I wanted to get this review out before Christmas and here it is, the beginning of March. My appologies for that. Things happen and I find myself balancing a large number of hobbies and interests and GI Joe is just one of them. As I posted last year here, I had intended to post a series of reviews to this site and got through only a few. The good news is that I won't want for material to post about and will just work my existing list from 2015.
My first review of 2016 will be the Power Team Elite Aerial Rocket Helicopter. Here are images of two versions of the toy that I have acquired; the top most is the more complete version recently available on shelves of your local BigLots, the other a more stripped down and plain set that I acquired awhile back on Ebay as part of another lot:
As you can see, the current offering above includes a lot more accessories. It also has much more detailed packaging and product layout with everything meticulously tied or wired into position. As I've discussed before, this makes PTE toys a real PITA to unpack. Make sure you have wire cutters handy!
Power Team Elite's "Aerial Rocket Helicopter" is based on the Chinese Harbin Z-9, which was a license-built version of the Eurocopter AS356 "Dauphin" (so you could plausibly identify it as either, but being a Chinese company, PTE likely had the Harbin in mind as the model). This is essentially a multi-purpose aircraft that can fill a variety of roles ranging from: attack, light transport, reconnaissance, and medical evacuation.
Getting the chopper out of the box was as usual, a bit of a small ordeal just as with every other PTE vehicle I've opened. With so many bands and wires holding the package contents into place, it took me a good half hour to unwind it all since I had misplaced my wire cutters. Overall, the Harbin Z-9 pretty sleek looking with a very unique tail rotor profile and lots of windows. The rotors were a bit bent from their position inside the package, but it is correctable as the plastic bends easily. Of course, they naturally sag over time due to their own weight and the softness of the material. The toy itself is a tremendous representation of the real aircraft. Like many other PTE vehicles, this one shares the same camouflage pattern often seen used by the Chinese Armed forces.
There are two versions of this toy that I am fortunate enough to have: one with the armament rack (which is currently in stores) and one without. Since this rack is not removable, having both gives me to chance to show the benefits of each. The rack itself is a bit of an awkward looking piece that breaks up the smooth lines of the aircraft, however it does seem to resemble an actual weapons rack used on the Harbin.
Above you can see the current model with it's two weapon mounts on a rack that wraps around the bottom of the body and attaches to it in a permanent arrangement of fused plastic. The lower picture shows the older model without the armament rack.
Looking at the bottom of the vehicle so we can see how it attaches to the body:
This appears to be intended as a permanent attachment, which limits it's configurability. Being able to remove the entire assembly easily would have allowed it the flexibility to assume the form of the less 'militarized' form lacking the weapons mounts. I'm guessing that there is some adhesive in there holding it in, and I didn't really want to test this too much for fear of breaking. The long arms of this rack have no other attachment to the body, so too much down pressure on the ends of it would likely cause a break.
[EDIT and UPDATE] Hisstank commentator "Zap Rowsdower" shared the following info about his Rocket Helicopter
"Hey, I just happened to read the review you linked to for the PTE Aerial Rocket Helicopter and I figured I would let you know that the weapon racks ARE removable. They are not fused in any way to the body and each side of the rack is independent as well. If you want to remove the racks you just have to take out most of the screws from the helicopter body and then gently pry the shell apart at the base, next to the weapon rack attachment point. They are basically just held in by a set of tabs. Once you have the shell far enough apart, the tabs aren't "holding" anything and you can pop the racks right out.
The older version of this toy (the one without the weapons racks) had a plastic blank with tabs of its own made to fit the hole, which can likewise be removed if you ever decide you want to switch up which chopper has the weapons racks (if, for example, you have done customizing or paint on one). I also had one of each version until I sold the "old" version. Problem was, I had already applied stickers to the old version before the new one ever came out. When I saw the new one I figured I would upgrade but I didn't want to buy more stickers and re-apply stuff so I just popped the weapon racks off of the new one and swapped the helicopters out.
Anyway, it's clearly not a "play feature" or anything. But just so you know, you can "disarm" the bird if you so choose."
Thanks for the input, Zap! [end UPDATE]
Each side of the rack can hold one weapon using the usual PTE weapons pylon, so in theory it can equip any ordinance of the PTE line. As I may have pointed out before, this doesn't always work in practice given the tolerances involved expecting a slot to slide over a rail with enough friction to hold the accessory on, but without too much friction which makes it difficult to remove. PTE missiles, rockets and etc are often too hard to easily slip on place on the pylons or so loose that they easily fall off. In my opinion, the HASBRO method of mounting weapons is superior because you just push the thing on until it's a suitably tight fit, and with the notable exception of the 30th Anniversary Sky Striker, it typically stays on.
Moving onto the accessories:
Much here is just more of the usual: two infantry figures and a pilot, a gas can, a barrel, cones, and four pieces of a barrier. Certainly more of the same is nice stuff to have for building scenes and dioramas with. though, I guess at some point I find myself bored with these common accessories. There are however a few new pieces we haven't come across yet shown below.
Most interesting of the three are the anti-tank missiles because it consists of five elements: the four missiles and the ejector rack. It assembles by mounting each missile to a peg on the side of the rack. The rack then slips onto a normal PTE styled pylon fitted to the though in practice there is little to no friction to hold the missiles in place and missiles will fall off with very little provocation.
To match the photos above, let's review the accessories included with either set. The more spartan set is easy, it comes only with a pilot and one other figure not unlike the infantry figures that normally come with PTE sets. The more Deluxe Aerial Rocket Helicopter possesses the following accesories:
- Pilot figure
- Infantry figures (x2)
- Fuel Barrel
- Interlocking metal barrier (x4)
- Rack mounted Rocket Launchers (x2)
- Traffic Cones
- Fuel Canister.
- Foldable main rotors
- Four working doors that open and snap shut
- Rolling wheels
- Working tail rotor
It easily fits four 3.75 or 4" modern GI Joe figures in four seats, which is always a concern as that there are a number of older PTE molds that apparently were more intended and sized for vintage figures, not the larger more modern scale.
Four Average sided modern scaled GI Joe figures fit just fine once seated. The doorways are a little tight, but with a little care it isn't too difficult to seat them in natural seating positions. The cabin seats a total of four, a pilot and co-pilot in front, with room for two in back. The real Z-9 has room for up to ten passengers.
I was able to pull the doors off their protruding plastic hinges without too much difficulty for the purpose of taking the above shots. I think you could remove them and replace them a number of times before wearing the points down to where the doors wouldn't attach properly. It's a simple yet well done feature that makes sure that doors pop off before breaking in case the toy is dropped or meets rough handling. One difficulty is that the rear doors do not open well. You often have to open the front doors and reach in to push the rear ones open. On the flip-side, the doors do stay shut when closed so that figures do not easily fall out.
One issue I had was that I dropped one of the choppers and a window popped out. The clear plastic windows are attached by only a few points with what appears to be superglue. However, this may not be a bad thing as this may promote the windows from breaking out rather than cracking in case of impact. In any event, it is easy enough to put the windows back if punched out.
Quality/Appearance: B-
A very good likeness of it's model, which is typical of PTE toys. Fairly rigid construction. Should handle some rough play.
Play Value/Accessories: B
Seats four modern figures comfortably. Some new accessories that compliment the helicopter well along with more of the usual fare. It does suffer, I think, from the lack of being able to remove that cumbersome looking weapons rack. PTE stuff is rarely that sophisticated, though...
