PICOO Z

10/11/09

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BENCHMARKS - By Steve Dorling
A quick flight around the sundial. The Vortex is great outdoors in calm conditions.

PICOO Z XL VOR

Steve samples the latest (and best) Silverlit micro-heli, courtesy of Flying Toys Ltd.
This is what you get in the box even a spare set of rotor blades, which is excellent!

In the beginning

I was introduced to helicopters about five or six years ago, when a dedicated fixed-wing flying friend paid a visit. As we unloaded his car, in amongst wings and fuselages various, the not immediately obvious shape of a helicopter was revealed, the model in question being the almost ubiquitous Thunder Tiger Raptor 30. This was considered back then the helicopter for learning the black art of stopping and landing, rather than the landing and stopping that we fixed-wing aficionados advocate! I was surprised, as said chum had never expressed the remotest interest in fighting the laws of physics with such a fiendishly unlikely concept as the model helicopter. He had, it turned out, decided to have a go, feeling that it couldnt possibly be as difficult as the local tyro helicopter jocks in his club were making it appear and indeed, to a point he was right, given that he was perfectly happy flying circuits with his after just a couple of weeks of practise! His hovering was a bit shaky in the stiff breeze that we were flying in, but plenty good enough to execute a landing that one could walk away from and thats a jolly good landing in any pilots book!
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TOP LEFT: Nice-looking heli is very well detailed and finished - fuselage is EPP! TOP CENTRE: Very high standard of finish for a foam model is evident here - superb! TOP RIGHT: Tail rotor is very effective, courtesy of its gyro stabilisation system. ABOVE LEFT: Just this tiny 2S 300 mAh battery gives ten minute flights. ABOVE CENTRE: Superb standard of finish and detailing gives the whole package eye appeal. ABOVE RIGHT: Switch is located beneath the lower fuselage, as is the battery access hatch.
Two things emerged from that seminal event, the first being that when you do crash a helicopter its invariably serious and, secondly, flying helicopters as fixed-wing machines in fast forward flight - looping and rolling and so forth - is essentially no different from doing the same thing with fixed-wing machinery. Flying in a controlled manner very slowly is much more of a challenge though, as is flying backwards, sideways or whatever, whilst as for doing those things inverted well, you can but imagine if youve not tried it! A short time later, we jointly made the leap of faith towards electric micro-helicopters, which proved rather more of a challenge to fly
more sophisticated than the smaller Picoo Z range. It has three-channel control facilitating left, right, up, down and fast forward flight! With the training plate covering the cyclic stick - the option to fly backwards or make turns whilst flying forwards is restricted and it took me a moment to appreciate why Silverlit had done this! Flying backwards is very difficult for the novice heli pilot to avoid, let alone master, and back in the early days of the R/C heli it was something to be avoided at all costs, lest you ended up wearing the thing, as many did! Im talking of an era before gyros when we used to tie string to the tail (yes, really.) to stop it

wandering! Silverlit has fitted a very effective and positive Piezo gyro to the Vortex which locks the heading of the model solidly until you hit the cyclic stick to initiate a turn, which in fact controls the tail rotor as well as the main blades! If you fly Mode II, then Silverlit had you in mind when they laid the Vortex transmitter controls out and youll be very happy! I on the other hand, fly Mode 1 as my first choice and had to mentally adjust. I fly both Modes, but I would have much preferred a Mode 1 transmitter, but other than that, no real issues. It took me a while to trim the Vortex out, avoiding table legs and staircases with a quick
than the bigger stuff, but at least they bounced and if you did break something, they were far cheaper to repair - repair being something of a continuum for the model helicopter pilot, of course! Fixed-pitch for indoor micro-machines makes complete sense, with fewer moving parts than their collective cousins, imparting them with a degree of survivability! Then the Russians, as I tagged them, appeared on the scene - alluding to twin contra-rotating helicopters as favoured by the Soviet military back in its heyday, and with good reason. These dispense with that one Achilles heel of the trainee heli jock - the tail rotor - and they are far more inherently stable than singlerotor types, but whilst admittedly very stable and easy to fly, all they do is hover and that soon becomes boring!

Enter the Vortex

The new Silverlit Picoo Z XL Vortex features fixed-pitch rotors and a tail setup. Silverlit clearly made the decision not to copy everyone else with a contra setup and before you leap to the obvious conclusion that this one is just a twice-size Picoo Z, I have to tell you its
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ABOVE LEFT: Battery sits under this neat hatch; a clip would have been more convenient than a screw perhaps, but otherwise access is straightforward! ABOVE CENTRE: Neat little mains charger takes the hassle out of battery maintenance. Plug and play when charged the green light extinguishes. Simple! ABOVE RIGHT: Tx is fairly conventional - as supplied in a Mode II layout.
dump of power, but in the end we got there, with the trick being to hold the model at shoulder height in one hand whilst powering it up and observing which way she pulls. This proved far quicker as a method of gleaning the precise trim required for hands-off flying than scooting back and forth over the carpet. And, once trimmed, the Vortex proved a delight, surprising me with its willingness and responsive nature.

To summarise

Its a fixed-pitch helicopter with great indoor performance and, in calm conditions, big enough and stable enough to fly outdoors. Push the cyclic stick forward or indeed backwards and she shows a reasonable turn of speed and thats a trick that the contra-rotat-

ing machines cant emulate, whilst tail control is very positive and rapid, so with the level of preparation and presentation that Silverlit put into their product line - great packaging, superb box art and all its a great all-round package. Its not a full four-functional model helicopter, but its very close and is a great flying machine that looks absolutely convincing in the air, yet remains stable enough for hands-off flying. The
Very stable. I took this whilst flying my Vortex!
BELOW: Training undercarriage is supplied - very neat. BOTTOM LEFT: Battery access is neat and secure. BOTTOM RIGHT: Head design is tough and you even get spare links, should the worst happen.
proof of which is the airborne shots that were taken with my trusty Canon in one hand and the transmitter in the other. Sorry about the static blades - thats camera flash freezing, she really is flying though! You get a good manual, a mains charger for the airborne Lithium battery pack and, for absolute beginners, there are some natty covers to drop over your Tx sticks which restrict movements - a sort of mechanical rate switch arrangement, if you will - to be used with the supplied set of pussy legs as the heli fraternity colourfully tag training outriggers! Amazing value for money, good-looking and arguably more interesting than those contrarotating alternatives. This one looks and flies around your lounge like a real helicopter!

Specification

Innovative rotor and control system Equipped with heading lock Piezo gyro system Switchable dual band, three-channel controller Forward, aft, left yaw and right yaw control Hobby grade transmitter with trims Working headlight (switchable) Replaceable LiPo battery pack on helicopter Detailed body finishing for a very realistic look RRP: 69.99