FEATURES
Over the years the Raptor line has slowly evolved into a pretty complete package. The features list gets better and better with each generation, and yet a certain amount of parts compatibility between models has helped to keep the price and parts count right.

FUSELAGE/MAINFRAME
The Raptor 50 V2 is based off of the Raptor 30 air frame. The fuselage is made up of two molded mainframes that when bolted together form a pretty rigid structure. The fuselage places the engine with the glow plug facing forward just in front of the main shaft. Directly behind the engine rides a 370cc main fuel tank and a smaller header tank bolted to the side of the Fuse. Four hex head screws hold the notched aluminum tail boom in place at the rear of the main frame. At the very bottom of the main frame is a woven graphite base plate. At the front of the fuse is a collection of four servos stacked one on top of the other, which include throttle, rudder, collective, and pitch control.

POWER TRAIN
What makes this Raptor a 50 V2 is its power compared to the 30. The .50-size engine coupled with an 8.5 to 1 main rotor gear ratio takes advantage of every ounce of torque produced by the .50-size power plant. Speaking of power, it is routed from the engine through a conventional 2-shoe clutch to a 10-tooth pinion. The pinion rotates the 85-tooth main gear. At the center of the main gear is a heavy duty one-way bearing that drives a solid steel main shaft. Why the one-way, you ask? Well, a one-way bearing allows the blades and tail rotor to continue to spin more freely when power is cut, whether by flame out or by the pilot. The main shaft attaches to the rotor head that finally spins those large 600mm carbon fiber main blades. Below the main gear is a large auto rotation pulley. The pulley drives the tail rotor via a belt running within the tail boom. The main belt's tension is held firm thanks to bearing-supported guide rollers at each end of the boom. All in all it's a rather conventional drive setup.

TAIL ROTOR/BOOM
Aluminum boom supports anchor the boom in the fuse. At the rear end of the boom is the tail rotor assembly; a pretty conventional design here. Rotor blade pitch is controlled by an arm that travels along the rotor shaft. A dual bearing-supported bell crank translates servo controls to the rotor. A push rod runs the length of the boom and the fuse to the rudder servo mounted way up front in the servo cluster. This setup gets the job done but isn't the most precise way to control the rotor blades.

HEAD UNIT
The head unit is a standard mechanical setup, often referred to as Bell Hiller. A large collective control arm is connected by two ball links to the swash plate at the front and rear. An aileron servo dictates pitch with bearing-supported bell cranks and two ball links that connect to the sides of the swash plate. A molded washout assembly connects to the molded flybar control links, the flybar, and the molded blade grips. Blue flap dampers press into the main rotor hub. The blue dampers are softer than the optional red dampers. The blue are best suited for beginning to intermediate pilots. When you want to go for some extreme 3D flight, swap them out for the reds. Overall, the head assembly is well designed and should handle the power coming from the .50-size mill.

OTHER FEATURES
The Raptor V2 50 is pretty well-equipped out of the box. The kit comes complete with almost 50 bearings throughout the helicopter; everything that spins or rotates is supported by at least two ball bearings. That means you'll be hard pressed to find any slop anywhere. Another key feature is that all of the linkage rods are 2.5mm in diameter rather than the conventional 2mm rods found on other birds in this class. The kit is topped off with a milk jug material white canopy with a clear windshield. Some Barney-inspired purple decals help you complete the Raptor's "unique" aesthetic scheme.

SUPPLIED GEAR
The kit we tested came with Thunder Tiger's Pro-50H engine. It's a nice engine that should prove reliable for most beginning and intermediate pilots. A .46 to .50 size performance muffler in a polished finish is also included.

Building & Setup
Building the Raptor 50 V2 was not a difficult task, but extreme attention must be maintained at every step along the way. Thankfully, the included instruction manual is complete with very accurate line drawings and measurements. Take your time, look over each page carefully before you begin building a new assembly, and by all means, use liquid thread lock whenever you're going to fasten a screw into metal. Once your Raptor is all built up you'll find the included setup information to be invaluable. The instruction manual comes with a very useful configuration page for 3D flight, complete with settings for your throttle and pitch curves.

