Sp33d

ParkZone has just released the newest member to the ParkZone family, the Typhoon 2. The Typhoon 2 is a modifyed version of the orignal Typhoon 3D. It has light weight Z-Foam construction to keep the overall weight down. Also it comes stock with a 3-Cell 1800mah LiPo, a BL400-15T brushless motor, plus all the stuff to make it fly.

Price: $229.99
Only $10 more than the orignal Typhoon 3D!

Here are some Pictures of it:







Check out ParkZone's page for thr Typhoon 2:
[link=http://parkzone.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=PKZ4300]Typhoon 2 [/link]

XxOoCoBrAoOxX

All I have to say is that it still sucks. I have the old typhoon and that thing rocks, way better then this thing with crappy servos still in it. I also say that the 3s is only 1800!! WOW that sucks.


-Adisn

RCfr3ak

i don't see anything wrong with it the origanl typhoon sucks the second on is beter hence the name typhoon2

hobbydude214

My Feedback: (13)

moron

dominic magri

i can see from the websites pics that the wings are wood with monocote, what is the fuse. made of?

hobbydude214

My Feedback: (13)

they're not wood they are molded from "z-foam" as well as the fuse, and if they were covered it would be ultracote.

Sp33d

This is true, there is no wood construction in the Typhoon 2.

alabama

But is it better than the original as in the fixed the easoly stripped servos and they just made it better i want to buy it but i cat find much info on it so ... i dnt know.?????

Mat

Sp33d

Well, these new servos are digital which are much better servos.

fetrix

Do any of you know if the futaba (9cap) radio works with the typhoon2 stock ?

flyingace451

The Typhoon2 has "normal" radio gear. They seem to have ditched some stuff, but the best thing is the servos aren't crappy anymore. Metal geared and digital...sounds good to me. And no, the entire plane is molded from "Z Foam" a very stiff yet extremely durable (ask the stryker guys about that) foam and the wings are hollow and ribbed just like the old typhoon, except the plastic covering seems a wee bit tighter. But that may just vary plane to plane instead of Typhoon to Typhoon2. I fly 3D foamies with 800mah lipos and get 10 minutes of hard 3D, so 1800 DOES NOT SUCK WHAT SO EVER. Here are the specs of the 2 next to each other...The one with the better results on each is bolded unless they are too close to the same thing (to compare what makes the Typhoon2 better than the Typhoon)

Typhoon Typhoon2
Wingspan: 39.5" 39.4"
Length: 34" 36.6"
AUW: 26 oz 26 oz
Motor: BL400-15T BL400-15T
Radio: 4ch FM 4ch FM ZX10 (bit better quality)
Servos: 4 POS 4 mg/digital (yes I say POS and I mean POS)
ESC: PKZ 20 AMP Eflite 25AMP
Battery: 9cell 1000 nihm 3s 1800 lipo
Flight Time: 8-10 13-17 (flight time unknown but based on battery specs)

And that is most of it straight from the website. As you can see the Typhoon2 is only $10 more so we need to find out what they did to make the prices so close. With all of the upgrades in the Typhoon2, they had to do something to the airframe or something in order to pull that off IMHO.

dude54325

The typhoon 2 is a great plane. I have one and it serves me well! It is great in 3D maneuvers and i have crashed it 3 times and only once did something break. I broke 1 quarter of the left wing off and it SUCKED!!! But, with a little glue, everything was fixed!!! It does amazing waterfalls, which i truely love! Overall, it is a great plane!!!

getfurious

This Typhoon is a great deal. It hovers extremely well, and does a decent harrier for only $230 RTF. I just replaced the stock radio with my 2.4 and a AR6100 so I could get the feel that I want. I get around 15mins of 3D and put around 1500 back into the pack. It does take a hit well especially when you get a little out of shape on a hover after touching the tail on the ground.
After I flew mine at the field, I tthink alot more people will have one as a beater airplane.

For only $230 this thing rocks!!!!

cjshaker

My local hobby shop replaced my first Typhoon 2, which arrived with a dead aileron servo. Wouldn't move at all.

Got the new Typhoon 2, and went to fly it last Saturday. I asked an experienced RC pilot friend to fly the maiden
for me. He got it up in the air, and it glitched like mad. He walked towards the airplane, and got it back under
control, and landed it successfully.

We seem to have gotten a batch of Typoon 2s with bad radios. My local hobby shop has sold three or four Typhoon
2s in the past week that have some kind of severe glitching problem. They want me to pull the RX and TX to send them in for service.

I'm going to install my Futaba FASST 6 channel radio in it while it is serviced.

Chris Shaker

cjshaker

We have around ten to fifteen people show up each Saturday evening to fly electrics at a local high school in Bend after the hobby shop closes.

I pulled the RX out of the Typhoon2, and installed one of my 6 channel FASST 2.4 Ghz receivers from Futaba. Test ran the airplane at home, checked out the radio programming. The motor and ESC were working fine.

Tonight, one of my buddies from our hobby shop was watching as I plugged the LiPo battery into my Typhoon2. Smoke started to roll out, and I unplugged the battery right away. The ESC smoked itself.

Chris tried to pull the ESC out of the airplane for inspection, and one of the leads came off the ESC. I'll be digging the ESC out tonight, and replacing it with a Castle 36.

From the manual, it appears to be the same ESC that ships in my PNP Stryker, and I've had no problems with its ESC.

I'm starting to think this airplane is cursed:

o First Typhoon 2 had a bad aileron servo,
o On the second Typhoon 2, the radio glitched out badly while my buddy maidened it (it was doing uncommanded half rolls, and vertical excursions),
o Then, the ESC smokes itself while connecting the battery.

Over in the Watter Flyer forums, other people have had the Typhoon 2 ESC smoke on startup.

