Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Any thoughts on this RTF heli?

Been reading in some forums that this is the improved version of the Falcon 3D. All metal head, brushless motor, HH gyro, belt-driven tail. Has anyone flown this bird?

Here is the link to the manufacturer's site: http://www.art-tech.cn/english/Artic...?ArticleID=170

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

I'm not sure on this one. There was a review of a t-rex clone (diablo maybe?) in one of the recent rc heli mags and in that review they mentioned another version. I can't remember if it was the shark but it looks similar.

My question is this, unless there is a huge price difference in the kit, is there any reason to buy this instead of a T-rex? It would seem that the wise decision would be to go with the rex because it has been around long enough to have a wealth of support options. You are probably all by yourself with the shark

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

The one thing I cant see from the pics on the site is the linkages to the servos. The falcon has z bend linkages at the servos, not desireable. If this is priced the same as the Black Hawk SE over at KA-Planes Id check it out same thing All Metal Head CF Frames. I have one and am having a blast with it.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

I actually received one this past week. Is this the picture you wanted to see?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/09...s/IMG00285.jpg

Price was below $400.00 including shipping. Charged the battery and flew it, talk about RTF. Very minor trim on the radio and the tail is rock solid.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Where did you purchase yours?

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

A friend brought it in from Hong Kong.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Something else to check out before commiting to a heli from Hong Kong is what radio and frequency comes with the heli. I bought a Falcon 3D from Max whatever his name was and I got first a 35 mhz radio setup and than a 40 mhz setup both marked for USA 72 MHZ but both totally mismarked and operating on freequencies not allowed in the USA. Best to buy your heli from a USA dealer like Hobby Lobby or KA-PLANES.COM if you want to get the right radio equipment with it...saving a few bucks on ebay with a hong kong dealer is a risk...however if you were just buying the heli only that might be ok...i ended up buying a DX7 radio after I got no satisfaction from the dealer...these dealers just sell stuff and are not all that technical so buyer beware...good luck...I have been there and done that looking to save a few bucks...
Ralph

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

This is not an ebay purchase. I get my batteries from ebay and I have been lucky so far.

Flew the heli today and I am impressed. I think this is the best value for the money. There is nothing to upgrade and it flies excellently. I hope other owners of this bird join this discussion so we can share more information. But I guess there are still only a few of us.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

FYI, castlerockhobbies.com sell the plastic version of the Falcon 3D for $199.
Not sure if he carrys the metal version. Probably does though.
Art-Tech is a related company w/Esky

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

It took me a while to find this thread. :) I have been the happy owner of an Art-Tech Shark 450 for a few months now and it's been and still is a super heli. 60 flights and no crashes so I can't comment on how tough the parts are lol.. hope I never have to. ;) These birds are smaller than a T-REX and slightly bigger than a Honeybee king. The Shark uses the same servos as the Falcon and they work great. Mine is 72 MHZ so that was a non issue. When my Shark shipped out to me it was the third one sold here in the USA, so you won't see a lot of talk about them on the forums... yet. :) But that should change as more people find out about them. Most of the people are still out there picking up CopterX and BlackHawk 450's (which I also considered at one point) but I will be getting another Shark 450 in the next month or so because I like it so much.. mostly because of the part layout and frame design vs the other REX clones. I purchased from Rusty ("betapilot" here on the RCU forum) at CastleRockHobbies.com. He is very experienced and has built a lot of custom heli's over the years. Art-Tech and ESKY are overseas sister companies and are built in the same factory 2 blocks from Rusty's distributor. It truly was a tested RTF bird right out of the box with all the electronics and parts needed to fly included (unlike many other kits in this price range). With the included E-FLY 100 TX.. it was $415 (including shipping) and it came with the stock wood main blades, plastic paddles and tail blades, carbon fiber main blades, carbon fiber paddles and carbon fiber tail blades, two canopies (one real fiberglass painted c/f, and the stock Shark plastic one), Billet skids (which I like much better than the superskids), a 2200mAh Art-Tech battery, Art-Tech balance charger, blade holder and even (8) AA Energizer batteries in the TX (which worked lol). The Shark is a smooth, powerful heli and the Art-Tech HH gyro surprised me by holding very well during full punch-outs in both normal or idle up mode. I'd say about 90% of the parts are T-REX/HDX V2 and V3 compatible so that is a big plus in my book. As importantly, the layout of components is great and everything is easy to get to, clean cut etc. It handles as well in the air as a T-REX V2.. it's just a lot less money. Did I mention that it's a great flyer? It has it's soft side which is smooth for slow, forward flight and it's great for pattern flying. But..it also has it's BEAST side that is razor sharp and wicked. It can be anywhere you want it in the air.. in seconds and will turn or stop on a dime. I'll include some pictures for ya'll which were taken with my camera phone. Sorry the pics aren't the greatest but it will at least give you an idea that it's not just a bargain basement bird with weird placed or hard to access components for $415 like some others.

