SWE 50DP Paddles
Written by Ashley Davis Sunday, 18 April 2010 23:14
SWE 50DPThe following is a review of the SWE 50DP Paddles from Sungwoo Engineering.
The paddles in this review were supplied by Midland Helicopters who stock a range of SWE blades and paddles.
The paddles in this review retail at £50 in the UK or $60 in the USA. Which for me makes them the most expensive paddles I have ever reviewed.
Introduction
SWE in the UK is pretty much an unknown make of blades and paddles. In the USA they have developed some reputation which appears to be generally good and have a reasonable following from the community.
The paddles on review here are for a 50 sized helicopter. They are 94mm long, 55mm wide and 7.5mm depth. Which makes them an average sized paddle with a fairly thin aerofoil. They are a very light paddle at just 1.2oz the pair or 18g each.
The concern here is with such a light paddle whether they will have good stability, they certainly should be quite quick as the flybar is going to be quite light and not delivering the same sort of gyroscopic stability you would get from a heavier paddle.
Construction
The paddles themselves are of carbon fibre construction. This is done in a rather nice two tone black and white and coupled with the curved shaping makes for a very attractive and nicely finished paddle. Certainly from a quality perspective the paddles are extremely well made and finished, which is a good thing considering their cost.
Each paddle is drilled and threaded and has a grub screw in the leading edge which screws right into the paddle and bites onto the flybar to hold the paddle in place. This stops the paddle twisting on the flybar inflight.
There is no documentation with the paddles advising how far they should be threaded onto the flybar or any recommendations regarding their use.
Installation
Both paddles threaded onto the flybar and here I hit a bit of an issue. One tightened up on the flybar quite a bit sooner than the other, to the point that it jammed solid and wouldn't screw on any further. I'm not sure the reasons for this but I set the other paddle to match the one that had stopped screwing on earliest. I should point out that there was plenty of thread/flybar inside the paddle before it jammed/stopped threading on and that it was ok to unscrew, it just wouldn't go on any further. A quick alignment of the paddles and securing of the grub screws with loctite and everything was done. So aside from the minor issue of them not screwing on to the same degree they were otherwise fitted without any problems. The paddles were fitted to my Velocity 50 for testing.
Flight Testing
The paddles were installed to replace the stock Outrage Velocity 50 paddles. The stock Velocity paddles are known to be quite a fast paddle in themselves, so how these change the response will be interesting.
In the hover the paddles tracked beautifully and the model felt very balanced and solid, no over tendency to try to fly off or any twitchiness.
Moving onto forward flight and big moves the model tracks very solidly and to all intents and purposes it felt much like I had fitted much heavier paddles. Satisfied nothing untoward was going to happen I progressed onto 3D, I was getting a good feel for these paddles. The thing that strikes most about them is the linear feel, they are very progressive in response and there is no snatchiness or unwanted oversensitivity at the extremes of cyclic movement. The flip rate is extremely good and not dis-similar to the stock velocity paddles (ie. pretty damn fast), the difference however is the locked in feel and tracking of the model. Certainly it's a massive improvement over the stock paddles. What I can't stress enough is the linearity of these paddles, they are so predictable it makes positioning the cyclic much easier than a non-linear or more exponential paddle (for example stubs) or infact the stock plastic paddles.
I have to say I can't really justify £50 ($60) for these paddles as I'm not sure any paddles are worth that kind of money. However, that said, these paddles are definitely some of the best I have flown and unusual in the locked in feel they give with such a low weight. It is a bit like having your cake and eating it, usually a light paddle will be fast but un-stable and lacking accuracy. The SWE paddles are fast, stable and accurate.
Conclusion
I think it may well be obvious at this point that I really like these paddles. They are really good looking and nicely finished. Added to that they fly really well and I'd rate them as amongst my favourite, if not, my favourite paddles currently. I can often rate a product based on whether I keep it on my machine after testing, the SWE paddles will definitely not be coming off anytime soon.
Can I justify spending £50 or $60 on them......... the fact that they are superb then maybe but I still have trouble justifying paying this much for paddles. I think the only concellation here is that it's extremely rare that I crash and damage my paddles, so hopefully this is money well spent that will last me a long time. For many I suspect the price is a step too far.
Overall - highly recommended if you want a quality set of fast 3D paddles that perform superbly and you can justify the cost.
( 5 Votes )
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