Testing
After Mike took care of the hard part by building the heli, we got together to set up the bird. We began by adjusting our collective and cyclic throws. For collective we set the heli up for +10, -5 for normal mode and +10,-10 for flight mode 1. The cyclic throws were set to 6 degrees of pitch. Once we had our throws set up, we began adjusting the gyro and programming the radio. From there we were ready for our first test hover to trim out the heli and break in the engine.

Hovering • Once the engine was started and it was idling nicely, we took the Raptor to the launching pad for its debut flight. I begun pushing the collective control gently to get the blades spinning, and when the heli was light on its skids I knew that the tail was a bit off center. We landed, adjusted the tail rod, and began spooling up the blades again. This time I was ready to take the heli up. The bird eased into a gentle hover, and with some minor trimming of the cyclic controls we arrived in a nice and stable hover. We were breaking the engine in as well, so we hovered for about 6 tanks and each and every time this heli was rock solid. There were no unusual vibrations or unpredictable movements. That's one of the reasons why Raptors are so popular and why I enjoy flying them.
Rating: 5

Forward Flight • Once we had broken in the engine we were ready for some forward flight. I took the Raptor up and gave it some forward cyclic, easing it into a slow forward flight. The chopper seemed to track very well and I began adding some more speed. The faster the heli flew, the better it tracked. The heli did not have any bad tendencies such as pitchy-ness in any direction. It was very smooth and enjoyable to fly.
Rating: 5

Responsiveness • The Raptor was responsive to my inputs. It turned very nicely without falling out of the sky. It pirouettes very smoothly without any strange interactions, and it transitions into a hover as commanded. There are a few things that need to be done to make it more responsive which I will discuss in the 3D section, but for a beginner, the responsiveness is perfect.
Rating: 4

Aerobatics • With the Raptor flying smoothly and hovering well, I finally took it up and did a loop. The Raptor went into the loop without much difficulty. I rolled it and the roll wasn't quite what I expected, but it managed to pull through as a spiral rather than a roll. I decided to do some stationary flips and it managed to pull them off, but it was not as quick as I would have liked it to be. For a novice to intermediate pilot, what I experienced in this initial 3D flight test is more than sufficient, but for someone that is a bit more advanced they will need the optional green 3D paddles offered for this helicopter as well as the red hard dampeners. We have another Raptor that is identical to our test bird except it is equipped with the green paddles, red dampeners, and an O.S. engine, and let me tell you that there is nothing that heli can not do that the big 90 ships can do. So in stating that, we know that our test heli has potential with some minor upgrades. Hovering the heli inverted proved to be just as stable as right side up hovering, which was very stable and predictable. Overall I will give the heli four stars out five for 3D capability, only because some minor upgrades are required to make it a full blown 3D machine.
Rating: 4

Post Flight InspectionsAfter our airborne adventures, the Raptor was taken to the bench for inspections. We removed the canopy and looked for any unusual debris and there were none to be found. We looked over the tail, head and all links to find nothing out of the ordinary. We used some denatured alcohol to clean up the bird and we found no unusual wear and tear. The only thing I noticed was a single loose landing gear screw, which we tightened.
Rating: 4

Conclusion
The Raptor 50 V2 is a great helicopter right out of the box for novice and somewhat experienced pilots wanting to move up from electric to fuel. Its feature list is long, there's great parts support at hobby shops everywhere, and only a few mods are needed to make this an extreme 3D ship. The Thunder Tiger Pro-50 engine that came with our ship was a little temperamental at times, but it did run relatively smoothly once broken in. The setup instructions were very nice and accurate as well. In the end, it's easy to see why the Raptor 50 V2 is such a popular kit. If you 're a beginning to intermediate pilot, or anywhere in between, you can't go wrong with a Raptor.