No-Brainer Furibee X140 Prop Upgrage - Gemfan Flash 3052

The Furibee X140 is a popular 3" quad for good reason as I've covered in part 1 (bench)  part 2 (initial flight) and part 3 (long term use) of a review. It does however feel underpropped with the stock 3030 4 bladed props and on 3s felt sluggish with my biggest complaint being dulled recovery from freestyle manuevres like power loops and split S's. Upgrading the prop is the most cost effective upgrade I've found and something you'll need to do in the future anyway once you've destroyed the stock props that come with it.

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The Gemfan 3052 is a 3inch propeller with an aggressive 52° blade pitch. It is part of the flash design family which is most well know for the 5152 - a 5.1" propeller. Just recently I've been very impressed by the smaller 2.5 inch 2540 flash (review here) for it's quietness, durability, balance, power and efficiency and am pleased to say I found similar benefits with the 3052.

Noise
The gemfan 3052 is very quiet - even more so than the stock 4 bladed props. This is actually very important for quads 3 inches and under since a large part of the appeal is the ability to fly them in smaller areas with more soft targets - much less intimidating to by-standers.

My new favourite flying spot

These new props are quiet - no issues launching from the back yard

Power and efficiency
A small but noticable difference here that is probably coming from the increase in pitch, fewer blades and probably a more modern aerodynamic design. I found I was able to recover better from power-loops and split s manuevres in particular, with confidence to come on the throttle stronger and later to catch myself - probably  10-20% improvement at a guess. Punch outs although still not massively fast on 3s were improved.

Efficiency as measured by flight time was pretty similar - there was definitely more voltage sag on punch outs but at low to mid speeds I did not require as much throttle as I did on the stock props. Net net the battery life was similar (4:00 approx. on a 450mah 3s) but able to choose more where I put the power with a larger stick resolution between low throttle hover and maximum power.

Durability
I've only had one or 2 crashes worth noting so far. Both have caused the prop to bend near the hub but it was easy to bend back to true without any signs of stress to the plastic. I'll report back here once I've put more packs through. I can say they definitely seem more durable that the gemfan 2040 Hulkie props (review here) and this seems to be more through design rather than material since the plastic feels very similar.

Conclusions
Other than stressing the battery a little more on full throttle punch outs, I found these props better than the stock items in every way - especially in that they were quieter and had more power. I can't yet draw a firm conclusion on which is more durable because the stock props are tough and about 10 packs in I haven't had a really bad crash yet. One thing I haven't mentioned so far is that they look *great* colours are rich and the design looks cool with the wingtips but that is largely subjective.

I've named this article 'No-brainer' because at somepoint you are going to need new props. In my opinion these are the ones to get. Both suppliers listed below ship worldwide.

Buy them from gearbest (try code RC18off)
Buy them from banggood (try code toysho)