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Raptor Vs. Nexus
How They Compare
In the blue corner we have the mighty Raptor. The Raptor is a great learning machine, capable of almost every aerobatic or recreational flying styles and we give it thumbs up.
In the red corner we have the brilliant Nexus. The Nexus is a fine learning machine, capable of many aerobatics and versatile flying styles with some upgrades. We also give it the thumbs up.
So now lets see how the two match up together.
| The Nexus | The Raptor |
| The Nexus is a fine learning machine, capable of many aerobatics and versatile flying styles with some upgrades. | The Raptor is a great learning machine, capable of almost every aerobatic or recreational flying styles. |
| The Nexus has 19 bearings standard | The Raptor has 29 bearings, upgradeable to 49 for $29 |
| The Nexus has an excellent manual | The Raptor manual is very difficult to use, with little or no text describing what to do. A new person to the hobby will need to get help from web pages to build it properly. See "Fritz the Cat" in Best Links. |
| The Nexus has a all plastic swash plate | The Raptor has a half metal, half plastic swash plate |
| Nexus parts are becomming hard to find | Raptor parts are now wide-spread and most hobby shops carry a good suply. Crash kits are also very cheap and have a lot of parts for the money. |
| People who are familiar with the Nexus may be hard to find. | The Raptor has cought on very quickly to domiate the market, and almost everyone has either seen one or owned one. |
| The Nexus does not auto rotate very well, there is no room for error. | The Raptor auto's with the stock wood blades probably better than any 30 sized helicopter on the market. |
| The Nexus typically comes with the OS 32 SXH engine, a tried and tested - very reliable engine which rarely has problems and is easy to configure. | The Raptor usually comes with the Thunder Tiger .36 which is notorious for leaning out in mid flight and dying. Some people say this goes away after 4 gallons of break-in, which I think is a LONG time. |
| The Nexus needs replacement parts in order to be mostly 3d-capable. The stock paddles are too slow to even loop safely. KSJ paddles for $9 fix this, but make the helicopter pitchy / pull up a LOT in FFF | The Raptor is fully 3D capable out of the box and flies straight and level no matter the speed. Cyclic response is good enough to do flips (in-place rolls) |
| The collective throw on the nexus standard is very limited. I could only get +8 to -6 degrees out of it. (14 degrees of throw) Enough for inverted flight, but not climb-outs. | The Raptor is capable of an amazing +12 to -12 degrees on the collective! (24 degrees of throw!) |
| The nexus gets blown around in the wind. It's flyable in high-wind but it's all over the place. | The Raptor holds its own, even in high wind it's a very smooth flier |
| The Nexus has a nice large fuel tank, capable of letting you fly for upwards of 20 minutes with fuel to spare. | The Raptor is done flying in 15 minutes. |
| The engine of the Nexus can be removed with 4 screws, although you must first remove the muffler (2 screws) | The engine of the Raptor can be removed with 4 screws, muffler attached. |
| Parts for the Nexus are very inexpensive and durable | So are the parts for the Raptor, but they're slightly less expensive |
| The Nexus has z-bends and plastic ball links. | The Raptor is 100% mettle ball links |
| Retail price of kit complete: $??? Retail price of kit in parts: $??? Lowest street price we have seen: $200.00 |
Retail price of kit complete: $280.00 Retail price of kit in parts: $741.97 Lowest street price we have seen: $240.00 |
Annoying Issues:
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Annoying Issues:
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Well you have seen our list, but more importantly what do you think about the big Raptor Vs. Nexus debate. Please post your Raptor and Nexus comments here.
