| 3.2. Clones | ||
|---|---|---|
 | Chapter 3. First Helicopter Selection Guide |  |
| 3.2. Clones | ||
|---|---|---|
| | Chapter 3. First Helicopter Selection Guide | |
Some of the helicopters today are either nearly exact copies of other helicopters, or have nearly exact copies of some major pieces.
Table 3.1. Helicopter size summary sorted by AUW
| Original | Clone |
|---|---|
| Feda Dragonfly/GWS Dragonfly/Century Hummingbird V1/V2 | Smartech Skylark, Smartech Aerohawk, Evoflight Sabre, Esky Honey Bee Mark 2, Venom Night Ranger II, Walkera Dragonfly #4 |
| Hornet II | Eflight Blade CP (cloned head), E-sky Honey Bee CP (cloned head), E-sky Honey Bee King (cloned head), Venom Night Ranger 3D (cloned head), Walkera Dragonfly 22D and 22E |
| Zoom 400/Zap 400/Shogun v1 | Revo CP, Walkera Dragonfly 35 |
| Zoom 400/Zap 400/Shogun v2 | Walkera Dragonfly 36 |
| T-rex 450XL | Walkera Dragonfly 39 |
| Quick Japan EP8 | Quick Worldwide Little Quickie 8 |
| Quick Japan 16 | Quick Worldwide Sweet 16 |
Many of the Chinese clones are attractive to beginners due to their low cost, however, they often have many problems. The problems most often seen in Chinese clones are:
Some Chinese clones are direct or nearly-direct clones of other helicopters, but with a few changes (probably to avoid patent issues).
Sometimes these small changes cause serious problems, such as the Eflight Blade CP/Esky Honey Bee CP problems with abrupt bouncing problems in flight. Search the RCgroups Micro Helis forum for "sticky collective" or "yoyo" for more information.
The Chinese clones typically use cheap plastic for the main rotor hub, main blade grips, frames and other critical parts. The better helicopters use glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) for these parts which minimizes crash damage.
Many of the Chinese clones have problems with:
Transmitters and receivers which have limited range and/or severe interference problems (Walkera helicopters)
Servos which jitter or have poor centering, or fail after the first few flights (Walkera helicopters)
The potentiometers in many low quality transmitters are not accurate and will cause the heli to jump around.
The Walkera transmitters and receivers are not compatible with standard negative and positive shift equipment from other manufacturer such as JR, Futaba, Hitec, Airtronics, etc.
People have complained about Quick Heli kits (not to be confused with Quick Japan or Quick UK) having manufacturing problems.
Also seen on Walkera helicopters:
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| Chapter 3. First Helicopter Selection Guide |  | 3.3. Classification of helis used in this guide |