K110 vs C129

Overview

The Blast XK K110 is 6ch bind and fly, micro helicopter capable of 3d maneuvers such as inverted flight. As a bind and fly heli, you use your own transmitter, can adjust throttle curves, add dual rates, configure your idle up switch etc. The K110 can switch between 3d mode and 6 axis gyro stabilizations, has a brushless motor and costs between $65-70.

The Firefox C129 is a 4ch, ready to fly micro helicopter with a 6-axis gyro, a brushed motor, auto takeoff and auto land button, a barometric altitude hold and cost $49.99.

Unboxing

The K110 comes in a sleek rectangular box. Inside the box, the K110 is beautifully displayed with the blades held together with blade holders. The K110 comes with instructions, spare main rotor blades, spare tail rotor, spare main gear, the battery, a USB charger for the battery, a hex wrench and a tiny screw driver

The C129 comes in a more square than rectangular, rectangular box. Inside the box, the transparent plastic and the white plastic makes the C129 look like a toy. The C129 comes with instructions, main rotor blades, spare rotor blades, the battery, a USB A to micro-USB cable, tiny screwdriver, a hex wrench and two control linkages for the swashplate.

Instructions

The instruction page for the K110 is not good to put it nicely. The page is formatted incorrectly, with the front page appearing on the back of the brochure and the second page appearing on the front.

C129 takes the cake in the instruction’s category. The instructions are in English first then Chinese, read left to right, and include a section for trouble shooting. The instructions of the C129 also include details on how the stick movements affect the flight of the helicopter.

Setup

The K110 may be easy to setup for an experienced pilot but was difficult to setup for me. Binding the K110 to my transmitter was easy but after that, everything else had a steep learning curve for me. I had to learn how to program idle up, pitch curves, throttle and collective curves, dual rates, expo and throttle cut.

The C129 is stupid easy to setup. According the instructions and my testing, switch on the transmitter after placing the charged battery in the C129, quickly push the left stick up then down to arm the helicopter, push both sticks to the bottom left corner to calibrate the gyros then push the left stick in the bottom left corner and the right stick in the bottom right corner to spool up the helicopter. Pushing up on the left stick will make the helicopter takeoff. You can also short press the left shoulder button to auto takeoff. The red L.E.D will blink until the helicopter reaches 1m in height. You can also short press the left shoulder button to auto land the helicopter. Long pressing the left shoulder button will activate the emergency stop mode.

Flight Dynamics

When hovering, the C129 orbit a center point. Control inputs looks twitchy on the C129 but the she is a smooth and responsive flyer. The 6-axis gyro ensures the C129 will not yaw unless you tell it to yaw. Despite the fact that the C129 is not literally stationary while hovering, it is so stable, you can fly it with one hand and even walk around and under it during flight. For legal reasons, I have to tell you not to do this. The C129 makes doing this easy but don’t do it. When the battery is low, the red light on the C129 will blink then the helicopter will auto land. After it lands, the red light will blink rapidly and the heli will not take off again.

The K110 does not attempt to hover. Once enough lift is generated with the collective, the K110 will start to move in a particular direction. Control inputs are smooth and it does not take a lot to get the K110 to go fast. While difficult to perform precise maneuvers, the K110 is a very fun outdoor flyer with the tail gyro ensuring that the K110 does not yaw unless you tell it to yaw. I am only describing the flight characteristics as difficult because I am comparing the helicopter to the C129. Take the K110 outdoors and you will have a relatively smooth flight.

Final thoughts

Both of the helicopter looks similar and are fun to fly but the skill curve is a lot higher on one than the other. If you want to put pitch curves, dual rates and fly inverted, the K110 is for you. If you are new and plan on getting in to helicopters, the C129 is for you.

The K110 is an intermediate flyer and a cheap introduction to collective pitch helicopters and 3d flight. This bind and fly variant ensures that you use the radio you already have. The main gear on the K110 sometimes becomes lose and simulates vortex ring state during normal flight. The C129 is cheaper, more stable, slower and has one button for takeoff, landing and emergency stop. The barometric altitude hold ensures that the machine stays at what ever altitude you give it.

I prefer the C129, because its instructions were easy to follow, it is a very stable flyer and can easily be flown indoors. 

My plan was to keep the K110 it and eventually learn inverted flight with the idle up mode but I crashed it and broke the tail. This crash, however was no fault of the K110. I was flying during sunset and the helicopter was at a distance. It was difficult to tell its orientation so I opted to chop the throttle to avoid flying over someone. Usually this does nothing to the heli but this time the tail boom broke and split in 4, revealing the internal wires. Luckily for me, if I ever wanted to fly the K110 again, I can either glue the tail boom back together or order a replacement tail boom from banggood.com. Both helicopters have spare parts online but parts do not go out of stock on banggood.com

So that was my comparison and lightning review of these two fantastic micro helicopters. Which one do you have? Which one are you getting? Have questions about any of the helicopters? Let me know in the comments below. Full reviews and affiliate links in the description below. Thanks for watching, see you on the go around.