Though I personally run at 1950 with the 8.7 gears. Putting the engine slightly above its power band so if it bogs it's pulling the motor into its highest power is a trick thats used alot. Also I doubt you will see much difference in 17 and 174 with regards to output.

TB runs 1650 in IDLE UP. He is SMOOTH. The higher headspeed helps those of us that arent quite as smooth with collective managment make up for our shortcommings.

I doubt he runs a 50 that low in idle up.The 50's just dont have the power to lug a helicopter around doing hard 3D,mabey for some easy flying around.

As far as the 1650 on the head. When Todd asked me what I ran for head speed I told him 2000. He asked my why so I started to explain that I "needed it" for doing 3D. That is when he started laughing his head off. He asked me if he could show me "Crazy 3D" at 1650 if I would be willing to do the entire school at that head speed. I said if I can use your fingers then I am sure that I could do crazy 3D at 1650 too. He told me if I would try it he would have me doing all the 3D stuff that I currently do at 2000 at 1650 by the end of the school. Me being the "ya right" kind of a guy said sure "prove it." Well let me tell you, prove it he did. He was doing climbing tic toc's, climbing funnels/hurricanes, chaos' and just about every other 3D maneuver that you can think of.

So now I am stuck doing the school at 1650. It took a few flights to get used to it, but I gota tell you. It flies 10X smoother, I am getting almost 15 minutes of run time on a tank of fuel, and the whole heli is no where near as intimidating when you are flying really close. If you say that it is not intimidating you are full of sh!t. Anything that spins a 2" carbon blade at 2000 RPM 5' from your heads SHOULD scare the crap out of you.

Todd was right, by the end of the school I was able to do everything that I was doing before and a whole lot more.....at 1650.

As far as the gyro gain he actually had us all turn it down considerably.....but that is another topic.

I know that everyone here has heard it before time and time again. After going thought the class the biggest thing that he taught me was COLLECTIVE MANAGMENT. I thought that there was no way that a R50 at 1650 would be clean and crisp. And to top it all off we set up with 10.5+/- pitch and 7deg of cyc. That is 17deg of pitch. There is not a 50class motor out there that will pull 17 deg of pitch. So guess what..... The key is in the col management.

At the end of the school Todd did say that it is ok to turn the head speed up to 1800 to 1850 AFTER you can do all the stuff you want to do at 1650. He also said that too many people are running 2000 to get away from having to be clean.....he is right. I was a prime offender.....not any more. I can also tell you that after messing around for about 30 hours at 1650 when I did turn it up to 2000 I didn’t like it at all! 1850 was very nice though with an abundance of power.

All of this I am sure sounds crazy to allot of people but look at the source. Not Blademan7065 but TB. He has proven himself in this industry. His biggest or should I say most convincing way of teaching a point or idea to people is quite simple. He will prove it to you. How can you fault that? Again there is allot left up to personally feel or preference.....but he certainly proved it to me and the three other guys at the field for the 2 days.

Give it a try....you may be surprised at what you find out.

The intent is: Fly it at 1650 and GET SMOOTH. Then crank it up.

But when they want to throw down, they take every advantage they can get

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As far as the 1650 on the head. When Todd asked me what I ran for head speed I told him 2000. He asked my why so I started to explain that I "needed it" for doing 3D. That is when he started laughing his head off. He asked me if he could show me "Crazy 3D" at 1650 if I would be willing to do the entire school at that head speed. I said if I can use your fingers then I am sure that I could do crazy 3D at 1650 too. He told me if I would try it he would have me doing all the 3D stuff that I currently do at 2000 at 1650 by the end of the school. Me being the "ya right" kind of a guy said sure "prove it." Well let me tell you, prove it he did. He was doing climbing tic toc's, climbing funnels/hurricanes, chaos' and just about every other 3D maneuver that you can think of