Just thought I would start an 'official' thread for both of these helis.

build log and reviews coming soon



First there was the HK250:





Then before we could all whip out our wallets, there was the HK250GT:

My HK250PL arrived today, and I am not terribly impressed with the quality of the kit, I have taken pictures of most of the parts you cannot see on the HobbyCity website.

I can say that the quality of the plastic used in the kit is NOT what i was expecting, i was hoping for it to be of the same composition as that used in the HK450, but unfortunately it is a much lower grade.

I think this heli will fly, but I cannot guage how well, I may swap out the head on my GT with the plastic one, just to see how it handles, but i dont think I will try and fly it.

more info to come, but so far it is not looking good for the HK250PL, the GT is 2x the price, but it is 4x more heli

My HK250GT arrived today, and I am rather impressed with the quality of the kit, I have taken pictures of most of the parts you cannot see on the HobbyCity website.

I took apart the head to replace the feathering shaft with a genuine align one, and I found that two of the blade grip bearings are oversized, i will have to take the correct ones from my plastic kit when it arrives. I have attatched a closeup of the issue.

so far, i have found NO traces of loctite

Having now completed the build of my HK250PL, I can say that it does seem a lot better than I initially thought.

all the parts fit together very well, and I ran into no issues during the build. All of the parts seem align compatable, but I maybe be wrong, as I have not checked all of the parts.

the tail has barely any slop at all which is a good thing, and the tailcase looks okay.

I reckon that the head can probably take the headspeed if one runs woodies, the stock blades are ~10g each, which is very heavy, woodies should weigh around half that, and so will reduce the strain on the head

I would still not want to test out the stock feathering shaft however, a $3 part is not worth a ~$30 crash or perhaps even hurting someone. Make sure to order the pack of two shafts which come with the screws.

the plastic used is VERY stiff, and all parts appear to be made from the same material. the moulds are all very high quality.

the best thing about this airframe is the weight, I will weigh it when I get access to some scales, but it feels like it is around 90g.

so in conclusion: I think that this heli has potential to fly nice as a scale heli if built light and running a low headspeed with lightweight blades.

The build for the HK250GT was not as straightforward as the one for the PL, but it was by no means difficult. I ended up using the servo mounting lugs from the PL, but thats just personal preference, and it doesnt actually make any difference at all to how the heli performs.

installing the motor required a little modification to the motor mount as the bolts I used were too wide.

the hardest part of the build is wire routing, I like to route all my wires on the inside of the frame to get a nice clean exterior, but the wires are just a tiny bit too short to do this

I kept all the electronics poking out the back incase I need to make adjustments, which I most likely will move inboard as I finalise the setup.

I did make a few little mods to the kit when building: I swapped out the stock feathering shaft and bolts for align ones, used the blades and paddles from the PL kit (dont like the stock GT ones)

and due to the amount of slop in the head, I replaced the washout base with the one from the PL (both are alu) the GT one is slightly oversized and causes a lot of slop in the head.

flight review to come tomorrow (too tired to type it up now)

FLIGHT REVIEW!!:

I have not flown the PL yet, but my GT is up and flying, and has been since sunday. This review is broken down into the first five flights and a conclusion:

First Flight:
Very nervously spooled up, constantly conscious about my use of loctite and If I had screwed in the feathering bolts tight enough etc. spooled up to what I thought was an acceptable headspeed, it refused to budge till about 3/4 stick - not right, both sticks were very unresponsive, I spooled down and upped the swash mix 10%. second takeoff was a little better, tried a small punchout, the heli didnt do anything for a while, then suddenly shot up - feels like sticky collective to me, not enough lube or too weak servos. I quickly set it down so I didnt lose control and crash it.

Afterthoughts & adjustments: ordered new servos, lubed head, checked for binding and stiffness.

Second Flight:
This one took place in my back garden, I wanted to test to see if the lube had made any difference, and I wanted to get my curves and tail sorted out. I spooled up and again it needed more pitch than I thought it should do to get off the ground and the punchouts were odd too (nearly hit a tree). I did a few slow piros and side in hovers to try and get a feel for the heli, then i got carried away and ended up spending the rest of the battery pack doing piro hovers

Afterthoughts & adjustments: ''daaaaaaaamn this heli is stable, tail seems to hold nicely though I should really set it up next pack''

Third Flight:
For this one, I took the heli round to a small green just round the corner from me (maybe 20x20m, with trees round the outside) I wanted to test the FF abilities. I took off, still got that funny pitch issue, did a few circuits, some figure eights, some backwards lazy eights then thought: ''hmm, I wonder if this heli will flip'' I tested positive and negative pitch, and cyclic, then went up about 20ft, and did a few flips, it went so well I tried a few inverted hovers before I knew it, that was the end of the pack .

Afterthoughts & adjustments: traced dodgy pitch back to oversized washout base, replaced with spare - much better.

Fourth Flight:
This flight took place today, I spooled up and took off, this time it responded to changes in pitch a little better, but still somewhat latent. did some piro hovers, circuits, eights, and some flips, rolls and inverted hovers (still not sorted that tail out)

Afterthoughts &adjustments: I LOVE how this heli flies inverted - swapped out the HK250PL tapered blades for a set of align tapered plastics - much better, one of these days I will try out the stock blades.

Fifth Flight:
This flight took place about 10 mins after flight four, I spooled up, did a nice smooth figure eight, and did a punchout to ~20ft, flipped to inverted and all of a sudden the motor cut out , attempted an inverted auto, but it didnt go TOO well, still managed to slow it down some though, pretty much stopped the blades. It hit the ground inverted, and I could not stop laughing - I was in normal mode . so that cut that flight short.

