volare

My Feedback: (1)

I'm nearing the loops and rolls stage so I think some decent blades might help me out a little. Right now I'm just using the stock woodies on my Raptor 30. I don't want to get top-of-the-line blades yet, but some decent mid-priced ones. Do you guys have any suggestions? Do you know the best place to buy?

ShempHoward

My Feedback: (3)

The stock woodies should be ok if they were CA'd as per TT instructions while you are considering better blades. Check out:

www.rotor.com.sg which is Rotor Hobby Enterprises in Singapore where you can buy parts and accessories fairly cheap - put the
bill on your credit card and Walter Lee (owner) will ship it to you quickly and cheaply. He has a currency converter on his site to convert Singapore dollars to USD.

pap

The stock blades will work fine for you. I am doing loops, rolls and learning inverted hover with wood blades and they work good.

alawel

My Feedback: (3)

I flew my Raptor 46 with the stock woodies for a couple of gallons at least, at that point a put a long boom and 600 blades to help keep from over speeding the head. Anyway with the stock woodies the Raptor was able to roll, loop, 4 point roll, tumble and they autoed reasonably well. My vote is to stick with the woodies for a bit, if you realy feal you want the better blades, I like my model sports very well.

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

"My opinion is that the woodies will fail under continued stress of these high force manuvers, and you probably wouldn't see the stress cracks due to the covering before it is too late. You could fly them for awhile I suppose

Get real Man,
I have always used woodies, from the time I started in the early eighties and have never seen a wood blade crack from stress. I have also seen the best of the hot doggers using woodies before all the composite blades became the rage, again NO STRESS BREAKAGE.
The composite blades just plain fly better, but don't listen to this stress crack crap.

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

Jason,
Use what you want to use. Yes the composites are better flying blades. But you don't even do loops yet, what makes you such an authority on stress in materials.
Don't scare some of these people into bying high priced blades when they don't really need them. They should buy them if they WANT them.

Butch R

Jemo is right on this one. An airfoil is an airfoil, a weight is a weight. Granted CF is stiffer and more important cooler, but the fact remains that you or I wouldn't know the difference between woodies of CF blades. And if you did it might be the fact they are balanced better, but the stiffness comes in a degree later. What I mean is the fact that, how the H*ll can I judge blade performance when my recovery skills are still lacking? Don't get me wrong, all my blades are CF blades and I'm to lazy to balance and cover them. I'm still in what I would call the learning stage. Do what you need to do. CF blades do run better. Its your pocket book that decides. CF blades will not make up for your short comings or mine. Good luck and Merry Christmas

Jemo

My Feedback: (5)

A good flier with a lousy machine and blades, is still a good flier.

A lousy flier, with a great machine and blades is ...........you get the idea.

Dyehard

Wood is considered to be natures composite. Until a few years ago, all flyers were using wood and the best of them were flying just as hard as they do know with graphite blades. I have been flying a Raptor 30 all summer with wood blades, it is constantly being flipped a flopped in all directions. As long as you keep the head speed under 2000, I don't think you can do anything that will cause any undue stress on the stock wood blades, short of expecting them to beat the earth out of the way. The wood in the Raptor blades looks to be no worse than the wood I've seen in hundreds of other blades over the years, and far better than I've seen in some. The reason the most fliers recommend the stock wood blades to beginners is because they are cheap to replace, but they will take most beginners far beyond a hover, into death spirols, rolling tail slides and other such silliness, and come back for more.

volare

My Feedback: (1)

Thanks guys.

Well, my parents got me a set of glass blades for Christmas. They are SAB brand, 550 mm, and weigh 105 grams. I don't know much about them so any feed back would be appreciated. I just decided I want to learn autorations before much aerobatics. So that is my main issue now. I realize both my wood and glass blades will be fine for aerobatics.

I figure the glass blades will work better for autos, but they seem light(105 gr) Will they have sufficient inertia at this weight? Than again I don't want to damage good blades while learing autos(hopefully I won't damage ANY blades). How well will wood blades auto? I read that they will auto okay but how are they for learning on?