The VX1e finally turned up for the E7SE this Wednesday. I didn't order a datapod yet as there is USB capability built into the unit and a beta version of Spartan Studio is available.

A few people have been having issues with USB connection problems causing the VX1e to reset randomly and lose some or all of the settings that have just been programmed in. I was hoping that I would be one of the lucky ones who did not encounter this issue, but alas it was not to be and I encountered the problem of the USB drop outs on four different laptops. By the way, from reading forums etc, there are absolutely no issues when programming with the datapod.

The good news is that the owner of Spartan - Angelos Gonias - is a super bloke and very easy to talk to when you have problems. Thursday night, after some facebook messaging, he sent me a pre-release version of the new firmware to try and hopefully sort out the USB issues. The new firmware worked wonders and the USB connection is now rock solid. We have since been discussing a couple of other little issues that may need attention, but for now everything is sweet!

The VX1e is a piece of cake to set up with Spartan Studio and if the heli is mechanically set up correctly for a start then to do a basic initial setup without gov or playing with the expert settings it should only take 20 minutes or so to be ready for a test flight. My VX1e is only set up for one flight mode at the moment which I have set to 3D. Everything else has been left at the default settings that the unit gets when you program in your preferred flight style.

I have only had one quick flight this morning to see how the VX1e performs and all I can say is WOW!! Out of the box this thing is rock solid in the head and tail, I am only running 106's on the tail at 1800 and 1900 rpm head speeds, so I am getting a tiny bit of tail movement on full collective in puts and a tiny bit of overshoot on the stops. After a couple of tuning flights I should be able to correct this no problems at all. Tracking in fff is locked in and holds great through big loops and hurricanes.

So far I am very impressed with the VX1e and cant wait to get more flights on the E7SE with it.