TomC
05-19-2007, 04:33 AM
I just drove back from and Xcell fun-fly at Coffs Harbour, about 1/2 between Sydney and Brisbane on the east coast of Australia. I had to cut my trip short because of a bad eye infection. I must have got a bit of grass seed when fine-tunning my Ion out at field last Wed. Of course it flaired up, just as I got to Coff's on Friday, so I never even got a fly!
Still got to meet Bobby Watts on Friday afternon and saw him fly the new MA Ion-x2. This made it all worthwhile. Bobby is a very nice young man (18 yo), a great flyer, and a credit to MA imop!
I stood next to Bobby and watched him fly his first Aussie demo flight with the Ion-x2 and it was the scariest ~3 minutes I have ever seen! Sorry, no actual measurements, but I would est that his HS was +2100 rpm and was pulling +4400 watts out of the motor and ~100 amps from his 2x6s1p 5000 Evo25 packs. After all this, the CC HV110 esc was body temp, the motor (Actro 32- 3 or 4, I'm not sure) was ~120 deg f, and the Batteries were a little warm-hot (~130 deg f). Mind you, this as after only ~ 3 min so all things could have heated up a lot more after that. He said that 5 minute flights were the norm.
The main points I noted were that the Actro motor has an 8mm shaft and that the main gear (90t?) was doubled. Also, the belt drive was tight-as-a drum. Bobby told me that this was all necesary to avoid breaking and stripping things at such high power loads.
The vertical tail fin was double width and the boom was Al. Also, he used a x-cross boom support. The open tail gear used the new metal bevel cnc gear. This was all to help the nose-heavy CG and to reduce the cost of the CF boom (said that all MA heli's will now come with Al booms standard). Even with this the heli is still ~ 400g nose-heavy. There was no horiz fin (like the Razor). Also, the landing gear used were the Razor's which at ~3 oz lighter also helps raise the CG a bit.
The head was stock Stratus, and had metal upper mixing arms.
V-blades were 710mm main, 105mm tail and 90mm paddles.
All in all, a very impressive heli (and flyer)!
Would I want to fly one? You bet! Would I want to own one? No, too much power for me to handle and equip/maintain on a regular basis imop.
All I want is a 90 sized E-Heli that fly's like a 90 sized nitro heli, not a 180! Still, fun to watch and a great machine imop!
Cheers,
Tom C
Still got to meet Bobby Watts on Friday afternon and saw him fly the new MA Ion-x2. This made it all worthwhile. Bobby is a very nice young man (18 yo), a great flyer, and a credit to MA imop!
I stood next to Bobby and watched him fly his first Aussie demo flight with the Ion-x2 and it was the scariest ~3 minutes I have ever seen! Sorry, no actual measurements, but I would est that his HS was +2100 rpm and was pulling +4400 watts out of the motor and ~100 amps from his 2x6s1p 5000 Evo25 packs. After all this, the CC HV110 esc was body temp, the motor (Actro 32- 3 or 4, I'm not sure) was ~120 deg f, and the Batteries were a little warm-hot (~130 deg f). Mind you, this as after only ~ 3 min so all things could have heated up a lot more after that. He said that 5 minute flights were the norm.
The main points I noted were that the Actro motor has an 8mm shaft and that the main gear (90t?) was doubled. Also, the belt drive was tight-as-a drum. Bobby told me that this was all necesary to avoid breaking and stripping things at such high power loads.
The vertical tail fin was double width and the boom was Al. Also, he used a x-cross boom support. The open tail gear used the new metal bevel cnc gear. This was all to help the nose-heavy CG and to reduce the cost of the CF boom (said that all MA heli's will now come with Al booms standard). Even with this the heli is still ~ 400g nose-heavy. There was no horiz fin (like the Razor). Also, the landing gear used were the Razor's which at ~3 oz lighter also helps raise the CG a bit.
The head was stock Stratus, and had metal upper mixing arms.
V-blades were 710mm main, 105mm tail and 90mm paddles.
All in all, a very impressive heli (and flyer)!
Would I want to fly one? You bet! Would I want to own one? No, too much power for me to handle and equip/maintain on a regular basis imop.
All I want is a 90 sized E-Heli that fly's like a 90 sized nitro heli, not a 180! Still, fun to watch and a great machine imop!
Cheers,
Tom C