FLISHRC built their reputation on 500-class scale helicopters. The FL500 V2 range covers the EC135, the BO105, the Twin Huey, the Cobra, the Black Hawk, the MD500 and the A109, and it has been the backbone of affordable ready-to-fly scale flying for a few years now. The Tiger is the first machine we have seen from them at 700 size — and it is a considerable step up.

It is in the shop now at £3,200, supplied ready to run.

Why the jump to 700 matters

A 500-class scale helicopter is already a serious model. A 700 is a different animal. The class is defined by its main blades — roughly 700 mm of them — which puts the rotor disc a little over a metre and a half across, against something nearer a metre for a 500.

That difference is not cosmetic. More disc, more blade mass and more inertia means the aircraft sits more solidly in moving air, carries itself through a manoeuvre instead of darting through it, and simply looks more like a helicopter and less like a model. Anyone who has flown both sizes on the same windy afternoon knows exactly what this buys you. It is the single biggest step in realism you can make in scale flying, and it is why the serious scale crowd tends to end up here.

The subject

The Tiger — the EC665 — is the Franco-German attack helicopter developed by Eurocopter, now Airbus Helicopters, and flown by France, Germany, Spain and Australia. It is one of the more distinctive gunships ever built: a narrow composite airframe, a stepped tandem cockpit with the gunner up front and the pilot raised behind, a roof-mounted sight ahead of the rotor mast, stub wings carrying rocket pods and anti-tank missiles, and — on the French HAP and HAD variants — a chin-mounted turreted cannon.

It is a shape that has always suited modelling. Slim, angular, purposeful, and unmistakable in the air from a long way off.

What you can see in the airframe

These are the manufacturer’s own photographs of the aircraft, and there is a lot to look at.

• Two-tone green and black disruptive camouflage in a matte scale finish, with TIGER fuselage titles
• Four-blade main rotor head
• Stepped tandem cockpit with framed glazing and visible interior detail
• Roof-mounted mast sight fairing forward of the rotor head
• Chin-mounted multi-barrel cannon on a scale turret mount
• Both stub wings fitted — inboard rocket pods, outboard missile rails, wingtip sensor pods
• Scale engine intakes with mesh grilles, and scale exhaust nozzles
• Fixed sprung tricycle undercarriage, as per the full-size aircraft
• Moulded panel-line and rivet detail, applied stencilling, warning markings and nav lighting

The shot above gives the best sense of scale.

The specification — now confirmed

When this post first went up, FLISHRC had not released a spec sheet for the Tiger, and we said
plainly that we were not going to guess at one. They have since published it, so here it is.

The headline numbers: 1,670 mm nose to tail excluding the chin gun,
450 mm tall, 460 mm wide, and 5.6 kg
dry. That is a big aeroplane by anyone’s measure.

• FLISHRC L7 flight controller with two GPS units
• 3 servos
• Brushless main motor and brushless tail motor, each on its own ESC
• 2 flight batteries included
• Radiomaster TX15 transmitter with an ExpressLRS receiver
• Main and tail rotor blade sets

Two things in that list are worth pulling out. The first is dual GPS — the
500-class FL500 V2 machines run a single module, and a second independent fix means faster lock and
a steadier hold. The second is the Radiomaster TX15 with ELRS. Ready-to-fly
helicopters normally arrive with a basic bundled set; this is a proper open-source hobby radio on a
long-range, low-latency link, and if you already fly ELRS the receiver will bind to your existing
kit.

One thing to flag: a charger is not listed in the manufacturer’s pack. If you need one,
say so with your order and we will sort a
suitable charger out alongside it.

Who should be looking at this

Not first-time helicopter pilots. A 700-size machine with a rotor disc over a metre and a half across demands a proper site, room to work and hands that already know what a collective-pitch helicopter does when it goes wrong.

If you are already flying a 500-class or larger collective-pitch machine and you have been wanting a large scale subject that holds up in the air as well as it does on the ground, this is squarely aimed at you.

Price and availability

£3,200, ready to run. It is made to order rather than sitting on a shelf, so there is a lead time — the current estimate is shown on the product page.

See the FLISHRC Tiger 700 in the shop

You can also browse the rest of the FLISHRC range, or every ready-to-fly scale helicopter we stock.