Well here it is, Align's first venture into the micro helicopter market, the T-Rex 250. I have built a few micro helis in the past years, but having flown just about every T-Rex Align has put out, I am very anxious to get my hands on this little guy. So between trick-r-treating and entertaining guests at the house, I managed to put this little heli together and document as much as possible. Hope this will be of some help for those who are interested in this heli, or just seeing what is available in the micro heli market.

When UPS delivered the box, I was surprised at how small it is. It looked almost like one of those box that T-Rex 450 canopy comes in. Take a look at the size relative to the T-Rex 500 box in the photos below.

There are three type of T-Rex 250 kits:
Standard - kit with motor and ESC.
Combo - standard kit plus three DS410 digital servos for cyclic.
Super Combo - combo kit plus GP-750 heading lock gyro and DS420 rudder servo.

Opening the box revealed parts neatly packaged in number plastic bags. Main frame is already pre-assembled and sealed in a plastic bag, as well as the head and tail assembly. The nicely painted fiberglass canopy is wrapped in thin layer of protective foam, and then covered in plastic. Following the tradition of all T-Rex kits, Align included tools which have proved to be very helpful in building and repair of their helis. In the case of 250, they included a pair of micro hex and philips drivers with nicely anodized aluminum handles. The size 0.9 micro hex driver is a very important tool, since I don't have one this small in my tool box, and 90% of the T-Rex 250 build depends on it.

Two sets of main blades and tail blades are included for different flight characteristics. There is a pair of 205mm tapered blades, and 200mm straight blades. According to Alan Szabo Jr. test reports (courtesy of Align forum), while both blades poses good flight characteristics, the 205mm tapered blades are more suitable for high head speed, high power 3D flights with increase agility and responsiveness. Similar increase in flight responsiveness can be noticed from the 40mm tapered tail blades. I will report back with some actual field tests of both sets of blades later on.

For those familiar with the T-Rex line, this little heli would be no stranger. Almost everything from head to tail is a shrink down copy of its larger siblings. Just like the more recent T-Rex kits, most of the pieces come pre-assembled in 3 major component groups: head, frame, and tail assembly. The pre-assembled pieces reduced the assembly time considerably. However, as with any pre-assemble pieces, I always disassemble and check for the presence of thread locking material. Other than the obvious places where dis-assembly is required for parts fitting (tail boom clamp, fly bar cage, etc), I'm glad to report thread lock was observed in all places.