RC HELICOPTERS
AMAZING LITTLE HELICOPTERS
By James Wang | heloeditor@gmail.com
I WILL EXAMINE two very fun, new, small helicopters: the Goosky Legend S2 and the Goosky RS4. The Goosky Legend S2 is an amazing little helicopter that weighs 12 ounces with a rotor diameter of 17 inches. I fly at a grass field, and sometimes when the S2 crashes, it is unscathed and ready to fly again. The S2 reminds me of young kids skiing down a mountain and when they fall, they just get up, dust off the snow, and continue skiing as though nothing has happened.
The tiny S2 comes prebuilt and is available with or without the Goosky transmitter. I recommend the transmitter-included version. It costs $50 more, but different throttle and pitch curves and flybarless settings are all preprogrammed. Just charge the included 3S 750 mAh LiPo battery and it’s ready to fly.
The S2 has a massive brushless motor; the motor shaft is the rotor shaft. The tail rotor is powered by an independent motor. Yaw control and the tail stabilization are updated by changing the tail motor rpm. Amazingly, the S2 tail motor rpm can change quickly, even when collective pitch is pumped rapidly, and the helicopter’s heading remains locked on. This is quite significant because to perform 3D aerobatics well, the tail cannot blow out, meaning that the tail suddenly snaps around because the tail rotor thrust and tail gyro cannot keep up.
The well-behaving tail makes the nimble S2 a fun helicopter to fly. It is ideal for having a blast at a small field or in a gym. What makes the heli more impressive is the preprogrammed flybarless unit that provides quite docile handling, so the S2 could be used by beginners. Both beginner and experienced pilots who are local to me have flown mine and they all love it.
With a lot of backyard fun from the S2, I decided to try the bigger RS4, which weighs 2.9 pounds and uses 390mm rotor blades. The RS4 is slightly larger than an Align T-Rex 450, which uses 325mm blades, and it’s bigger than the T-Rex 470, which uses 370mm blades.
The RS4 also uses a direct-drive brushless motor, but the tail is driven by a toothed belt off of the main motor. The stock motor on a 6S 1,800 mAh LiPo provides 6 minutes of adrenaline-pumping 3D action. The combo version comes with a 70-amp ESC, a Goosky flybarless gyro, and four custom, digital servos. I attached a Spektrum satellite receiver directly to the Goosky gyro.
The RS4 is only available as a kit and requires 12 to 15 hours of building time. With Idle-Up 1 at 70%, the RS4 gives more than 6 minutes of relaxed fun. With Idle-Up 2 at 90%, it really comes alive and has the power-to-weight ratio of a 700-class helicopter. When collective is punched, it rockets away like a projectile. I set the collective from +13° to -13°. The RS4 must
use Goosky servos because of the servo-mounting lug design.
There is a new RS4 Venom kit version that permits the use of any brand of micro servos and your own flybarless gyro and ESC. It also comes with a slightly more powerful brushless motor. The blade grip on the Venom has a 3mm shorter radius arm than on the standard RS4 and provides quicker cyclic response and more collective-pitch change for the same servo travel.
Both the Goosky S2 and the RS4 really peg the fun meter for backyard flying. There is an even smaller S1 version!
SOURCES:
International Radio Controlled Helicopter Association (IRCHA)
www.ircha.org
Goosky
sales@goo-sky.com
www.goo-sky.com
HeliDirect
(877) 439-4354
www.helidirect.com
Pulse Battery
(877) 439-4354
www.pulsebattery.com
Spektrum RC
www.spektrumrc.com
