The 40th annual WRAM Show took place in White Plains, New York this weekend. Organized by the Westchester Radio Aero Modelers , the show draws a crowd from all over the Northeast U.S. This year a major snow storm hit Friday morning, the first day of the show. While this led to several vendors not showing up, most of the big names were there, and audience traffic on Saturday was dense.
I spent some time at the Hobbico booth talking to Don Anderson , the president of Great Planes. He showed me a prototype of the new Futaba 10C 2.4 GHz transmitter, scheduled for release in April. It was a working copy, although the firmware was still being refined. The unusual backlight color made the LCD easy to read, although the display looked somewhat coarse to me. The 10C uses a new 2.4 GHz module, the TM-10, to allow an FM module to be substituted. Don explained that pilots with large fleets are not ready to give up on FM completely, and wanted the flexibility of a modular system. Although some people prefer an all-in-one system, it's pretty easy to leave the module installed permanently and forget about it, with the exception of the antenna position.
Futaba's new R616FFM 2.4 GHz micro receiver was also on display. This six channel unit is the company's first spread spectrum park receiver, expected to cost about $70 USD street. I was surprised how thin and light this receiver is in person. The downside is the use of micro servo connectors for all but the throttle channel. Don indicated that an adaptor is being planned for standard servo connectors. He was also candid about the difficulty of lowering the price of Futaba 2.4 GHz receivers, which until now have been at least $100. Apparently Futaba Japan feels that their technology is superior to Spektrum's, and should command a price premium. In his words, they are either unable or unwilling to bring these prices down despite requests from Hobbico and customers.
UPDATE (3/1/08): Don contacted me by email after the show to clarify this statement. In his words:
Futaba's 2.4 GHz designs are customized Frequency Shifting designs that involve significantly more components than comparable Spektrum designs. Futaba's result is a high quality product that has proven to be a solid and secure link between pilot and model.
Ron from Lightflite had a booth full of variants on his foam RC Bug, which I saw fly at the NEAT Fair last September . I'll admit I caved in and bought a Bug combo and a Corona receiver. It should make a great backyard flyer. Apparently on a 3S lithium battery, the Bug has a 3:1 thrust ratio!
Eagle Tree Systems had a booth with a variety of sensors for their in-flight data logging systems. I'm currently testing the eLogger V3 and will have a review completed soon. In chatting with Bill, I mentioned an idea I had to redesign the LCD setup window, and it turns out they're already working on it. Not only will this speed up selecting which parameters are displayed, it will also allow important values like amp draw to always be displayed in the same spot on the LCD, as other parameters alternate every two seconds. I'm very impressed with the constant state of feature development on these products.
Most of the bigger manufacturers only exhibit their products at the show, so as not to compete with the vendors. Horizon Hobby had such a booth, with E-flite and other brands on display. Spread spectrum was the name of the game, with the new JR 12X and the recent X9303 radios, as well as the DX7 and DX6i from Spektrum. I asked about the servo failures on the RTF Blade 400 heli, and was told that new units are shipping with changes to the servo's amplifier. Existing customers who encounter problems can get the servos exchanged at no cost.
Quique's Aircraft Company was taking orders but understandably didn't bring any ARFs with them, as they run up to 120 inch wingspans. Himax had a wide range of motors on display, including a number of dual motor, dual prop counter-rotating setups . The inner prop has to be slightly smaller in diameter and needs a higher pitch, in addition to being reversed from the front prop. I haven't seen this option from other manufacturers. It's an interesting idea to get more power when motor diameter is limited, and cancels propeller torque on the airframe at the same time.
Hobby-Lobby had a large booth with a range of helicopters set up and for sale. I found their booth staff very honest when asked to compare the Dragonus II and Gazaur helis (both of which they carry) with the Align T-Rex 450 (which they don't). I'm still not sure which way I plan to go, but providing good advice without trash talking competitors made me want to be a customer.
Speaking of the T-Rex 450, I chatted with Joe Ford at the Castle Creations booth, who flies his on 12S LiPos. That's not a typo - he uses four 3S 480 mAh batteries wired in series, for a total of 44.4 volts. Using a Castle high voltage speed controller, he draws only 2 amps at full throttle and full collective! He also hinted that controllers with switching BECs were under development, to meet the demands of high-draw digital servos.
FMA Direct was showing two prototypes of their new Cellpro 10S charger, which is just now shipping. This unit can charge and balance two packs up to 5S at the same time, or one battery up to 10S, and up to 300 watts. It also has user-updatable firmware with the use of an optional cable, and supports LiPo as well as A123 chemistries. We hope to bring you a review in the next few months.
ICARE had one of the Schulze Next chargers on display, which range from the expensive to the holy crap. These units can charge almost any chemistry and feature a large LCD display with graphing functions. A guy at the booth referred to these as the Monica Bellucci of chargers - by far the funniest thing I heard at the show.
Upstairs was a large room with models entered in the static competition. These were mostly dominated by large and giant scale aircraft. The Pitts biplane on the stage featured a 212cc four cylinder engine from Cactus Aviation , the largest engine I've ever seen in an RC model. I didn't catch the weight of the plane, but 21 horsepower should be enough. While all the models in competition were impressive, Butch Wellmaker's Comanche was perhaps the best looking helicopter I've ever seen. From the flat paint job to the vents to the cockpit detail, this model was beautiful.
Finally I stopped by to see some flight demos, which were held in a small corner room with protective netting in place. Team Futaba put on a good show, and were later joined by 12 year old helicopter pilot Kyle Stacy . The three of them managed to hover and pull off stunts in a small area without any collisions.
Overall I enjoyed the show. For what it's worth, WRAM seemed to be a better occasion to browse and chat than to go shopping. With limited floor space, vendors had only a small inventory of larger items. Instead, it was a good opportunity to meet some of the manufacturers and get a mid-winter RC fix. If you went to the show, let us know what you thought in the comments.
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