JR Vibe 50 First Impressions
Simon Lockington

When I heard that JR were releasing a new 50 I was a bit sceptical. JR have always seemed to miss the point when it comes to 50's. The Voyager wasn't a bad machine, but needed upgrading (paddles, dampening, spindle shaft, slipper clutch) in order to do decent 3D. It suffered from a bad cooling design and you could bend spindle shafts at will with those.

The next 50 they released was the Venture 50 and the less said about that disaster the better. It was a fat and heavy plastic design that was repurposed as a Robbe Ornith and later on modified and sold as the Tiger by Audacity Models. Once again, before you started to do any harder kind of 3D with the Venture, you had to do something about the soft dampening the slow paddles and the general all round slop.

After the Venture, JR released the Airskipper which was better than it's predecessors, but too expensive and never really took off.

Well now they seem to have it right in their latest release, the Vibe 50. Using the Vibe name is a bit of a gamble, they'd need to make sure the machine they associated the name with was as good as it's bigger brother, the popular Vibe 90. Finally JR have given decent dampening straight out of the box, as well as a driven tail, good paddles and FINALLY a decent cooling system! It's always bewildered me why JR have used very average cooling systems on their little helis (even the Sylpide 90), when they already have a great cooling system on the Vigor/Vibe.

Infact, there seems to be a lot of different influences in the little Vibe and not all from it's bigger brother either. Infact the head setup looks remarkably similar to the Synergy design with the mixers on the leading edge of the very beefy blade grips. The central head block is a big square structure just like the Synergy.

You can adjust your flybar ratio just like the Vibe 90, and it comes standard with a flybar cage.

The main gear is attached to a nice big beefy auto hub with a split gear for the tail which is great, and the main shaft is supported by three bearing blocks. The clutch has two pre drilled holes in it for governor magnets, just like the Synergy.

My favourite part of the little Vibe is the fully enclosed mini-Vigor cooling system, the air is sucked in from the top and blasted down the enclosed ducting and over the engine head. The big Vibe has one of the best cooling systems going, so it stands to reason that the little Vibe should benefit too.

The CCPM system is based on the Vibe with push-pull linkages driving the swashplate that can be configured in both 120 or 140 CCPM.

The belt driven tail looks nice and strong, although the tail bell crank is plastic similar in design to the Caliber 5's bell crank which on the Caliber 5, is useless. Time will tell if the little Vibe's crank is as useless, but I would have liked to have seen that part as aluminium.

FLYING IT
The Vibe belongs to James Dargue, a sponsored pilot for the Australian JR distributor, Model Engines. James is an extremely good pilot, but unfortunately is Mode One so I can't fly his machines (I'm one of the very few Mode Two pilots at out club), but James gave the little Vibe a flogging.

Straight out of the box the heli flew very straight and true. There were some issues with the tail wagging, but that seems to be related to the gyro and tail servo combination being used at the moment. The roll rate seemed very good and the tail performance while not as good as a 90 (I haven't come across a 50 whose tail was as good as a 90) looked to be as good as my little Raptor.

The Hyper and Hatori 522 combination was pulling very strong with a headspeed of just over 2050 RPM, we felt reducing the headspeed would probably be in order.

SUMMARY
Finally it looks like JR are onto a winner with the little Vibe. No upgrades needed to do hard 3D out of the box and with the proven heritage of it's bigger brother the Vibe 90 (and a few others like the Synergy), I really think it'll be a winner.

How the market place responds to it will be another thing. JR are notorious for having expensive parts, so it will be interesting how both the kit and spare parts are priced. If they're reasonable, then it'll be a great machine.

Would I sell the little Raptor to buy one? No, I wouldn't. But if I pummeled the Rappy into the ground I might consider replacing it with the Vibe.

Pricing hasn't been annouced yet for Australia, but Horizon Hobby in the US have priced it at US$600 a kit. Availability also hasn't yet been announced.

Check out the pictures and come to your own conclusion, but I think JR are onto a winner.

CLICK ON EACH PICTURE TO SEE THE FULL SIZE VERSION
The Vibe has a striking presence with it's agressive looking canopy	Very narrow forward profile
The split tail drive with the large auto hub. The mainshaft is supported by three bearing blocks. Governor magnets are housed in the clutch bell.	Finally! JR bring their fully enclosed cooling system to their small helis!
The CCPM layout is just like the Vigor. You can also use 140 CCPM if you like. One problem is the lack of radio tray space. There is an additional 'deck' for the tray just like the Vibe, but that didn't fit with this setup. This machine has been fitted with a custom built gyro tray behind the mast, that isn't standard.	The head looks just like it came off a Synergy, you can adjust the flybar ratios just like on the Vibe 90.
The gyro plate on this heli was custom made, that's not standard.	The tail looks nice and strong. I was surprised to find the pitch bell crank is plastic, we'll have to see if that is a problem or not.