Storm about to hit new Align model

Align Corporation just announced the new Align TB70 helicopter, the newest 700 class model. And this model is going to be quite different from the previous Align models. Among other changes Align will return to the belt drive tail and perhaps they abandon the torque tube.

There are many obvious differences compared to the previous 700 size models. First big difference is the lack of tail support braces, only one solid tail boom and the push rod will be attached to the main frame. This is now a trend, none of the recent models apply the tail support - instead, a much thicker tail boom is used on these models compared to the older lines.

Another visible change is the lack of the big main gear and a bit smaller autorotation gear or pulley as it's used at many other helicopters. Also a very shallow upper main frame and the big room for the battery packs are very unusual behind Align logos. The canopy design resembles to the canopy of 300X just in a much bigger size. The rest are very Align: blade grips, swash plate, tail rotor, tail block and so on are absolutely Align with no doubt, both in materials and style. No further details released yet.

And this story is supposed to end here....

But... as the new images and information got published, a bunch of SAB fanatics and Team pilots accused Align with stealing the design of the SAB Goblin 700 Raw models. No official accuses published by SAB Heli Division at the moment, only fans are posting loudly about the assumed stealing or copying.

Definitely too early to decide whether this model is a sort of copy (and strictly sort-of) or just resembles to the RAW structure with Align innovation. And there's a question really: where does the copying start? Because if the SAB fanatics want to be right, they should ask themselves: did SAB copy OMP when they designed the RAW 420 with direct drive? Or do they remember when the first Goblin came out with the Align like rotor grips? And these stories can go on and on.

Technically all RC model factories are stealing, because they are copying the big brothers at least on principle level - this is called modelling. And all companies are copying from each other, they use the same two blade rotor head, two blade tail, all are rotating clockwise, and almost all are using 3 servos in CCPM configuration. The rest should be the judgement of common sense and correctness rather than blind fanaticism.