Century Standard Wood Blades

Every Swift comes with a standard set of 520 mm wood blades. As with any blades that come supplied with a kit they are designed to fulfil multiple purposes. Clearly a wooden blade is not meant to be used as a high-performance 3-D blade. However, the blades supplied are symmetrical and therefore should perform adequately if you used for 3-D flight.

In reality these blades will be used by beginners to move from hovering through to possibly the first basic 3-D manoeuvers. One limitation with wooden blades is that the blade roots are not design for extremely high head speeds. Personally I prefer not to run wooden blades faster than 1600 RPM. If you need to run a higher head speed than this then I would suggest upgrading to carbon blades. Not only will they perform better but they are designed to operate safely at these higher head speeds.

With this in mind let's take a look at the blades supplied in the Swift kit.

Construction

The blades are solid wood with a plastic reinforced blade root. The plastic blade roots have to be glued onto the wooden blade root with a suitable epoxy. The kit also comes with a brass tube which fits into the blade root hole. This provides adequate strengthening of the blade root. The blades also have metal inserts at the leading edge of the blade to give it a very good forward chordwise centre of gravity.

Having balanced two sets of these blades I have had very different experiences. The first set of blades required a significant amount of electrical tape in order to make them balance. In fact I was uncomfortable with how much tape I had to add order to get a length wise balance. On checking chordwise balance there was also a minor discrepancy although nothing to be concerned about. The second set of blades were completely different requiring a minimal amount of tape in order to balance. This second set of blades was also very good on chordwise centre of gravity.

Flight Testing

In-flight the blades both tracked very nicely and there was no vibration caused by the blades. Power delivery is fairly smooth and progressive. Responsiveness is also very good and if anything the Swift when using full throws could be described as twitchy using these blades.

Sport flying was accomplished with relative ease and the Swift easily copes with loops and rolls using these blades. There is a certain amount of blade flutter when pulling hard through manoeuvers as one might expect from a wooden blade.

I ventured into very basic 3-D with these blades. Flips both backwards, forwards and sideways were accomplished and I'm sure more complex 3-D manoeuvers could also be handled by these blades.

The main limitation for me was that head speed has to be restricted when using a wooden blade. For more aggressive 3-D a much faster head speed is required and immediately these blades may not suitable.

Conclusion

These blades would suit the beginner or sport flyer as they are competent and capable. For the more adventurous pilot I would recommend moving to a carbon blade where faster head speeds would not be a problem. Personally I work to a limit of 1600 RPM for wooden blades. Working beyond this is starting to stress the limits of the blade and a carbon or fiberglass blade should be considered as an alternative.