Power Team Elite: Aerial Rocket Helicopter

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.

These three accessories fit into the slots under the aforementioned weapons rack.  While there are only two pylons to fit the weapons, World Peace Keepers was kind enough to provide a choice of three to place on them.  From left to right they appear to be two types of rocket launchers and a quad of HJ-8 anti-tank missiles.

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.

In addition to the removable weaponry, the toy has a number of other play features.  Here is a list of some of them:

• 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...

Final Grade: B

This represents yet another solid entry under the PTE brand.  It's a fair balance of quality and play value.  It competes with the much harder to find PTE Blackhawk, albeit I see the Rocket Helicopter relating more to the Cobra side, but you may feel differently.  While in this late winter/early spring it may be hard to find at retail, the secondary market is flush with these now and they aren't that bad cost-wise.  If you missed out on the Eaglehawk or just need a light Cobra troop transport chopper/attack platform, I think you could do a lot worse than this.

Power Team Elite F/A-18 Hornet Review

This is another of those reviews that I've been waiting a long time to get to.  Ever since I discovered World Peacekeepers/Power Team Elite brand of toys, I was especially enthused to get my hands on a few of these being a big fan of Joe-compatible jets.  My first and best love among GI Joe vehicles was the SkyStriker, which when I started this blog were very easy to find at retail  However, by that time, the Big PTE jets had long since come and gone from retail and online was the only option; even then, they were expensive and sporadically available.  My hunt for one of these things went on for nearly a year:  I had won an internet auction and had gotten it for a steal, but then the seller claimed it was "damaged" and refunded my money.  Second attempt broke down because I didn't have the requisite cash at the time (in honesty, I had low-balled a little on the offer).  Eventually my patience was rewarded and I was able to collect a total of four over the next year or so.

Power Team Elite 'Hornet' in retail packaging

Do I really need four?!  It's likely I don't, but then again there are a few variants out there and one I do not yet have.  Plus, I'm hooked on aircraft in general, and an airfield full of planes all laid out would be a dream diorama for me if not for the prohibitive space issues.  The four variations I know of are the grey, black, green camo, and a desert camouflage.  I have examples in gray and one in black (one of the grey examples that someone had done a Sky Striker custom paint job on has broken wingtips, more on that later...).

There's really not much to say about the retail packaging other than it shows you pretty much everything you're getting in the package.  There's nothing elaborate going on with packaging arrangement, but as it's not a playset there really doesn't have to be.  It's actually pretty easy to take out and detach from the few wires that are holding the main body of the aircraft in place.

The bare plane is very sleek looking.  This gray model seems to be the most widely available of the variants.  It's body has been 'weathered' with a light blackening, detail the other variants lack.  The canopy has been given a tinge of blue to complement the grey scheme.  As far as I know, the other variants all have a transparent canopy.

Between the above and below images, you'll find all the accessories that come with the Hornet.  You receive two figures: a pilot and what appears to be some sort of landing signal officer.  The accessories that belong with the figures are a paddle, signalling wand, and a few gas cans that you see quite frequently with PTE sets.  While the paddle and wand match the LSO well, the inclusion of the gas cans is nonsense in principal.  Jet fighters carry thousands of pounds worth of fuel, and filling them a few gallons at a time is just silly.

The figures themselves are an afterthought, a given in this line of toys.  They are blocky with rough articulation and the pilot lacks any head articulation (but at least that orange vest is a complete win!).  Nothing different than from previous reviews of this line.  However, the rest of the accessories really shine!
 

Rounding out the accessories are a ladder, two bomb racks, four bombs, four missiles, and two external fuel tanks.  The bombs look like Mk 82s, the missiles on the above right are AIM-9 Sidewinders, those on the left look like AGM-88 HARM anti-radar missiles, and rounding it off are two external fuel tanks.  On the grey version, you will see yellow (or black) tips on the missiles, and a darker shade of grey on the fuel tanks.  Near the bottom of this review, you will see the Black version replaces these colors with red. 

