RCU Forums - dragnse7en's Litehawk II micro coax helicopter review

Hello everyone

I used to have a Walkera 4#3b as my first hobby-grade heli, but I got rid of it because it wouldn't fly for me. I'm in the market for the Blade mcx2, but I got this indoor micro instead -

It's a Litehawk II, from a Canadian company out of Ontario, and distrubuted through Borgfeldt. The only thing that still makes it a toy-grade rc is the controller; it's an infared LOS controller, and uses its own batteries to recharge the heli. The main rotor blades are loose on this model - the company brags about them being durable and break-away, so we'll see.

However, the very first question I asked a the shop was "Do they sell replaceement parts for this?" And, to my surprise, they sure do! Nothing for hop-ups of course, just a robust catalog of different helis for each coax heli skill level.

There's also a bonus in the kit - it comes with a USB charger, so that I can charge the heli off of my laptop or desktop, without draining the controller's six AA alkalines! That's a bonus!

According to the manual, I should get about 8 minutes of flight time, and it takes approximately 30-35 minutes to recharge the built-in 3.7v lipo pack. I looked for the mAh rating everywhere I could on the web, but couldn't find anything on it.

It does have a machined metal airframe, along with durable plastic parts, and claims to have a built-in 3D gyro. It does fly very smooth, and forgives almost everything I throw at it, with my novice mistakes and lucky crash avoidances. I want to get a spare set of main rotor blades, which I understand are an A and B set; they both have the same shape, but being a coax heli, one set of blades spin in one direction, while the other set is "mirrored" (but not technically quite) and although the same size and shape, spin opposite of their counterparts.

It's also got a bunch of LEDs on it - four multi-color blinkers dotting the bottom of the airframe, and one solid white one under the front nose of the canopy. The controller has a button to turn on and off all the LEDs during flight. There's also a turbo boost button on the opposite side of the controller, but I've barely ever needed to use it. Turning off the LEDs during flight should give me a longer run time, but the look too awesome to turn off. I still get a long run time for flight, and have a lot of fun with it.

It's a wicked super easy heli to fly, and I would recommend it for any beginner, like me. I have had only a handful of crashes, and the heli is uber-durable. The only damage has been one broken leg off the skids, and I already ordered a spare along with a pair of A and B replacement main rotor blades. The kit already comes with a spare parts kit; one blade each of the A and B main rotor blades, a spare tail rotor, a spare connector link for the flybar, and a couple of other parts. I need to look out for a spare screw set on this, because the screws are super small and I will surely loose a bunch in the life of this model.

The neat thing about this model is its tail rotor. It has a small motor attached to a tail rotor that points straight upwards, instead of sideways. This provides thrust up and down against the tail section, and upsets the CG enough to propel the heli forward and backward; when the tail rotor provides downward thrust, it makes the aircraft drive forwward, and when the tail rotor sends air upward, it takes the CG toward the rear. It drives forward and backwards much like the pendulum effect in physics.

There's no swash plate at all in this, so the heli doesn't have an aileron (sp?) and cannot move left or right without turning, like a Blade mcx can. The Litehawk II is a 3 channel, indoor micro heli, that seems to be very user-friendly for any beginner like a guy like me :)

Here's a couple of pics of my fun little 'hawk II -

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...-50-26_428.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...-14-48_391.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...-15-19_913.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...-15-19_913.jpg
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...-50-45_109.jpg

Here's a video, of me in training (I have much training to go, landing, hovering, lol, crashes) -

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgmcFXQ7uBs&feature=plcp&context=C 40c7e3bVDvjVQa1PpcFNJOC_oxZBDgmr7NuTqRoQG0fP6yB35i nQ%3D[/youtube]

So, to wrap up this review, I really like this micro toy heli. It's a super-duper rough tough coco puff that handles the abuse of a novice pilot such as mymyself, and I am very satisfied that it has a full line of replacement parts (each and every part seems to cost a flat rate of three bucks, so I'll buy in groups of spares to save on shipping). It has its own unique and simple flying style, and after sampling my cousin's old Blade mcx, it flys almost exactly like it. I have even experienced that weird anomoly where a coax heli turns a certain way, and the A and B rotor blades crash into each other and cause a crash. Aside from that, this is a fantastic trainer for under $55. Not too shabby at all - I give a thumbs up for the guys in Canada that created this thing :)