Thunder Tiger Mini Titan E325

Let me be the first to stick my hand up and admit that I was a diehard T-Rex fan. The availability of spare parts and the vast array of clone parts, at incredible prices, kept me from ever looking at an Align competitor’s 450-size helicopter. All that changed after my exploding rotor head incident (more on this later) and I started shopping around at some of my local hobby shops. The Mini Titan E325 immediately caught my attention. I was a bit hesitant at first after noticing that it was an all plastic body and main rotor head, but the salesman managed to convince me that he has seen more than a few T-Rex fans switch to the Mini Titan and not look back. So with, a lighter wallet, I left the store and couldn’t wait to get home.

Introduction

The Mini Titan E325 is produced by Thunder Tiger of Taiwan. Most people will be familiar with their Nitro powered Raptor series. Thunder Tiger has always produced some amazing products and the Mini Titan is no exception. The packaging is top notch and the instructions are clear and precise. Unpacking the box you will notice that all bags are labeled and each bag corresponds to a specific step in the instruction manual, which makes building the helicopter a piece of cake.

What You Will Need

I opted for the kit version without any included electronics as I would just strip everything I needed from my grounded T-Rex 450, I also enjoy the challenge of assembling each section myself. The Mini Titan is available in other configurations including ARF (Almost Ready to Fly) and RTF (Ready to Fly) versions.

Electronics I was able to salvage from the T-Rex were the following:

• Turnigy Typhoon 2215H 3550kv Brushless Heli Motor
• TowerPro H40A Brushless Speed Controller
• HobbyKing 401B AVCS Digital Head Lock Gyro
• 3 x HXT900 9g Micro Servos
• Turnigy DS480 Digital Servo
• Fly Sky FS-TH9X Transmitter
• HobbyKing 2.4Ghz 6Ch Receiver

Assembly

As I mentioned earlier, the supplied instructions are great and walk you through each stage of the build. All the packets are clearly marked and it is recommended that you don’t open them until you reach that stage of the build. This is logical and keeps everything organized but if you are missing a part you won’t know about it until you need it, as I did when I got to the main frame. I was accidently supplied with two left servo mounts and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t install it on the right side of the frame. A quick email to my local hobby store and a replacement was ordered for me at no charge.

Mounting the cyclic servos also proved problematic as Thunder Tiger would like you to use their servos, so the HXT-900′s would not fit without a bit of grinding to the frame and servo mounts. Then when I did get them to fit, I noticed that the linkage rods where at an off angle, so I needed to use spacers between the servo and the mount.

The rest of the build was uneventful, but I did appreciate how easy everything was to put together. The quality of the plastic parts had me wondering why I had so loved all alloy parts on my other helicopters.

Kit form really takes on new meaning with the Mini Titan as not a single part is put together. You even need to attach the blade grips to the blades and build the canopy yourself. So opt for the ARF or RTF version if you don’t enjoy spending a few hours tinkering.

Setting It Up

Set up was really simple and the manual guides you through the basics of CCPM flight. If you followed the assembly instructions then you should have a pretty well set up helicopter right from the start. One thing to look out for is that to increase pitch, the swashplate moves down instead of up.

First Flight

This is where the Mini Titan really shines. I approach every maiden flight with caution but the Mini Titan really surprised me with its incredible flight characteristics. It feels much more stable than a T-Rex 450 and gives you that locked in feel of a much larger helicopter.

The performance is superb and I felt confident enough to perform a few loops and rolls on its first flight. Something I would never do before with a new helicopter. The Mini Titan is able to handle almost anything I throw at it.

Conclusion

The Mini Titan has become my firm favourite 450 size helicopter. Despite its all plastic head and body, the quality is amazing. I am contemplating buying a second to convert into a Cobra Gunship.

Parts availability was a big concern for me but almost every Hobby Shop now stocks the most common parts for the helicopter.