The one-sided instruction sheet is simple and probably isn't really necessary, provided you can figure out that the wings actually need to be put on.  It's just one of those obligatory things you have to include, I guess, so there it is.

The stickers are plain and not very fancy.  They do offer you a good array of number choices, which is often something missing from Hasbro sticker sheets.

One thing I find very appealing about the F/A-18 from Power Team elite is that it fills a certain hole in the GI Joe organization for me: a true multi-role jet armed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground engagements.  The Sky Striker has six air-to-air armaments and the Tomcat was built primarily as an interceptor designed to protect the carrier fleet from cruise missiles and other air threats.  It was a large aircraft with a lot of thrust and speed.  While later it was adapted for use as a bomber, close air support (CAS), and Forward Air Control (FAC) roles where it performed admirably.  However, it was expensive and lacked the low speed agility of smaller fighters.  To me the Sky Striker's primary purpose is better suited for air-superiority, while the Hornet can be the workhorse strike fighter.

The PTE Hornet's accessory compliment suits it for the strike fighter role well, but it cannot carry all of it.  It has one PTE styled slide pylons on each wing tip and two more on each wing interior.  It has six total weapon stations.  The four bombs can be attached to a total of two pylons by first attaching two to each multiple ejector rack.

The mount format is identical to that of the A-10 Thunderbolt from PTE that I reviewed some months ago.  The fit of these accessories isn't always the correct fit moving from one toy to the next, but with a few adjustments mixing and matching various bombs, missiles, and other ordinance works just fine.

Note the FLIR mounted on the starboard intake nacelle and the asymmetric load out.

Of course, the load out doesn't necessarily need to be symmetrical as the Navy shows us in the image above with one wing pylon featuring an air to ground munition and the other with a couple of A2A missiles on a multi-ejector rack.  What is very interesting is that this toy reflects the weapon stations on the real jet quite accurately.  It's only missing a central hardpoint and two hardpoints on the sides of the fuselage that are often used to mount electronics equipment.  The below image shows such a piece of equipment molded into the fuselage of the Hornet which appears to be a Forward Looking Infra Red (FLIR) pod.  However, this shape is molded on each side of the body, even though you only need one FLIR mounted.  I guess this is a minor point, but it would have been great to have included an asymmetric fuselage to reflect the need for only a single FLIR with either an empty or a different shaped blob of plastic to include something like an ECM pod, or even better two weapons pylons and a few AAMRAM missiles (very wishful thinking).

View of the port wing and fuselage and the associated FLIR.

The Landing gear of the aircraft is simple, robust, but it lacks much in the way of sophistication.  It swings out towards it's resting position against the body or latches closed thanks to a simple friction catch.  In between, it is just free to flop around and there is nothing to hold it in the open position other than the weight of the toy when in its landed position.  This is probably a great decision to keep the gear simple and avoid breakage from a toy perspective, but it leaves something to be desired for more adult collector looking for a bit more in the way of elegance.

The cockpit is large and spacious.  This is one of the criticisms that I've heard voiced about this particular toy:that it's too big and bulbous and detracts too much from the overall shape of the otherwise sleek aircraft. It is large and fits even the largest 4" figures (trying to find my Retaliation Roadblock for confirmation) in either seated position.  I honestly don't think the enlargened cockpit detracts from it's looks and in fact is one of a number of strong points on the airplane.

Both the front and rear seat positions have a lot of detail, including an elaborate panel with a series of multi-functional displays for the Radar Intercept Officer.  Both seats also have a removable flight stick, which makes it play easily as a trainer.  Buttons line the side consoles for a very high depth of detail.  While I can't vouch for whether this looks like a real Hornet cockpit, it's busy enough to imagine that it gets pretty close.

The canopy and windshield is made of three pieces of soft, clear plastic.  The main piece attaches with a formed hinge into the rear piece and secures itself closed with a friction tab against the front for a fairly secure fit.  The canopy is removable and the simple friction hinge appears to be fairly reliable.