*BTW.. In the photos, the ugly wire ties on the deans (make it easy to pull apart when the temps 30F), and the antenna tube are my doing as I routed the antenna that way because after several days of initial testing, that configuration gave me the best range with the TX antenna collapsed.. so it stays. Also, the yellow wire tie (visibility marker) on the left skid is what I use to help with orientation when the bird is coming out of a pirouette at dusk or bank turns at distance. I admit it's an ugly old habit but it was an idea I picked up from an old timer at our park and it works well for me. Just wanted to let you know that the ugly stuff was my doing and not from Hong Kong or CastleRockHobbies heheh.

Really though.. this bird is worth a serious look for anyone searching for a well priced, great all around 450 bird. Without the carbon goodies and extras it can be had for less than $360. For $415 complete with everything I got with it, I didn't see anything better and after looking around the last few months, I still don't. I must agree with dodopilot.. this bird is impressive and is simply superb in the air. If for whatever reason you want to add a high end TX, that option is always available as with any other package.. but I fly two heli's with this TX for over 250 combined flights with no crashes so the TX obviously can't be all that bad lol. I think it works fine for basic flight and mild 3-D and it is smooth enough to do more. Anyone that knocks the performance of this package for the money obviously hasn't flown a dialed in Shark yet. My friends at our flying field are amazed at the Shark's bang for the buck vs all of their higher priced equipment. In a world where some folks are spending $200 to $300 just for a top notch gyro and servo, this heli deal is incredible and really was RTF.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Great post, xodarap1, I think that's going to be my next heli.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

The ESKY and EFLY 2.4 TX's are on the way as well - hopefully by mid-summer.

Rusty is continuing to test the Esky dual conversion RX's with the stock TX's and they have worked well to date.
You can get the RX's now which only run around $30 more than the stock Esky/Art-Tech single conversion units.

I'm still flying old school man.. 72Mhz on my birds.. and my protection continues to be a simple and cheap setup. A few ferrite rings for $3 (that weight next to nothin') and a $3 ESC extension cable = no interference. If I do get glitches with this setup then I'll consider upgrading, but until then my $ goes into the birds and batteries. :)

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

That's a great looking machine! How do you like the
conical driven tail as opposed to a belt drive tail
system?

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

i will be ordering one in 2 weeks from a supplier here in Canada..... the thing is, i have 300 bucks invested in helis in the last month and have nothing to show for it. i sent a 200 us money order to a guy in PA for a falcon 3d i won on e-bay 20 days ago, and he didn't receive it. (yet). if he doesnt, im out 200 bucks. also i ordered a cpd-4, and paid via CC, and it was back ordered...... so, untill i SEE my stuff, im not dropping another dime.

but, this Shark450 will be my next order. ;-) it looks awesome!

BTW, is this heli eCCPM or mCCPM?

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

It's a belt driven tail. You must be thinking of the falcon's that have the conical driven tails. The original tail was slightly damaged in shipping so Rusty upgraded me to a microheli, V2 style... but even the original tail was belt driven.

eCCPM

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Is the Shark the same bird as the Falcon 3D SE?

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

No, but they are very similar. The Falcon is a little longer, the Shark taller and heavier with larger rotor span. The batteries are different as are the motors and esc's. The Falcon's have gear driven tails, the Shark a belt. The Falcon 3-D SE is a cnc and carbon upgraded Falcon version. The frames are not upgraded from the standard Falcon as far as I know.

Here's the specs for both:

http://www.art-tech.cn/english/Artic...?ArticleID=151

http://www.art-tech.cn/english/Artic...?ArticleID=170

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Thanks for straightening me out on the diff. I would want
the belt driven tail system. Man that's a great looking heli!
Did you get it set-up & test flown, or did you do it yourself?

