retnavycdr

My Feedback: (190)

I just received the new Park Zone "Typhoon" RTF electric (from Horizon) after about a two month wait. The wait ws WELL WORTH IT! Seldom do I find that a new product lives up to all the hype and claims in the mags, etc. This one does. I purchased the optional LiPo battery, 2200mah, 11.4 Volts, but have not used it yet. On the included metal hydride battery this plane jumped off the grass and the paved runway (using the larger prop..2 props came with the plane, one for "power", and a smalled one for "speed'), and flew beautifully. I am not an accomplished 3D flyer, but am now thinking that this plane will help in that regard. I fly at almost 5,000 feet in southern Colorado, so this must really bite the air at the fields at sea level.
Assembling it was easy and fast, and everything seems very sturdy and well designed. I will put on the smaller prop and Li-po battery this weekend and try to get one of the guys to takes some pictures/ digital video. Here is a plane that lives up to it's advertising.

flymeaway

My Feedback: (6)

I am pleased with the flight characteristics of mine, however am very disappointed in the servos. Both the elevator and rudder servos stripped two minutes into the 6th flight. I'm now going through the dreaded warranty ship the plane back and wait game with HZ. Word of caution - if you get good with 3D, don't fly it too nuts, the servos can't take it IMO.

retnavycdr

My Feedback: (190)

FLYMEAWAY: Guess what? After my very good review of this plane, the same thing happened to me. Both servos stripped out teeth, and I wasn't doing anything wild at all. I didn't care to fool with the warrenty dance, for items that I could replace for about $25.00 for two servos, I just ordered a couple of them. But that was when I though it was MY FAULT. I will be curious if this starts to get reported on regularly in these forums. ANYONE ELSE EXPERIENCED THIS PROBLEM?????

retnavycdr

My Feedback: (190)

Just spoke with "Josh", a tech support person at Horizon. They WILL NOT replace the defective (in my opinion) servos in my Typhoon. So far I have had Three (3) of them fail, resulting in two crashes, both of which happened from level flight, with no wild aerobatics being flown. One of these was a replcement servo that I went ahead and purchased. Josh told me that ALL microservos will strip teeth if flown hard, or bumped, or if the rudder/elevator are "touched:. How can they sell a plane with servos this fragile???? And this is a plane hyped as for 3D flying? (Read their ads). I would be very careful about paying over $200.00 for a plane with mechanical/electrical parts this fragile.

retnavycdr

My Feedback: (190)

Well, more to report: I sent an e-mail to the Horizon Hobbies Product Support Division and got a response from "Joe" , who was much more understanding than the person I spoke to on the phone. He DID agree a replace my rudder and elevator servos, even though he said they were not obligated to do so. Once the box is opened, it is up to the consumer to buy replacement parts. I had already purchased a servo, fuse, cowl, motor shaft, and other parts, and was only asking for a replacement on the servos. It is too bad that the servos (or at least SOME of them) seem to fail....this is a nice flying plane, which fills a niche in the hobby for the person who likes to just go out into the yard and FLY!!! All you need is a charged battery or two, the plane, and the transmitter/controler. I just wish I didn't have to worry if the servos are going to fail in flight.