However, under the category of potential deal-killers, let's talk about something not so reliable.

This PTE Hornet features wings with folding tips, just like the real thing.  Displaying the big planes can be a challenge because of space, but this feature helps a lot and is quite cool, visually.  The wingtips come uninstalled, and once they snap into their slots (below), it works well locking in place in both up and down positions....at first.

 The wingtips assemble by sliding the tabs on the tips into the slots on the wings....

 ...the problem is that these tabs are just ABS plastic like the rest of the body, and wear down and can brake off rather easily.  I've broken one due to a short fall, but I don't think it takes a fall to cause problems. On Ebay, many PTE Hornets that have been opened suffer from damage or wear to these tabs you see below.  Often you'll see comments that the wings are a bit loose, or have been tapped or glued.  This is a sure sign that the tabs have either been worn down or broken off.

Nearest I can tell, Power Team Elite tried to remedy this in later versions by reinforcing the tab and changing the slot it turned within to accommodate the change.  Above I have what I believe is a more recent model of this airplane (top) and below it is another, probably older version of this same toy with a slightly different style tab.  The bottom one is a simple cylinder forming the axis of the folding wing, and the top image shows a plastic reinforcement to that tab.

(never mind the color scheme, I bought this second-hand.  It was part of someone's project to paint it up like a Sky Striker)

In the image below you can see where this tab has been sheered off completely.  

Sorry about the blurry photo, but you should be able to see the difference between the un-reinforced tab (above right) and the reinforced tab (below left)

When it holds up, the folding wings are an amazing feature.  It's cool to look at and just as importantly, it makes the plane a little easier to display.  I'm really not sure what else they could do to make this stronger.  I suppose if you are able to get one of these that you should remember to be very careful and try not to assemble/disassemble the wing ends too much.  I would rather have this feature than not even with its fragility.  I suppose you can always just glue the wingtips if they break (although I prefer to try to epoxy the tabs back on).  Just be aware of this issue when buying, and of course be very careful when handling it.

I've accepted the fact that Joe scaling is a mismatch of proportions.  Some jets like the Skystriker measures out pretty close to 1:32  compared to it's F-14 counterpart, while a lot of land based vehicles are closer to 1:18.  That said, the real F-14 was substantially larger than the real legacy F/A-18, and seven feet longer.   However, the PTE Hornet is larger than the Sky Striker; the hornet is just over 23" and the Sky Striker is just under 23".  It may be a little tough to judge based on the image below with my makeshift photo setup with the two tiered effect, but the toys are roughly comparable in size.

 



It's hard to judge Power Team Elite for this because making the plane smaller would have involved either making it a single seat toy, taking away the ample space of the well-done cockpit, or degrading the proportions of a very good looking toy.  Given all the possible compromises, I think they chose all the right ones for this toy. 

In summary this is one of my favorite Joe scaled planes due to it's features overall look and polish.  It's durability score takes a hit because of the wing-tip issue.  I envision this plane as one that fills a perceived gap in Joe Equipment, that of a versatile strike fighter less expensive than the Sky Striker.

Anyway, here are some shots of the black version. While it doesn't presume towards the realistic appearance of the grey model, it's more striking, visually.  Please note, many of the decals are NOT from the original Power Team Elite kit.  I bought this one from someone who placed some well chosen GI Joe stickers on it as an enhancement.  I wasn't going to remove them.  You can see the remanent of the sticker sheet below.

Quality:  C- (D on earlier models with weaker wingtips)

It takes a hit for it's fragile wings, but otherwise it's well built and should take decent abuse.  The wings are a big deal, however

Appearance: A-

Very sleek and I like the proportions.  Ample decals and detail in various places

Play Value/Features: A

Good accessories, good figure compatibility.  Wingtips create a quality problem, but they are a boon for the toy overall.

Overall Score: B/B+

If somehow they could have made the wingtips more rugged., this would launch itself up towards "A" territory