My hobby shop replaced the first Typhoon 2 with this unit, and now, they're sending in the radios and the ESC for replacement from the second unit. I'm not having much luck with the Typhoon 2.

The Typhoon 2 seems like a really neat airplane, but Parkzone is having some quality problems. One of these days, I'll actually get to fly it.

Chris Shaker

cjshaker

A Castle Phoenix 25 that I had already wired up for another project fits into the ESC tunnel on the Typhoon 2.

Hooked up an ammeter, and it appears that the motor only draws 12 or 13 amps with the 13.5 x 7 prop. So, the 25 Amp E-Flite ESC *ought* to be of proper capacity.

I'm wondering now if the radio glitches were from the ESC being on its way out? Maybe the BEC in the ESC was glitching the radio's power supply?

Chris Shaker

cjshaker

Flew my modified Typhoon 2 several times today, and my buddy also flew it several times today.
We had three LiPo batteries charging at once to keep it in the air.

Since the radios and burned up ESC from the Typhoon 2 are being sent in for service, I flew it
with the Futaba 6EX 2.4 Ghz FASST radio system, and with a Castle 25 ESC. Programmed radio
for flaperons, and 60% expo for high rates, 30% expo for low rates.

Doing flap takeoffs with the Typhoon 2 gets off the ground in about five feet in the winds we had
this evening. That was a lot of fun!

I was very impressed with how rugged and maneuverable the Typhoon 2 is. My last landing was
a crash landing at low speed and low power, out in the sage brush, and nothing seemed to be
hurt. I had to straighten the main gear once after a hard landing. We had a motor mount
screw come out, and depart the airplane, causing a fair bit of vibration. I must have not tightened
it enough after changing out the ESC. My buddy had a spare screw in his part box, and we got
it back in the air. It is a kick to fly, and I highly recommend it for quick flying fun.

Chris Shaker

tims880

My buddy bought one. Nice plane. But on his second flight esc went up in smoke. Hobbyzone is good about replacing, but still makes me wonder!

cjshaker

Regarding spare parts, get lots of prop shafts. I've already used up two. I made the mistake of getting lots of spare props, and am still on my first prop. The prop shafts are what I need.

Bent the first prop shaft on a crash. Had the prop gear hub split on me while flying tonight. Pressed the bent shaft out of the good gear from the other day, and put that gear on my good shaft tonight. Still have one new prop shaft left as spare.

First clue that the gear hub split was the motor revving up, with the airplane going no where.

CAUTION: Over tightening the prop nut could pull the prop shaft out of the gear hub. It's just a press fit.

My instructor is urging me to install an outrunner instead of the gearbox and inrunner...

Chris Shaker

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

Does your instructions have any suggestions as to type of motor and how he would mount it on the Typhoon?
Maybe he can post some photos of actual modifications.

cjshaker

No, he didn't suggest how to do it, but I noticed these parts on Horizon Hobby, and they should make the job easy:

Firewall Stick Mount, E-Flite EFLM1916:
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...rodID=EFLM1916

Outrunner Stick Mount, E-Flite EFLM1915:
http://www.horizonhobby.com/Products...rodID=EFLM1915

My instructor was recommending an E-Flite Park 450 or Park 480 outrunner.

Chris Shaker

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

Here is a stick mounted geared motor conversion done by Get Real.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_33...tm.htm#5493889

I think I would go with a direct drive motor instead of geared. Otherwise, I would stick with the Parkzone set up since it works great.

Adam729

Got one for $179 plus tax at the local hobby shop, can't beat that! The left aileron servo wouldn't do anything and my shop gave me a left wing from another kit. I've flown it four or five times since 7-31, one hard landing and one full throttle hit straight down (old pair of glasses[8D]) which ripped off the fuselage in front of the wings and stripped out the 13.5x7 prop. Had to use a valve spring compressor to remove it. Glued the front back on with some medium CA glue and some coolchem.com activator and its straight. From now on it's new glasses or contact lenses for flying.[&:]

cjshaker

Flew the Typhoon 2 again tonight. Completed maybe three landings in the grass. Was very windy, and made
not the best landings (but I've certainly made much worse with different airplanes). Just touched the prop in
the grass, but that was enough to strip the prop shaft out of the gear. No other damage to the airplane. Didn't
even bend the main landing gear. I'm still on my first propellor.

That gear to prop shaft interface sucks. It's just a press fit, with flutes formed into the prop shaft, which are
pressed into the plastic hub on the gear. I looked at my new last spare gear, fresh in the package, and there
are stress marks in the plastic hub from where the flutes in the shaft stretched the plastic.

I'm going to replace that gearbox with a HiMax gear box that I've got on hand, or else replace the whole
assembly with a triple rotor cool wind brushless outrunner that I've got from CustomCDR.com. I'm tired of
replacing the damn gear and prop shaft.

The cool wind triple ought to give a nice performace boost, and be more reliable, too:

http://www.customcdr.com/cgi-bin/ccp...e&cat=&catstr=


Cool Wind Triple

Our triples have been in and out of development for about a year now, but have finally officially made it to our store! We spent a lot of time tweaking the design to perfect it. This is the cool wind version which is an 20 amp max motor. It goes great in those heavier 3d or slowfly airplanes that our singles or doubles just wouldn’t cut it for.

Specifications:
-2 or 3 cells
-20 amps max
-11x7 GWS HD Prop on 3s for 45oz thrust on 19 amps (7,700 RPM)
-52 grams ready to run weight

cjshaker

I was wrong!!! Upon disassembly at home, found that the gear and prop shaft were still bonded. (I used polyurethane glue to cover the rear of the prop shaft and the plastic gear hub to strengthen the assembly.

This time, it was the nut on the motor shaft spinning inside the plastic prop hub...

Chris Shaker