Soxos Strike 7 - experiences
What the machine provides from the build to the flights

When first I saw the Soxos Strike 7 in pictures, I knew i wanted to try one... Only one little thing was holding me back from the purchase , it wasn’t available in the UK. As soon as I heard it is coming into the hely-shop.co.uk store, I pre-ordered a kit.

First let's talk a bit about the design. The canopy absolutely a piece of art, followed by the canopy holder on the back of the main frame. I think that’s the point, when two kinds of opinions come in. Hate it or love it, personally I loved the unique design.

Something else to like is the "esc holder“. It's separated from the frame and made of carbon fibre and aluminium, it slides into the main frame like a drawer, and gives you plenty of room for everything, and also it's a lovely design!

The anti rotation bracket is a very smart solution. With other helis, get it off or bend it if you want to put the swash plate in, so lot of time or brute force are required. At the soXos Strike 7? Just lean it out, adjust the swash plate, then the anti rotation bracket can go back. Simple and really smart solution.

The main rotor head and dampeners are also not an average design. The canopy comes with built-in quick release canopy mount. 3 neodymium magnets keep the canopy in place and two pins that are mounted on the carbon fibre canopy holder.

As for the tail mechanism, I was thinking is it a great idea or not? Definitely it's better in theory, because it's giving a direct drive output from the servo to the tail and it eliminates the need for a servo horn, so there's no need to choose a correct hole to get the optimal tail performance, like on standard servo control rod setups, because as soon as a servo arm moves from the centre, the servo has to speed up to keep the tail movement equal. More servo turns equal less tail movement.

Anyway, standard setups work fine too, no issues really. It's just something special and unique to the soXos design.

To build the heli from the ground up with all electronics and ready to maiden - I cannot say - it's a usual build. The manual is clear enough, there are no special tricks needed to complete build. I did it in one go, taking no longer then 14 hours, including coffee and food breaks, school run, and so on.

The kit comes together so quick and easy. At the end I noticed four little things.

First, on the canopy holder pins, manual reads use a CA glue to secure the pins, in the carbon fibre. Instead of CA, I recommend to use epoxy, even a quick dry one, and put the canopy on, just make sure they are 100% lined up.

A second thing is the radius arm. I’m still not sure about it, why it is only on one side, when there is an empty ball on the swash plate anyway, but - never mind - it is not a major deal.

More interesting is that, why the plastic ball linkages so hard and stiff? Here is some guessing, to make a tighter contact, and reduce a wear on the link? I found out, it made my tail a little bit stiff. Without the links connected, it was nice and smooth, as soon as I put the links on the balls, it was really stiff, so it's best to give it a couple flights, or ream out the links.

As I usually do, I start the maiden on low RPM (1800) just to make sure, everything is fine. However, as I knew, I got a stiff tail, it didn't work that great, so I jumped on an average 2000 RPM, and gave it about 20 flights, then I went back to tune the low RPM setup, and all was good.

I went down till 1600 and didn't have any problem. It's recommended to use 115 mm tail blades for low RPM, but I was using 112 mm instead. After a few flights I tested the 115 mm blades, and they work fine too.

I must write about something I have seen in some groups: talks about the tail ratio being a bit low. How do the people know, if they haven’t even tried it yet? Yes it's written down in the manual. But in real life it's working fine from 1600 - so I cannot see any problem with it. Unless you are trying to fly hard 3D, then I could see an issue, but low RPM flying is for nice smooth inputs.

All helis are designed with decent RPM ranges. If someone wants to run extremely low RPM, obviously you have to change the gear ratio. This is same as on all other brands out there. (I heard they will be releasing another pulley option to accommodate different ratio setups)

Just to go back, because I jumped ahead of myself a little bit. I was really hoping, this heli will bring the performance at least close, as I was expecting.
After a few flights I was comfortable with the heli and noticed how easily it follows the stick input from my fingers. On that point I knew already, I got what I always wanted!

The heli feels so responsive with no delay, and feels so light as well.

I had to go back on my rates, compared with my other helicopters. The little time I flew it, I felt really connected, and this thing pushed me to my limits! When we over our limits, the accuracy and precision of the machine matter, because we are not 100% sure we can do everything as it is planned without any mistake.

The Strike 7 is able to run extremely slow, and helps learning new stuff, and also turns into an aggressive machine, just in a second, with only changing the stick input without the RPM change.

This heli with the performance brings everything up to the next level, and to say the least, it's a beautiful machine.