G5 X3D Paddles
Written by Ashley Davis Friday, 24 April 2009 15:43
X3DWelcome to the outrage X3D paddles review. These are new paddles that are designed for extreme 3-D on a 450 class helicopter.
Review
The purpose of these new paddles is to provide much faster cyclic response for 3-D flyers who have found the stock paddles supplied with the outrage G5 to not be fast enough. The paddles themselves come with two available settings. The settings are provided by the fact that the paddles have two mounting holes drilled in them. The forward mounting hole (closest to leading edge) is the less responsive setting and the rearward mounting hole is the superfast or most sensitive setting. I chose to use the most forward setting as the model is already quite responsive on the stock paddles and I didn't want it uncontrollably sensitive. I use the advanced 3-D mixer settings on my model, so the flybar input is already quite large.
The initial test flight was conducted on a relatively windy day and four flights were used to judge the responsiveness of the paddles.
Initial impressions when lifting off was that the model was still relatively stable in the hover and that the new paddles were not adversely affecting its hovering characteristics. Applying full cyclic results in a stunning speed from the cyclic. In fact I was so unprepared for how fast the model had now become that it took all of three flights to regain confidence in flying the model. As can often be the case with lightweight paddles I performed a fast forward flight check to make sure that there was not any oversensitivity now in fast forward flight. I was pleasantly surprised in that whilst there was a mild increase in sensitivity it was not as pronounced as I was expecting at all.
The cyclic pitch on my machine is now so fast that in a deliberate fast tick-tock I am not able to keep up with the cyclic on the collective stick. Normally in a review I would also try out the rearward mounting hole for the paddles, however, the model is now so incredibly fast that I would not want to try to run the 'even faster' settings.
The fit and finish of the paddles is really quite nice and left me with no cause for concern. They come in several colours of which neon yellow (reviewed here) is just one option.
Conclusion
If you are a 3-D pilot and you find the stock paddles supplied in the kit to be a little bit slow for your liking then the X3D paddles are an absolute 'must buy' item. I would not recommend these paddles for beginners as they are very quick and would not be conducive to easy learning as beginners do tend to over control. These paddles offer awesome cyclic response with only a very minor penalty in sensitivity during fast forward flight. Given that this is the case I can come to no other conclusion than to thoroughly recommend these paddles as a performance upgrade for 3-D flyers. Particularly given how cheap they are to buy. Overall highly recommended.
( 3 Votes )
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