3DHS Velox__One Coin, Two Sides

Initial flights with the Velox were surprising only in that she is much more stable than I was expecting. Part of this was because the original Velox was so extremely agile, and part of it was because I was quite inexperienced at 3D. At time, the Velox was not the right plane for a new guy, but as I got more experience I grew to love the plane. It was just too responsive for an inexperienced pilot, much like a Corvette is not the car you want to learn to drive with.

I knew the new Velox would be better with 10 years more knowledge funneled into the design process, and this was extremely easy to see even on the first flight. I was so surprised by her pleasant nature I had to land and figure out what had just happened. I kept flying the plane and liked it so much I just left the set up alone. I was happy enough with it, but she was just a little bit much with all that throw. It's a Velox, so it's supposed to be wild, right?

Well, maybe not, unless you want to set it up that way.

My adventures with the Velox have recently taken a weird twist and now I am rethinking a lot of my set up patterns. I started off with too much throw in my blue Velox, and when I read about designer Ben Fisher reducing his throw I tried that and really liked it. Eventually I dialed my ailerons back too (I had way too much) and started to fly the plane a bit more gently and composed. With each adjustment the plane became more a more stable and easy to fly until I started to fly her differently. Because of it's short moment, the Velox doesn't need a lot of speed, momentum or force to get it to respond, so I could slow everything down and take more time to line things up, and get it right.

You might think reducing the throw would cripple the Velox' snapping and tumbling nature, and to a small extent it does temper it a bit. However, she is still the best of all the 52s in this respect so I really didn't give up anything and gained a plane I can fly on the edge with extreme confidence. Because I had so much control throw in her, I did not initially get a grasp on just how stable the plane is.

3DHS Velox__3DHS Velox__Doc Austin's Day Off 3 from Doc Austin on Vimeo.

The most outstanding feature of the Velox' character is her crazy good harrier manners. I knew this the first time I dropped her into an elevator and rode it all the way into a landing. Of all the attributes inherent in a good 3D design, harrier is probably the most important, and the Velox even rivals the Edge for excelling in this area.

Essentially, because the plane is now so gentle and easy to handle, I am treating it a lot like it is an Extra SHP! Astute readers may recall my rabid enthusiasm for the SHP, and while I keep hoping we will get one in the 52" class, the new Velox has enough SHP DNA that it is hard to avoid comparisons. Both are super stable and easy to fly, though the new one is extremely agile without being overbearing.

 

 

While not biased toward precision and smoothness quite like the Extra, the Velox is still extremely precise, and now it's extremely docile, while maintaining most of it's agility. You are not going to challenge the Extra for what it does best, but the Velox gets so close that it's really playing to my style.

The Velox is still performance biased more toward agility, but now she has the stability to go toe to toe with the rest of the 52s. A lot of this is hard to describe, which is why we shoot so much video! As you can see, the Velox now pop tops, snaps and spins as well as it always has, but now is much more smooth, locked in, and easy to fly. This is an extremely pilot friendly plane, and as the video suggests, it's not that far away from being a nice 3D trainer, provided you dial the elevator back to 45 degrees.

3DHS Velox__3DHS Velox__Doc Austin's Day Off 4 from Doc Austin on Vimeo.

At this point, comparisons to the original and VR1 Velox are useless, because this one is so refined that it's not even the same plane. That, or maybe it is the same plane, like a 1958 Corvette is like a 2020 Corvette. They are both Corvettes but they sure are not the same car.

I'm looking to make a radio move and get something with triple rates. This way I can use a precision low rate, my current high rate as a medium, and then a super stupid insane rate. I can have my precision plane, my 3D trainer type, and my batsnot crazy tumbling monster. I think with a little more tuning my Velox is going to be the plane that does everything.

I'm going to throw out some brutal honesty here.......... the original Velox was so wild that I did not expect to like the new one nearly as much as I do. Part of this is because after 10 years I am hopefully flying better, but I think it is more like this is so much better of a plane. I liked it right away, but set up work has shown me a side of the plane I never expected, but am absolutely enjoying.


In the end, you can crank up the throw and have a wild extreme aerobatic plane, or you can dial it back and have a solid stable and gentle all around performer that doesn't give up anything in the way of snaps, spins and tumbles. I think the way I am set up now, the Velox would make a great 3D trainer too. I certainly got a lot more than I was expecting out of this plane, and I think everyone else will be too.

NAIL

In the end I can only imagine the design brief for the Velox included the word "more" over and over. More speed, more agility, more stability, more ease of flight, more fun.. The big surprise isn't how much the Velox matched those expectations. It's how much it exceeded them.


3DHS Velox__3DHS Velox__Doc Austin's Day Off 2 from Doc Austin on Vimeo.