Trex 450LP ARTF
For The Serious Collective Pitch Beginner

by John Salt - February 2019

The Trex 450LP ARTF RC helicopter is Align's latest 450 size (spinning 325mm rotor blades), ready to fly package offered specifically to the beginner collective pitch RC helicopter enthusiast.

It replaces their 450 Plus which has been such a great machine to learn and progress on; and was missed for over a year until this little beastie was finally released.

I always enjoy writing about 450 size, ready to fly RC helicopter packages because I'm so fond of this size and package for beginners to start with. It's the size I would start with myself, and what I recommend to those who are serious about taking up the hobby; simply because this size RC helicopter offers many advantages which include:

• Most collective pitch helicopter size for the price. Best overall value!
  
• Long flight times compared to micros (6-10 minutes - flying style and setup dependent).
• Easy to see.
• Easy to work on.
• Crash repair costs reasonable.
• Not overly intimidating to self learn on.
• Fly and behave like larger RC helicopters - ie. predictable and not squirrelly. 
• Good long term value like larger RC helicopters - ie. not a disposable purchase.
• Good growth potential for all flying types & styles.
• Scale fuselage options if you later decide to give scale a try.

I have done many write-ups and reviews over the past 10 years now of various 400/450 size ready to fly heli packages. Blade's 330X and now Align's 450LP ARTF, are the two top current contenders in this market.

The type of beginner looking at 450's as their first or perhaps second collective pitch RC helicopter will be serious about getting into the hobby. These are the people I like helping the most.

Let's face it, throwing down $500.00+ USD requires a considerable commitment. It's not nearly as much as we used to have to spend to get into this hobby back in the nitro only days ($1.5K or more); but spending this much on a collective pitch RC helicopter package is still costly compared to a harder to fly, but less costly $200 RTF micro.

You therefore better have a fairly decent understanding of what you're about to get yourself into, especially if you're self learning. If you've spent any amount of time on this website of mine, chances are you do understand and are informed.

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Trex 450LP ARTF Design Features Important To You.

The first thing of note that sets this ready to fly 450 apart from the competition is the use of a full carbon fiber frame set over plastic. 

Convenient sliding carbon battery tray, frame mounted tail servo tray, and red/silver anodized aluminum frame/motor mount frame bracing are direct parts from Align's higher end, 6S powered 450L Dominator.

A helical main gear is used to reduce gear whine noise. The one piece  main bearing blocks have integrated pitch, aileron, and elevator cyclic servo mounts for rigid and simplified servo installation - looks good too.

Again, all features utilized with the original 450L Dominator kit. In fact, other than the power system and rotor head, plus the fact it's already fully built, the Trex 450LP ARTF is essentially the same high quality helicopter. 

3S Power - Saves you $ or gives you more packs!

I never understood the use of 6S power (22.2 Volt LiPo packs), on 450 size machines for anything but hard 3D flight. It's like learning to ride a sport bike with a 1200cc engine opposed to a 600cc. No way you will need all that extra power, at least for quite some time. 

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Plastic Blade Grips

Other than the 3S powering method, the 450LP also uses fiber re-enforced plastic blade grips and DFC linkages instead of metal on the 6S powered 450L. In fact the "P" in LP, is the plastic designation. The head-block itself is still full metal, using both a Jesus bolt and two pinch bolts providing skookum shaft fixation.   

For a beginner machine, having plastic grips makes good sense. It lowers costs a bit, reduced weight a bit, and adds a little extra "mechanical fuse" protection to save servo gears because the plastic will either break, or flex enough to absorb blade impact energy.

The other nice benefit that plastic blade grips give the beginner is a little added stability due to rotor blade "coning" as well as dampening by way of blade grip flex. It's not extreme levels of coning & dampening of course, but is noticeable if you fly an LP back to back with an L. 

Speaking of "L", this has been Align's way to designate the "long" or "stretched" version of their helicopters. Basically a slightly longer tail boom is used from what is standard. This gives you more heli size for basically the same price. It also improves tail rotor authority by way of more boom leverage, and thus allows one to run lower head speeds if so desired.

Align's previous ready to fly 450 Plus for example was 634mm long, while this new 450LP version is 705mm long. 

I hear the moaning already. For those that know me, I'll take a torque tube (TT) any day of the week over a belt. I despise belts, plain and simple. But I think I'm in the minority here, especially considering a beginner friendly RC helicopter.

While being more efficient and less of a hassle to fit and tension correctly, torque tubes do have three main draw backs:

1. They are more costly.
2. They weigh more.
3. Biggest issue... They are not as tail strike friendly.

If/when you have a tail rotor ground strike, a torque tube won't absorb much energy or skip a clog tooth like a belt will. Instead, the tail rotor strike energy will generally strip out the tail rotor umbrella gears or tail drive gear on the main shaft.

When instructing people with TT's, in addition to training gear that you must be using regardless of tail drive method, I'll generally mount a longer tail fin or some other form of protection on the tail fin to keep the tail rotor from kissing the ground. That really helps minimize TT gear stripping incidents, but it's still not as tail strike friendly as having a belt drive.

