roversgonemad
Member
A quick review on my new Tower Hobbies Hellcat Rx-R. Out of the box, this is a good looking plane. The finish is good for a foam plane. Assembly was intuitive and easy. The plane comes will all the electronics but the battery and the receiver. The ESC connector was a Super Tigre type and I swapped this out for a Deans style, since this is almost all I have on any batteries larger than a 500 mAh 2 cell. The cowl is held on with magnets, as is the canopy/battery cover. The canopy fits really well and just a slight slide to the side allows it to pop right off. I have installed an Orange 6 channel receiver and will use a variety of 2200 mAh batteries for power. With a 2200 I found that it has to be all the way forward to balance. If you plan on flying this plane with an 1800, you will likely need to add weight to the nose to get it to balance. The tail surfaces mount with a single screw and tab into the fuselage. The horizontal stabilizer is captured between the fuselage and the vertical stabilizer. I did however break the tail wheel assembly during assembly. I held the plastic bit and tried to twist the wire in the plastic collar and only succeeded in breaking the tail wheel collar. I was able to fix it by drilling out the plastic collar and epoxying a bit of 1/16" piano wire in the place of the plastic. I suspect the wire is better and I also suspect that the plastic would have broken even if I didn't tweak on it like an oaf. It's an interesting tail wheel design that pivots in two places, in the fuselage and in the rudder. The pivot mechanism makes it turn like a bus when taxiing, but I suspect might make it less prone to ground looping since it makes the tail wheel less sensitive to rudder movement. So far, I have only taxied this plane around and have not flown it (too windy for a maiden). The only real fit/finish issue I see is that the wing is slightly misaligned at the rear mounting location. In truth, it's better than my PZ T-28 as far as fit and finish go. You can also fly this plane as a belly lander, the mains pop right out of the wing with no issues at all.
A few views of plane on the driveway.
The battery/electronics compartment. There's a lot of space in here. The 2200 mAh is as far forward as it can go and it balances just a tad nose heavy.
My tail wheel fix:
The very slight misalignment:
All in all, this is a great looking plane. I have always had a soft spot for Hellcats. I have been jonesing for one ever since getting back into the hobby and this one Rx-R for $120 is a great deal! Maybe if the weather will cooperate I will get a maiden in this weekend, but the forecast doesn't look favorable.
A few views of plane on the driveway.
The battery/electronics compartment. There's a lot of space in here. The 2200 mAh is as far forward as it can go and it balances just a tad nose heavy.
My tail wheel fix:
The very slight misalignment:
All in all, this is a great looking plane. I have always had a soft spot for Hellcats. I have been jonesing for one ever since getting back into the hobby and this one Rx-R for $120 is a great deal! Maybe if the weather will cooperate I will get a maiden in this weekend, but the forecast doesn't look favorable.