Read All About It! The Odyssey v3.2 reviewed in the March 2010 issue of Model Helicopter World. Join Jon Tanner in his indepth build of the Odyssey from the ground up, including a very complete mechanics build, control system installation and flight performance tuning. At every point along the way, Jon has expressed his opinion of the Odyssey design, in ways that all modelers can relate. We would like to take the time to thank Jon and the staff at Model Helicopter World for their assistance on this review.

The Odyssey was developed with simple design goals for reliability and strength. The Odyssey v3.2 builds on these fundamentals and has significantly improved its flight characteristics with a new rotorhead system that has so far, exceeded our expectations. This rigid rotor head has fewer parts and combines excellent stability in forward flight with a crisp cyclic response that gives the pilot confidence in its handling during aerobatic maneuvers.

Overall, the Odyssey has fewer components and its mechanical layout and drive train design have flexibility built-in that enable it to be offered in left or right hand rotation and in different gear ratios. The Odyssey's entire drive train is geared for greatly improved durability, simple maintenance and gear ratio changes. Heavy duty, Delrin spiral bevel gears deliver immense power very smoothly to the rotor head and minimize wear on the drive train.

Each Odyssey is factory assembled into the major components to ensure that helicopter is built to factory specifications. While the mechanics are assembled, the fuel plumbing, radio installation and engine configuration are still required to be completed before the first flight. The Odyssey is manufactured from nearly all CNC machined components, including the side frames, bearing blocks, rotor head and tail gear box. The canopy is fiberglass and lightweight for its size.

The Odyssey is a perfect platform as an introduction to turbine models, for camera and video work and in industrial applications. We are in continued development of the Odyssey and will have several options available in the near future, including high capacity fuel tanks and a flybarless rotor head. We recommend the OF 800mm or 875mm main rotor blades. These are high quality fiberglass main blades that give the Odyssey its excellent stability. As the Jakadofsky turbine engines continue to evolve, we can recommend the most suitable gear ratio for the Odyssey based on your flying style or application. We can also customize the helicopter to meet your needs If you are interested in a custom Odyssey, please contact us for further information and pricing.