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

No problem man. Yeah the shark is a good looking bird. It looked better before I hooked up my ugly lipo alarm wires, antenna tube and yellow skid band lol. The real test will be to see how it holds up to some more flight time and a crash.. hopefully no crashes until at least after the 200 flight mark. Beyond initial hovering/testing, it's been great and trouble free for 68 field flights so far so I'm knockin' on wood. :) I did purchase the heli setup and test flown, but just as my other birds, I took it apart and put it back together so I know what goes where (much easier to do when nothing is smashed). The heli was easy to take apart and put back together and it was fun to work and tinker on. The open frame made it easy to get to everything like the RX's plugs, crystal, servos etc. Dropping the motor and esc was a snap. The only thing that caused me some problems was that they used threadlocker in some areas that made some fasteners hard to remove, but I got everything off and back on eventually. I guess it's better to have parts with too much threadlock than to have them fall off or come loose in flight.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

heh.... i still havnt recieved my other stuff i ordered.... but its on its way! and last night i pulled the trigger on the Shark-450! next will be the FS-8 co-pilot, and a couple extra li-po's, so in a couple weeks ill be the proud owner of the Falcon3d, and Shark-450. i really like the look of the build quality of the shark-450!

so, ive got coming:
Falcon 3d
CPD-4
spare 11.1v 1800mah 10c li-poly

and the Shark-450......

i figure its 2 months till spring, ill use that time to practice on a sim, and use our warehouse to learn to hover with the Falcon 3d, in spring i should be ready!

ive got a cart full of falcon spare parts coming from Ka-Planes, and then need to get a couple 4 more li-poly's, an FS-8, then i should be broke. and my wife should be mad (madder!)..... meh, its only money!

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

It looks like the Shark 450 is going to be a big hit. I
emailed RC Heli magazine yesterday and asked
them to do a review article on the Shark 450.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

I started this thread but haven't read this for quite awhile and I am surprised to see some activity here. Good to know that more fliers are discovering this bird.

As for my Shark 450, well after 3 mishaps, it now has more Align parts than the original. The parts are 99% compatible except for the frame parts. I think the frame is narrower than a V2. I have also upgraded the tail case to a V2. This is not to say that the original parts are no good. This is more the result of Shark parts not readily available at the LHS. Two days ago I crashed it doing hovering rolls. The rotor head was a complete mess. Both main blades went a good 5 inches into the rain-soaked ground 4 feet away from me. But the frame survived it's third crash. I decided to get the RC-Tech plastic rotor head kit and it should be flying again when the parts get here. This will be my practice bird from now on. As everyone knows, you will need to overcome "fear" to advance your flying skills, and one way to minimize that fear is to "anoint" a particular bird for practice.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

The Microheli V2 tail that I'm running on it now is a big step up from the stock tail, but I don't know that it justifies the price right off the bat. Is there any reason why you went with Align replacement parts for it? I'm guessing it was because your LHS had Align in stock lol. If (when) I do power the shark into the ground, I plan to go CopterX or HDX with the replacement parts. I see no reason to spend more to replace what will most likely at some point be replaced again, especially when the Align parts will break and bend just as the others in an extreme crash. I haven't compared the frames side by side to a T-REX but I think if you break this shark frame that you would break any frame in the same type of crash.. This frame looks and feels tough dude (try to flex or mess with it when you take it apart) ..especially combined with Rusty's billet skids (they are tough man). My second shark purchase has been sidetracked/delayed by some other ortho expenses, but it's still on my list and it will be done soon along with two more 450 heli's. I have an xmas gift certificate for a DX7 but I dread making that change now cuz i can fly now fine with my existing stuff.. :( .. i mean, swapping over RX's and sitting confused for countless hours testing and retesting mind numbing settings just to get my birds dialed back in again so I can do what's most important lol... FLY! I really struggle with the thought of setting up a new radio and most likely ditching my birds in the process of seeing what settings do what at the field. For every post I see about how great the new 2.4 TX's are, I see groups of people that are struggling for days (or even longer) with the 2.4 TX settings, menu's and they ending up crashing while testing their super new setups. It really makes me wonder if it's really worth it all just to get the better stick control (which is all i'm really after). I'll never use most of the settings on a new radio and still consider it all overkill. I do however like the 2.4 security at the field and of course, the smoother control. Decisions, desisions lol... :) :D

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

I too now have a shark 450 on the way and this thread helped mr make up my mind.It should be a good addition to the belt cp I have now.Not bad two 450s ready to fly for under $600.00 bucks.My dad bought the T-rex 450 se complete and it was around $1200.00 rtf.

RE: Art-Tech Shark 450
 

Those Shark's sure look great & lots of bells & whistles
w/nothing really to upgrade. Unless you go w/a different
tx. Are you planning on using the stock tx? Did you get
the billet skids?