Raptor 60

After spending 8 months learning to fly with the Morley Maverick last summer, I decided that if my heli flying skills were going to get better I would need a new Machine. But what to get? I eventually decided on this...Good Choice!  It has a TT 70H Motor inside with a Zimmerman Muffler...a very powerful combination.

Being just about the cheapest 60 size heli on the market today, if you are after a decent big heli, but without the cost incurrence of a top-of-the-range X-cell, then give the Raptor 60 a go.

Well, this page hasn't been updated for a while now, but here are a few photos taken in January 2003 on a freezing cold afternoon. It has been upgraded with 3D fins, the main blades are 68cm Razors (Carbon, obviously), it has SAB carbon tail blades (left over from my smashed up Xcell Pro), and a CSM 400 Gyro.

It has also done quite a lot of flying, including some fairly daring stuff. Backwards aerobatics, inverted hovering, death spirals, even pirouetting flips. One of the scariest moments was when (whilst pulling out of a death spiral, it went a bit wobbly, and the cyclic didn't work any more! Some choice words went through my head, far too nasty to write here, so I won't. So, there was I, hovering at 200 feet, with no control, and nowhere near a runway, and the sea didn't look too inviting. What to do??? Moving the controls to full movement caused the heli to wobble in the direction of the control input. Brings a whole new meaning to the word "Jellycopter". so I wobbled it away from the sea, and my only choice was to land it in the field next to the flying site, and out of my sight, so I had to get to where I could see the field and then try and land the Raptor with hardly any control. Suffice to say, I got it down OK, and one of the pins holding the washout arm to the swashplate had gone, hence no control. A little steel pin 1 cm long could have destroyed an entire helicopter!!