So why would Align decide to use a more costly TT over a belt? It simply comes down to the fact it's way easier to mount the tail boom with a TT over that of a belt; and since this heli requires us to mount the boom out of the box, that's the primary reason - ease of assembly.

Mounting the tail boom? A good segue into our next topic.

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The Trex 450LP ARTF Package

Over and above the T-Rex 450LP pre-built helicopter, the ARTF package comes with all these goodies. Most as we have already seen come pre-installed into the helicopter.

What's ARTF?

It's a "spin" on the much more common RTF (ready to fly) designation, and stands for Almost Ready To Fly as there is some assembly required (fitting the tail boom and main rotor blades).

Please note, there are two different canopy versions of the Trex 450LP ARTF floating around.

The first version is that red, blue, yellow striped one shown in the video. The latest version is coming with the subjectively much nicer looking red, blue, green we have all come to admire on the higher end 450L kit canopy.

Professionally painted fiberglass canopy color aside, both 450 LP ARTF versions are the same and have the same components.

Cyclic servos (three in total) are Align's good quality digital, metal geared, DS450 HV. Specifications:

• Torque: 3.0kg.cm @ 6.0V; 4.0kg.cm @ 8.4V 
• Speed: 0.06sec/60° @ 6.0V; 0.05sec/60° @ 8.4V 
• Voltage Range: 6.0 - 8.4 VDC 
• Max Refresh Frequency: 200Hz
• Dimensions: 23 x 12 x 31 mm 
  
• Weight: 17.5g 

The tail uses Align's fast metal geared high voltage DS455 HV servo. Specifications:

• Torque: 2.2kg.cm @ 6.0V; 2.9kg.cm @ 8.4V 
• Speed: 0.05sec/60°@ 6.0V; 0.04sec/60° @ 8.4V 
• Voltage Range: 6.0 - 8.4 VDC  
• Dimension: 23 x 12 x 31 mm 
• Weight: 17.3g

This is actually a decent lower cost 10 channel radio, and one I feel is an improvement on the Align T6 (Futaba J6) that Align included with the previous 450 Plus; at least from the stand point of a better user interface and better menu layout for helicopters. 

A roll style slider is used to scroll through menu options providing a quick setup. 20 models memory, three aircraft options (helicopter/airplane/multirotor), Modes 1-4 available with optional direction output, set buzzer warnings, and supported firmware upgrades.

The overall feel and quality however was lacking in my opinion and it's not a radio I would want to use for the long term if I was just getting into the hobby.

As I say so often to the point of ad nauseam, "the radio is more important than the helicopter." 

This is not to say you won't be able to learn to fly the 450LP and enjoy it with this radio. It works well for that and most importantly, is computerized allowing you to properly setup your 450LP.

No ready to fly RC aircraft is going to come with a top line radio. They come with the minimum to get you started to keep the overall price of the package reasonable.  

The plus however with the Trex 450LP ARTF is it comes with the Mini GRS flybarless unit allowing you to get a better Futaba S-FHSS computerized radio down the road; or a Spektrum by way of a satellite RX; or any multi-protocol radio / module. Lots of radio options in other words will work with it, so you are not stuck with some obscure radio system and protocol if and when you decide to upgrade.

For the sort term however, the A10 will work perfectly fine.

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T-Rex 450LP ARTF vs. Blade 330X

Many who are considering this helicopter will most likely also be looking at the Blade 330X. I get this exact question several times a week right now and what my opinions are between the two. 

First off, both are great 3S powered, ready to fly, 450 size helicopters to start with, and I personally feel you won't go wrong with either. They are different however and depending on your situation, one may check off more boxes than the other. 

Let's do just that... 

Trex 450LP ARTF Pros Over The Blade 330X

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450LP Cons

To be perfectly honest, even I would have a hard time choosing between the two. Both are wonderful little machines and both fly very well.

I guess the first thing I would do is see about parts availability where I lived. If the local hobby shop has Blade but not Align, the 330X would be more appealing. If I had no local hobby shop and had to order online regardless, the point is moot.

I don't like either radio that comes with the 450LP or the 330X so no real stand out winner in that department. That said, at least the Align A10 radio is a proper computerized radio, usable out of the box so you can properly setup your birds for any flying style you wish.

The Spektrum DXe that comes with the RTF 330X is all but useless, and why I strongly suggested in the review I did on it, getting the BNF version of the 330X along with a proper DX6e radio. That combination will bring the cost of the 330X slightly over the Align 450LP. 

The Align Mini-GRS and Spektrum AR636A flybarless systems are fairly equal in performance. Both are beginner friendly, and do the job. They are not up to the versatility or performance of higher end flybarless systems, but for the intended use on both these helicopters, they work well. No flybarless system advantage between either ready to fly heli package in other words.

So, which would I choose?

I fly both Blade and Align, but no question, my heart lies with Align. They are simply better built and better quality helicopters.

The 450LP has higher end components for not all that much more money and would be the one I chose over the two; but you must decide what pros and cons of each top your list. 

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T-Rex 450LP ARTF Specifications, Manuals, & Ordering Information

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