How would you rate the overall quality of the product?
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Very Good
How would you rate the value of the product for the money?
Very Low
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Very Good
How difficult or easy is the product to assemble, use, or operate?
Very Difficult
Average
Very Easy
How well does the product perform / function?
Very Weak
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Very Good
“I changed the settings a bit, I really like how this can bank on turns, it flies really well as long as it's calm out, being scale And light weight, and I do think it's a bit underpowered to fly in windy conditions, but in calm conditions it's very predictable, lifts off very smooth.. I paint the main blades to match the body a bit better”
How would you rate the overall quality of the product?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How would you rate the value of the product for the money?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How difficult or easy is the product to assemble, use, or operate?
Very Difficult
Average
Very Easy
How well does the product perform / function?
Very Weak
Okay
Very Good
“I got the FTR version as I already had a futaba sfhss Tx. I can imagine setup using the XK RTF Tx is probably easier as it’s designed for the features of this heli and the online manual is more supportive in that aspect. A futaba or open source Tx will work but I spent a few days in settings just to figure out if it was set up correctly. I flew 3D Helis 10 years ago and not much has changed in mechanical setup, but the programming side knocked my brain around as I tried to remember all the aspects of setting up basic helis. I used the Futaba T6K Tx so it might be a similar process across other Futabas. My two biggest hurdles were:1. Swash type - in the futaba options, I found this heli needs the “pure” swash or the H-1 type which shows a 90° swash config vs. the 120° swash the heli actually has. Testing servos confirmed proper cyclic movement in the H-1 type. Not sure why, but it works so I won’t question it further. 2. Gyro - it took me a lot of searching on the internet and playing around with settings testing to understand how the 3D (gyro assisted aggressive flight) vs 6G (6 axis assisted flight, prevents excessive roll, intended for hovering and normal flying) was to be controlled by the futaba Tx. I found either the Gyro menu in the Tx could be used (auto maps to ch 5 using desired switch), or any 2/3 position switch can be mapped to channel 5. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which route you use as the “gain” in the Tx’s Gyro menu does nothing; the heli’s gyro system just wants to see a change in state of a Tx switch. The best way to determine gyro mode is to unplug the motor connector, power on heli, then move the heli around with your hand. Or, you can remove the blades and give it 10% throttle. I found the auto gyro reactions wouldn’t occur unless the heli had some throttle. Unplugging the motor was the easiest route as the gyro auto react started working right away without throttle. In the aft switch position, this was 6G mode so the swash auto reacted to my hand movements and when I would give a cyclic input, the swash would try to return to ‘center’ (stable hover). In the foreword switch position (3D mode), the swash would still auto react to movements, except cyclic inputs would not result in a return to true center. This makes sense as this gives you the extended range/capability to do rolls/inverted, etc. If you want to hover around in the living room/front yard with no interest in learning aerobatics, don’t worry about 3D mode. Even with the gyro assist in 3D, it felt like trying to fly the early electric helis which typically only had gyro assist for yaw/rudder; achieving a solid hover on those older helis was 100% manual input and took a lot of practice. The 6G mode for this takes out most of the work and makes for a casual, fun scale looking hover machine; note: you will still be actively maintaining the hover with your right stick (by no means is 6G = auto pilot/thumbs off hovering). The recommended throttle/pitch curves in the manual were fine for 6G but play around with them as needed. Not much was needed for mechanical setup out of the box. Setting up 3D mode for sport flying or inverted requires all typical mechanical steps, I.e. swash and servo movement, setting throttle and pitch curves for your idle up(s), throttle hold, etc. I will say even at upper throttle/head speed on a full battery, the head bogs down once you reach more aggressive blade pitches (ex. 10°), so I wouldn’t expect stellar 3D flying, probably just casual loops and one or two inverted hovers before the battery sags and the blade speed along with it. I plan to only set up one idle up mode for sport flying with limited 3D. The other reviews would point to other XK micro helis designed specifically for 3D and I would agree; after all this is a scale bird so if the shoe fits. Other than that, servos were centered out of the box. Assembly is easy and battery access is easy once you get the hang of removing and replacing the front cover. The frame assembly comes out of the body pretty easily, just some screws on the sides, skid screws, rudder motor connector removed, and carbon cross bar support removed and the whole assembly slides right out. Hovering is a bit odd with this bird; it’s great that it has a 3 blade head for scale look coupled with a brushless motor, but the tail rotor motor has to work quite hard to keep, which results in a left yaw translation. To compensate, the heli leans right so in a stable hover the heli will be rolled right a few degrees. All in all not a bad looking full collective pitch scale bird for the price.”
How would you rate the overall quality of the product?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How would you rate the value of the product for the money?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How difficult or easy is the product to assemble, use, or operate?
Very Difficult
Average
Very Easy
How well does the product perform / function?
Very Weak
Okay
Very Good
“I have flown this helicopter for over 1,000 minutes now and it has proven to be quite durable and fun to fly (yes I am that nerd who logs my RC flight time).”
How would you rate the overall quality of the product?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How would you rate the value of the product for the money?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How difficult or easy is the product to assemble, use, or operate?
Very Difficult
Average
Very Easy
How well does the product perform / function?
Very Weak
Okay
Very Good
“Lot of fun flying mine around the living room and on the porch and downstairs. I like to fly from table top to table top and then land on the floor. When no breeze its really stable. Beautiful looking model with amazing electronics. I did purchase the metal swashplate and blade grips but have yet to install them. One word of caution. This heli is small and some may consider it a toy. Its anything but a toy and I don't recommend it for beginners. Others may disagree but I stand by what I just said.”
How would you rate the overall quality of the product?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How would you rate the value of the product for the money?
Very Low
Okay
Very Good
How difficult or easy is the product to assemble, use, or operate?
Very Difficult
Average
Very Easy
How well does the product perform / function?
Very Weak
Okay
Very Good
“The XK K123 is a great little scale heli with some nice details on the fuselage. Binding to my Futaba 16IZ and Radiomaster TX16S was very simple. I also have the K124 and I think the K123 is more stable but both fly nicely. Flight times are short at around 3 minutes for just some basic hovering and circuits when I fly inside my living room. ESC gets hot too. But I just found out that the larger 700mah lipo from the K124 fits perfectly and will give me an extra 1 1/2 minutes of flight time. I'd recommend getting a bunch of the 700mah lipos instead of the stock 500mah lipos. Only criticism I have is with the tail rotor, it works fine so far and I purchased a spare but it would have been nice if XK would have used a brushless tail motor. Overall a great value for a beautiful looking scale heli.”
