1 month in and still here! A few thoughts on starting out

[Peteski]

Go with a 450 if I were you - either an "old style" 325mm 450 or one of the newer 360mm 450's (eg. Gaui X3, Forza 450EX, Align 450L, Blade 360cfx). In a local park with a 2-year old around you really don't want anything larger than that. To be honest, I'd be a bit careful even at that - 2 year olds can be very unpredictable which is the last thing you want when you're concentrating on flying a 450 sized CP heli.

I know it's not much bigger, but in that scenario, the Blade 180CFX might be a good compromise too - I personally rate it in preference to a 250 sized heli.

In the next year I think I'll probably end up with a fleet of small helis. The 180 CFX certainly appeals as a step up from the 130X - especially as my Red Bull 130X is really more of a novelty scale flyer than something to learn new moves with. I was even thinking about buying a standard 130X, but they seem to be hard work to keep flying. The 180 CFX seems like a winner in this class. My fleet could end up consisting of something like mCPX + 180CFX + Oxy 3 + Gaui X3 or maybe Blade 360CFX. I'd be more than happy with that lot to play with Also gives me more options when the little ones are around.

[tomatwalden]

180cfx is so better than the 130x. The 130x is calmer/lighter/lower head speed, but it's a b*****d to keep reliable. The 180cfx is heavier, more powerful and consequently higher head speeds, but it's just so much better thought out, and orders of magnitude more reliable.

[Peteski]

There are a few things to weigh up as you move up in size, you have to think of cost, flying locations, safety, crash costs, as well as size of the helicopter and how well it's going to fly. And as you're finding there are a lot of choices out there :-D

Exactly, quite a lot to think about! Cost is probably the least of my worries, but I certainly don't like wasting money. I live out in the sticks, so there are plenty of large fields right on my doorstep but dog walking seems to be a major pastime in our village. So I'd say my biggest concerns are size and safety, especially as I will usually be flying solo or with the little ones. The Oxy 3 does sound like a great option for me as a flagship model. It's certainly expensive enough that I wouldn't want to be crashing it too often, but it doesn't appear too expensive to run and 3s batteries for it are cheap.

[honwal]

I know you have sort of ruled out the200srx, but it would probably fill a stop gap for you for now, not too much to buy BNF, easy to repair, fairly easy in first two modes to fly, with a couple of simple mods you can transform 200, a great park flyer,

[Peteski]

I'm sure the 200SRX would make a really fun park flyer in its own right, but I always viewed it as a pure trainer rather than a model I really aspired to fly. At this point on my learning curve I'd much prefer the 180CFX in that size and they only cost about £15 more. I'm now wondering if I should pick up a 180CFX before I build something more exotic like the Oxy 3. My wife would probably go nuts though!

[myxiplx]

Once you're at the point of wanting to do piro flips, or tic-tocks, a 180CFX or Oxy3 would be a great next step.

Until then though I recommend you keep on flying. It's very easy to get carried away with the shopping part of this hobby, and forget how much fun you can have just flying the fleet you've got. You can learn to hover and fly in every single upright or inverted orientation with the models you have, and can work up to pie dishes and funnels too which helps you learn the edge on orientations.

There's a whole heap of stuff you can have fun with within that flight envelope :-D

PS. Feel free to take this advice with a pinch of salt, I struggle to go two weeks without buying *something* for my fleet lol.

[Peteski]

Absolutely agree and I fully intend to keep flying and learning with the models I already have. But I do also want to get into the tech/build side of things too and have something a bit more special to aspire to flying. My thought on the 180CFX was that it would make a good beater to push my skills on alongside my mCPX. My Red Bull 130X is not really intended to be crashed too often - it looks pretty fragile!

