed that these blades have almost identical power requirements as the stock 315mm wood blades. This is good news as it means no reduction in flight times but hopefully more power and better flight characteristics from the rotor disc. Initial bench runs to test tracking showed that these blades do not have significant tracking issues as found with the Align Carbon Fiber blades. This is I'm sure down to the weight of the blades being half that of the Align carbon blades and the soft dampening in the head coping much better and consistently with the lower blade forces. Initial Flight Testing Although it was rather windy today I did manage some limited flight testing with these blades. First impressions were of a slightly more lively cyclic response which caught me out initially. The smaller and lighter rotor disc makes the T-Rex feel a fair bit more sprightly and I found myself over correcting and having a bit of a battle for control in the wind. Ideally in these conditions I would have much preferred the weight of the Align 325mm Carbons to give me better stability. During the calm moments I explored some cautious circuits and some full power climbouts. I was quite surprised by the climbout on these blades, I was expecting that the smaller blades would give less lift but this did not prove to be the case. Whilst not quite as fast as the Align blades the MS blades put in a very good vertical performance, certainly more power than the stock wood blades. I again had some tracking problems, whilst not as pronounced as with the Align carbon blades it was still there. I'm going to change the stock head to stiffen the whole of the damping to resolve this issue permanently as this really isn't an issue with the blades but inadequate (too soft) damping in the head block. I'm quite looking forward to exploring the aerobatic and 3D response on these blades as the increased cyclic response should make for some pretty quick flips/rolls. However, I don't want to get ahead of myself and say that this will definitely be the case. Forward Flight Characteristics The UK weather appears to have finally abated and allowed me some time to get the feel of these blades a little better. I was trimming out a new gyro so the T-Rex was only subjected to some fast forward flight, immelman turns and rapid climbouts/descents. I'll do some straight forward sport flying next but for the moment I'll go through the normal forward flight characteristics. The blades have a very smooth feel to them and give a more solid feel in forward flight than the Align standard wood blades. It was flat calm today so I could get a proper feel of the climbout on these blades rather than having to factor in whether the climbout was wind assisted or not. This is where I discovered that my initial observations on climbout are not as marked as I thought. These blades only just out perform the stock wood blades for power, given that they are only 280mm in length this is still a good performance in comparison. Control of power is predictable and collective response is crisp, as you might expect from a shorter and stiffer blade. Cyclic response is where these blades stand out. Due to the smaller disc the roll rate is quite a bit faster than with the 315mm blades and it is very easy if you are used to the wood blades to put in too much stick and roll or climb more than expected. These blades will make good aerobatic or indeed 3D blades with the increased roll/pitch rate. Further testing to come in aerobatic flight.....