Get Real

Hello all. ive been in rc for 15 years give or take.. mostly 10th and 8th scale buggys and raced 10th scale offroad for a long time and still have a 8th scale buggy i play around with. i started flying electric rc planes a few months ago and practice a little 3D. i joined rcu to gain more insight on planes since its a new form of the hobby to me. most of my car experience has carried over/both with the mechanics and the people involved. these are just my opinions based on my own experience and as a rc consumer. i own a typhoon and a few other electric planes and have been learning at a decent pace and checking posts on planes i own and seeing what more experienced pilots as well as novice pilots have to say about them. several times ive found myself irritated about comments about companys or planes and how there service was bad or the plane was junk when i have first hand expierence with the product or company. myself as others have to read these posts with a grain of salt and a openmind. Horizon Hobbies and Parkzone are the primary companys these comments are directed at in this case. The typhoon flys great and is really capable of more than my skill will allow at this time. i to as well as others on rcu had some problems with my elevator servo/and or servos in general on the typhoon. as a new rc pilot/ or as any pilot in general should... took actions to remedy it on the ground and was aware of it during routine preflight check on the plane. i chose to fix it before it became a problem that could make me lose the plane in flight by upgrading to a higher quality servo rather than chance having the same failure again with a standard replacment. i learned this lesson with rc cars/if you have the same component go bad more than once replace it with a stronger part... usually its from driving aggressivly during race conditions or as in rc planes hi g 3D manuvers. also learn from others mistakes before you make them yourself. always do a preflight no matter what you have invested in the plane. no matter how well any rc car or plane is made.. theres gonna be drivers or pilots wheather do to a crash or from just really pushing the envelope hard that have component failures/i agree that the servos are a little weak and can fail but what do you want from a $220.00 plane thats ready to fly and flys great for the money. i called Horizon this afternoon and as always there reps and customer service people are top notch. the rep i spoke to was great.. i had asked about a quality issue with one of my planes/and also asked about the typhoon and servo problems. i didnt want a replacement of anykind on the typhoon. Horizon handles these issues on a case by case basis. you have to look at it from there point... im sure theres people out there that send back planes in 50 parts saying it just crashed on its own without any fault on there part and that they want a refund or a new plane. for one its gonna be hard for a tech to determine the actual cause of crash or failure.. these neat little planes dont have flight recorders to tell the whole story... and even though im not always fortunate enough to have video of my flights regardless if there good or bad.. i consider keeping the plane in one piece good ... not everyone has video to support there storys or there skill as a pilot or what really happened. the rep also said theres thousands of these planes being sold and i agree its probally a small portion of them that have problems. lets say 100 people post they had a servo failure.. mind you rcu is world wide. now lets say theres 10000 typhoons out there.. thats only 1 percent.. thats pretty good in my book and defects in manufacturing happen unfortunatley. Thanks to Horizon Hobbies for continuing to put out good products and service.. and Thanks to Parkzone for putting out a great package with the Typhoon.

FLYING WING

I too am a seasoned r/c flyer, and I have had 2 servo failures in 6 flights. Yes, the plane is a wonderful out-of-the-box flyer, and a bargain at the price offered, but the servos are CRAP, and ParkZone should correct this mistake and honor those of us with this legitimate complaint.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

Did you try lossening up the elevator and rudder?

Mine were very stiff and I was afraid servos would not take the load, so I worked them by hand for some time to loosen them up until they moved freely. Some have been cutting some of the tape to get even looser. I was told to make sure the elevator would drop by itself due to gravity when not connected to the push rods. Mine is not that loose but have not had any problems with the servos.
Nevertheless, the least Parkzone should do is warn about this condition which I know can cause servo problems.

I've had quite a few flights with mine with no problems. Except I've not been able to learn how to make it hover. I hope to learn soon.

robjae

On my first flight the servo stripped a tooth. I called to complain, gears are not covered, no sympathy, nothing. I will upgrade to a better servo.

sal37

I wonder if this problem can be minimized by simple adjusting the elevator linkage to the end of the control horn on the elevator. Then moving the control rod to the middle or inner hole on the servo. This should reduce the force on the servo by 50% or even 75%. This would make the control surface less responsive of course, requiring more pilot input. Perhaps parkone just got over enthusiastic with the control rod setings for thi type of servo? Might be a cheap fix. Can anyone comment on this? I am seriously thinking iof buying this plane in the near future. Thanks

Sal

retnavycdr

My Feedback: (190)

Yes, I did this; loosened the hinges by cutting 2/3 off them off, moving the pushrod to the closest hole on the serve, moving the pushrod to the furthest hole on the control horn. I still stripped out the elevator sevo hinges. ANd to top that off, all I was doing was flying lazy racetrack circles in my yard....no 3D. And I never "bumped" the tail feathers either. I wound up giving the plane and trasmitter away to someone in the club who needed the irriatation more than I did!

R3d Ryd3r

My Feedback: (2)

I spend a little bit of time at my LHS (Don't we all?) anyway I was asking the guys if they have had anycomplaints about the Typhoons servos, (mine stripped on the rudder first flight) he said that they have had a bunch of them come back to the shop with stripped gears, mostly due to the travel on the control surfaces. They DO NOT move as far as the servo wants to pull them in full travel high rates.

So, I asked what i could replace them with, Futaba S3101's was the answer.

Cheers!