[Peteski]

So a few more months on and my fleet has grown with the addition of a Blade 180 CFX and Lynx OXY 3. Both have worked out really well for me. I flew the 180 while I was building up my OXY 3 and it really gave me the confidence boost I was looking for. Just coming up to 100 flights on it now without missing a beat and it's led me into basic inverted flight, flips, rolls, loops and moving piros. It's now taken over from the mCPX as my daily beater, although I still enjoy flying the little mCPX around the garden - it's still the best size for that. My Red Bull 130X has been sat on the shelf for over a month now since it developed a sloppy tail, but I finally got round to fixing it this week, so hopefully will be back in action soon for some smooth scale flying. I actually miss flying this heli.

The OXY 3 was my first complete heli build and so I took my time over it. In the end it turned out to be a very easy build and most of the time was spent learning about the FBL setup, another learning curve to go through. But it was an enjoyable experience and the end result was very rewarding. It flew perfectly on its maiden and now after 32 flights and a bit more FBL tweaking it feels awesome! It's still a small heli, but the quality is top notch and it flies superbly well. This will be my flagship heli for the next year or so and then I may look at something a bit bigger - but I'm not looking to go any bigger than 360 for convenience of flying. Actually the OXY 3 is so good that I'm even wondering whether or not to bother with the 360 class at all.

It seems a long way back now to when I started at Christmas and I've made more progress than I could have expected, but as with most skills the learning curve is flattening out now and each new step is taking longer and longer to master. But my interest is still growing and most importantly it's still a lot of fun!

Thanks again everyone for all the help and advice too. It's been invaluable all along.

Cheers, Pete

[tomatwalden]

LOL, join the list of those addicts before you who've stated similarly careful intentions ...

..... This will be my flagship heli for the next year or so and then I may look at something a bit bigger...

I give it 6 months tops!

but I'm not looking to go any bigger than 360 for convenience of flying. ...

I'll put £5 on a 500 size or bigger by this time next year!

[myxiplx]

Hehe, yup. I swore blind I was going to stick to a budget in this hobby.... didn't do too badly in the first year, but now I've somehow ended up with a fleet of heli's and I'm starting to eye up 700 electrics.... o_0

[Peteski]

There's one thing holding me back from getting into larger helis. I actually gave up working last year to look after our 2 daughters (5 and 2) and I just don't have time to fly at a club. Luckily there are loads of empty fields where we live, but I've nearly always got a little person in tow so I need to be really careful. In the summer months I can usually sneak in a solo flying session in the evening, but it needs to be a quick grab and go and the smaller helis work well for that too.

So my plan is to stay with the smaller models (up to 450/360 size) until our youngest starts school in a couple of years and then I'll probably look into joining a club and going large! In the meantime I'm sure I'll end up with at least one or two more small helis. Maybe a Gaui X3 or other quality 360 and possibly the upcoming OXY 2 as an upgrade from my 180 CFX. But for this year I'm definitely going to concentrate on the actual flying!

[myxiplx]

Yeah, kids soon eat up your time don't they. Last year it was very rare I got chance at the weekends to get to the club or an event, my girls are a little older than yours now (5 and 8) so aren't quite as demanding on my time now. Has to be said though, I was surprised at how welcoming the local club has been. A lot of the fellas there have kids that are grown up now, and they actively encouraged me to bring the kids up if that meant I had chance to fly, and offered to watch them for me while I was in the air.

And this year I was amazed to find my girls actually asking if we were going to be able to go out for a picnic at the flying field, while they're not interested in the helicopters at all, it turns out they both love a day out in a field :-D

[tomatwalden]

LOL. Last time I took my girls (7 and 9 years respectively) to the flying field, they loved it. I later found out that they'd been "producing" a video with my iPad. Took me a while to delete all the weird video clips from it to make it useable again as they'd completely filled it up!

[Peteski]

My girls quite like a trip to the field too, but their attention span is rather short! The eldest (5) will encourage me to do multiple "loop the loops" while the youngest (2) shouts "crash it daddy, crash it!". Unfortunately my wife isn't interested in the slightest, just sees it all as a waste of time, but she doesn't try to stop me either.

[Granpappy]

My kids (32 & 29) just think I'm weird. So I try to prove them right by going out whenever I can and flying the hell out of everything.