Model Airplane News

ENGINEREVIEW

BY KLAUS RONGE PHOTOS BY HOPE McCALL

THUNDER TIGER REDLINE 53H

This heli engine’s great looks and quality construction add extra punch

THE FIRST IN THE ALL-NE W line of Thunder Tiger RedLine engines to replace the Pro-50H engine is the RL-53H. The Pro-50H was affordable, ran well, produced good power and was very popular for 50-class helicopters. The RedLine 53, on the other hand, is designed for extreme power and is in direct competition with O.S. and Y.S. engines of similar displacement. In fact, Thunder Tiger’s Jeff Fassbinder told me the engine would out-pull the benchmark O.S. Hyper ( osengines.com) easily and make any heli perform better. With that in mind, I was anxious to install the engine in the Align T-Rex 600 Nitro Super Pro (alignr cusa.com) and see how it performed.

Even with the growing popularity of electrics, the 50-size nitro helicopter is still popular today. For this size, nitro has the economic advantage over electrics due to

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the high cost of large LiPo battery packs. This size heli also has outstanding performance, almost as good as a 90-size, but they cost much less and burn less fuel. As with

any RC aircraft requiring a high power-to-weight ratio, engine designers strive to pack the most displacement into the engine that will fit the application. In this category, the RedLine takes top honors with the largest displacement. As any engine buff will tell you, there is no substitute for cubic inches.

As is the case with nearly every helicopter-specific engine, a muffler is not included, so the pilot can pick his favorite for his personal flying style. I was able to obtain several different mufflers and ran tests on each. Two new mufflers from Thunder Tiger were included: the RedLine . 53 High Flow 3D Pipe and the RedLine Smoothy, which look great, perform well and are a great value. We also tested the engine with the Align 50 muffler and the Hatori SAB- 50. The engine includes the new RedLine R3 plug, which we used with success.