recommendations for a first helicopter purchase?

[heliguy55]

About 13 months ago I got a Walkera dragonfly 22e, it was really hard to fly and i crashed it twice. I let this hobby sit for a while and now i want to buy a new heli that is easy for a first time pilot. Any sugesstions?? Not too expensive and easy to fly.

[bcane98]

It's gotta be the Blade CX...

When I was in Iraq I was talking to a CW3 that was big into the Air RC Hobby. He was very experienced and stated the Blade CX was the best to learn on. "If you can't fly this chopper, don't go any further" he said. Plus resale for these things are really very good compared to the cars and trucks. He and a friend of his are sponsored by Futaba and also fly the fairly large RC planes.

So I took his advice and the advice of those around the web and bought the Blade CX. I am glad I listened to him

[chaos]

If you have the green, Blade CX is a great starter heli. It's a bit under $200, complete and ready to go out of the box. Electric. You can't get fancy with it. It doesn't go very fast. It requires near calm wind conditions. It's very stable for a heli. What it's good for is learning to hover under various heading orientations. Operating with various orientations is the hard part of heli flying, or airplanes for that matter. Figuring out which way to move a control stick is easy to do in armchair comfort, but when the heli is pointed at you and backing itself into a wall you can't be thinking about it, you have to respond. Training yourself to respond - getting the habit - is what this heli is good for. It's good for that purpose because you don't have to worry yourself to death to just keep it rightside up.

But anyway, learning to hover is a big step forward - a major accomplishment - and it can be done with a minimum of wreckage if you do three things:
1) use training gear
2) stay low - within a foot of the ground
3) stay within a safe area, and if you drift outside that area set it down and pick it up by hand and set it back in the center of your working area.

This strategy should be followed until you can lift off and hover within no more than a 2 foot radius and set it down with no horizotal movement, and while keeping the heli pointed in any direction; nose in, nose out, left, right... and all in between. When that feels comfortable remove the training gear and work on it some more without the gear.

When that's mastered, on a calm day, take it outside and get up some forward speed and then stop and hover. The objective is to hold a constant altitude while doing that. Then work on ground reference maneuvers, flying circles around something, box patterns, figure 8's.

A simulator is an excellent investment. Even the free FMS simulator is excellent for developing the reflexes for correct control input with various orientations. A simulator is really the best place to start, because the terror-factor, as far as the wallet is concerned, is zero. It doesn't cost a dime to crash.

[Aztek1701]

Hi there,

The Blade CX or twister B47 is a great choice for learning on. You might like to visit RADDS school and follow through the lessons there. They are worth it.

http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html

Take care and good luck with it.... Azzy

[uneverno]

Originally Posted by chaos

2) stay low - within a foot of the ground

Not sure if coaxial is affected in the same way that single rotor is, but the only thing I might tweek here is that I find it much easier to maintain hover at about 1 1/2 to 3 feet. At around a foot and below, ground effect seriously affects the heli. It's much more stable at about 2 ft or so. Maintaining constant altitude is the important thing here in any case, not necessarily what the altitude is. Keeping low to the ground helps minimize damage when you cram the throttle to zero in a panic, which I still do

Other than that, concur with what the other guys have said. Especially with regard to the sim and the flight school. Take it easy and try not to panic. Key with helis is to learn to anticipate what they're going to do. They require constant correction - many small inputs are the key - and unlike a plane, the heli won't "correct" itself. Every action you take has to be terminated, or the heli will keep doing it. (Not to mention doing unanticipated things on their own )
CX helps a great deal with that as coaxial is more stable than single rotor.

[Jeff0r3]

My advice would be to Save your money on another purchase of a helicopter, go get Realflight G3.5 and play on it for a couple of weeks. You'll get so good at flight on the simulator, that you'll probably just go and get a battery for the helicopter that you have already charge it and once you get yourself oriented with the controls, within a few battery charges you'll be glad that you saved your money and will be ready to move on to something more fun and challenging. Again, I'm only quoting what Chaos is saying but it is very true.

Chaos says:

A simulator is really the best place to start, because the terror-factor, as far as the wallet is concerned, is zero. It doesn't cost a dime to crash.

Although, I have a Simulator and I have 2 Helicopters one electric and one nitro. And I get upset when the weather is bad and I could be flying, I would love to have a Blade CX for indoors flight(My livingroom would be perfect flight area). So no matter which order you chose, you can't go wrong...

Just don't let it scare you and don't let it sit anymore. Your Helicopter, no matter how good you get or how well you can fly, is destined to crash, its a fact and is going to happen...

Good Luck with it!

Jeff

[chaos]

uneverno says,

At around a foot and below, ground effect seriously affects the heli.

... and of course that's exactly right. However, the harassment that flying in your own turbulence provides is good for you. You have to get on the stick like stink on poo... no time to daydream. Conspiracies of air currents pop up like booby traps and send the heli in some direction... and you need to develop a "quick draw" response, and not too much, but right away and in the correct direction. But if you get swamped you can just dump the throttle and you're all in one peice (assuming training gear). I have spent hours trying to hover over a particular stain on the carpet, a couple inches off the ground, and sometimes the heli will just stay there briefly but I know not to let my guard down because it's gonna start to dart off in some direction pretty soon. It's hard to remember to relax while doing this, but try. Some days I can do this better than others... something to do with the "zen of hovering", I guess.

Landing with style. I see lots of people get the heli somewhere near the ground and just dump it. That's an "arrival". What I mean by landing with style is simply that you hold tight control over the thing all the way down to a light touch with the ground, and then power down. Like uneverno says, it gets all quirrely the last little bit before reaching the ground, and so you just have to be extra alert and work a bit harder; and try to stay relaxed.

Everybody I know who started this heli thing - myself included - has been in a big hurry to bore holes in the sky, because - I guess - they consider that to be what "flying" is all about. But with these heli things, you're flying when you're hovering and not going anyplace, and the less 'going' you do the better the hover is. When you can do a real good hover real low you will have a great deal more skill than an observer would guess, and that skill will help a lot with any other maneuver.

[Bigpyro]

Originally Posted by heliguy55

About 13 months ago I got a Walkera dragonfly 22e, it was really hard to fly and i crashed it twice. I let this hobby sit for a while and now i want to buy a new heli that is easy for a first time pilot. Any sugesstions?? Not too expensive and easy to fly.

I would reccomend buying something that your local hobby shop stocks parts for. I purchased my heli while out of town and none of my shops stock the parts. I have to order them every time I need something.