Afterthoughts &adjustments: this is one tough little heli, the mainshaft coller slipped up, stripped one servo and a screw came out of one bladegrip, didnt bend the main/feathering shaft, or even the flybar!!! (pics attatched)



So, in conclusion, I LOVE this heli, it is so fun to toss around the sky, and seems to have a fair amount of power with this motor, even with these old and tired packs

I just noticed that the remaining slop in the collective is coming from the flybar seesaw bushings - need to replace them with bearings asap (will do that after I replace the servos with my new ones, which just so happened to arrive today )


so, being the first to have an 'incident' (wouldnt really call it a crash) with the GT, I can state that it is pretty tough, obviously it wont take a 100mph dive into the ground, but the odd gentle crash shouldnt cause any damage at all.

please disregard these last six posts for the time being, they are reserved for my build logs and reviews, post as normal and I will make a new post when these ones have been edited. (this one is reserved too)

I want to order the GT, but don't know what electronics to put into it. So far I have the Logictech 2100T/3100G combo for the tail. What cyclic servos should be used? I wanted to use metal gear servos like the Hextronik MG-14's..but if these are too heavy, what are some other cheap options?

Originally Posted by mrkhan

I want to order the GT, but don't know what electronics to put into it. So far I have the Logictech 2100T/3100G combo for the tail. What cyclic servos should be used? I wanted to use metal gear servos like the Hextronik MG-14's..but if these are too heavy, what are some other cheap options?

I put HS45s on mine. No complaints.

I am going to use hextronic HXT500s in mine, they are nice and light.

if you really want the metal gear servos, then either the MG-14s or the hitec HS65MGs will have to be your choices i reckon

apparantly the HXT900s are pretty tough in a 250, i just wanted a lightweight setup for mine, though next time i place an order i will be getting the 900s and swapping them out (i ordered the 500s with the plastic, and i think they might strip with my style of flying on the GT)

Originally Posted by MakMov

I put HS45s on mine. No complaints.

so you recieved yours already? how is it? you know you have to post pics now

or are you talking about the align or another clone?

Originally Posted by Hal_The_Hacker

so you recieved yours already? how is it? you know you have to post pics now

or are you talking about the align or another clone?

I can that it's the exact same heli as the Bullet I already have. Same canopy, same everything down to the three tools. They can call it whatever they want but it's the exact same heli.

How is it? It's not a bad little heli.

I can say that when I first got it flying it was every bit as good as my Trex.

However, it is not as strong or durable as my Trex. It has 1/2 the flying time as my Trex and has gone through a lot more parts. Partly because I have crashed a few times more than my Trex but now even things like bearings are starting to wear out. the head which has been rebuilt with half and half stock and Align parts is much more loose than my Trex head.

I even had the swash ball fall out for no apparent reason.

Now on the other hand, the stuff I have replaced with Align parts has been fine. I will, however, soon have to replace the rest of the head, which will make it about 80% Trex and 20% original.

I could have bought a new Super Combo Trex and had money left over for what I have in the clone.

Replace the head, tail and gear and will have a heli as good or better than the Trex.

There are some good things about the clone that the Trex doesn't have.

Much better hardware.
More metal. The boom tail fin support bracket is metal. The boom mount metal, the tail drive blocks are metal. Metal tail servo brackets.
Much better tail pushrod fins or guides

When I first saw the paddles I was WHAT THE But I kind of like them now. They are like my big heli with a set screw that locks them in place.

Originally Posted by MakMov

I can that it's the exact same heli as the Bullet I already have. Same canopy, same everything down to the three tools. They can call it whatever they want but it's the exact same heli.

How is it? It's not a bad little heli.

I can say that when I first got it flying it was every bit as good as my Trex.

However, it is not as strong or durable as my Trex. It has 1/2 the flying time as my Trex and has gone through a lot more parts. Partly because I have crashed a few times more than my Trex but now even things like bearings are starting to wear out. the head which has been rebuilt with half and half stock and Align parts is much more loose than my Trex head.

I even had the swash ball fall out for no apparent reason.

Now on the other hand, the stuff I have replaced with Align parts has been fine. I will, however, soon have to replace the rest of the head, which will make it about 80% Trex and 20% original.

I could have bought a new Super Combo Trex and had money left over for what I have in the clone.

Replace the head, tail and gear and will have a heli as good or better than the Trex.

interesting, how many flights would you say before the bearings started to show wear? the mainshaft bearings on my friend's align heli needed replacing after <100 flights.

I however have over 300 flights on my gaui 200 V2 and the only part to show wear is the tail pitch slider - not bad, to be honest, its actually pretty surprising, I thought the bearings would be shot by now, especially with my ~4500rpm headspeed.

I will be comparing both HK250s to my Gaui V2 Black when they arrive, and I will no doubt mention the quality compared to the HK450 as well

subscribed

Originally Posted by Hal_The_Hacker

interesting, how many flights would you say before the bearings started to show wear? the mainshaft bearings on my friend's align heli needed replacing after <100 flights.

I however have over 300 flights on my gaui 200 V2 and the only part to show wear is the tail pitch slider - not bad, to be honest, its actually pretty surprising, I thought the bearings would be shot by now, especially with my ~4500rpm headspeed.

I will be comparing both HK250s to my Gaui V2 Black when they arrive, and I will no doubt mention the quality compared to the HK450 as well

The Gaui V2 is better, harder to fly with that 5150, it's fast, quick responsive.

I donno, proabably 50-75 flights on the clone, and I have already replace the main bearings once. Now it's all the washout and mixing arms that are way loose.