R3d

yellowpasta2000

so should i buy 1 or not????

mikeyj86

I hear some guys put hs 81's in them, I'm gonna get one of these myself, and definitely get some servos as well

mikeyj86

actually, the new hs 65 looks like it would work even better, its lighter and has more torque

scupking

I bought the HS 81"s when I bought the plane. I will not fly it with the stock servos.

RayRay

Hi R3 / All,

Sorry to say, but if Parkzone is using the same servos that they used in the F27 Stryker, plan on buying alot of replacements.
The poor quality plastic gears strip under extra torque. I'm pretty sure that the Typhoon uses a standard 3 wire servo. If that is the case I would go with Hitec's HS81 or the HS81-MG (metal gear). I've been using the HS-81s in my brushless Stryker for over a year now without a problem.

Hope this helps.

SS2P

i see the plane is pretty weird i wanted to ask would it be good first 4 chnl. plane?
i have flown sky scooter pro II (3 chnls. ail,elev,throt.)

SS2P

Hey,

Its right thing to loosen up the elev, rudd.
Atm the is LOTS of pressure on the servos, if you try to loosen up e,r then you will find diffrence.

Paul

zeroseven

Maidened my typhoon today. Flew for awhile on lowrates no problem switched to high and was taken completely off guard. Resulted in a upside down semi hard landing. The rudder servo stripped dont know if it was crash or just the crappy servos either way im gonna go ahead and replace the elevator and rudder servos with some hs81's.

jmir

My Feedback: (1)

zeroseven,

Don't forget to loosen up the elevator and rudder!!!!!

It makes a big difference on how the servos perform.

zeroseven

Well i did move them all back and forth for quite awhile but they all still seem pretty stiff. Im gonna get the hitec servos tommorow and hopefully be right back up again. Going to the field with my brother tommorow he's going to fly his hangar 9 twist for the first time.

SS2P

Hey guys SHUT UP about bad servos.
the servos aren't that bad.
you most loose the rudder and elevators.
it has to be loose enaugh to drop by itself

hope this will help

Doc Austin

Ah, geeeee. I really hate to badmouth anything, but I had a few problems with my Typhoon. I stripped the rudder and elevator servos, but I'm sure that was just from a bad landing. Still, it wasn't that bad. since other people seem to be having the same trouble, my experiences don't seem so isolated.

My particular plane came out really tail heavy, but since it was supposed to be RTF, I didn't check it until after I flew it a few times and found it to be really squirrelly. even after proper balancing, though, it still wasn't very good.

This is the plane I purchased to get back into flying after being away 15 years, and for the money it isn't really all that bad. Being new to electrics, I made a few mistakes, and I'm sure that contributed to some of my problems. It's a good value considering you just buy it, charge it, fly it, but I either wanted more, or I wanted to not bother.

Having said all of that, it was a cheap way to get back into flying with almost no work. I enjoyed myself enough that I decided to continue, but again, I wanted something more. I wanted a real airplane....a real wood airplane, because that's what I have always had. Foam just sort of leaves me cold. Foam is surely fine for those who like it. Everyone likes something different and I like wood.

Rather than just quit again, I purchased an E flight Mini Ultra Stick. I've got about 100 flights on it and haven't had a second's worth of worry out of it. The E-flite 480 screams on the 2100 lipo battery and I get 15-20 minutes on a charge. I've wrung it out and knocked it around pretty good.....good enough to put a few character marks in her, but that doesn't seem to effect the way she flies.

I fly the heck out of it and have a pretty good time. Everyone who sees it fly is impressed with it's power, smoothness and agility.

I've since purchased a second one and flown it a couple of times to dial it in. Now she hangs in the den waiting her turn as the primary aircraft. As I became more and more pleased with the first one, I decided to add a third Mini Ultra Stick to the hangar.

That one just hangs with no equipment in it, but it will be ready to serve as the new backup when #1 is retired, or preferably rebuilt. I plan to Monokote her since I am not really pleased with the Ultrakote it came covered in. The covering was well done and in an attractive scheme, but it has sagged and wrinkled to the point that attempting to tighten it just burns holes in it. While I've got it apart I'll probably make a few changes to try to improve it, but it's already really, really good.

Oh, sorry about the commercial. The plane is just so good that I want to tell everyone.

SS2P

I see, well i didnt had that kind of problem.