Blade mCPX V2 - Initial thoughts

[Peteski]

Having progressed on the sim and flown the crap out of my Nano QX quad for a couple of months, plus a few nervous but successful flights with my 130X I decided to buy an mCPX for indoor hovering practice and garden/park flying. If I'm honest I was a bit intimidated by its reputation as a tricky flyer and not beginner friendly, but after a nervous and frustrating start I'm now getting to grips with it. My initial thoughts after 2 days are as follows:-

Day 1 - I programmed my DX8 with some very conservative "beginner" settings from John Salt's micro set-up guide, tuned the swash level (it wasn't!) and zero pitch (it wasn't!), charged the battery and gave it a go in the bedroom. Result - total failure to even get it off the ground! After about 10 attempts to lift it up without tipping I admitted defeat and retreated with my tail between my legs. I guess it's really not beginner friendly at all!

Day 2 - Having slept on it, I decided to give it another go in the morning. But this time I dialled in a fair bit more throttle and a tad more pitch. Up she went immediately and I got into a nice stable hover. Great I thought, this isn't so tricky after all. Then about 10 sec later for no reason at all it suddenly rolled full left and slammed into the ground. Luckily no damage from 4 feet into the carpet. I knew something was wrong as I certainly didn't ask for max left cyclic! So I dusted it down and this time spooled it up slowly on the ground. Again after about 10 sec the left servo suddenly jumped full low and tipped it over. Reset and then the left servo was not responding at all, so definitely a fault. So before sending it back I decided to try unplugging and plugging the servo back into the board. Success, it must have been a dodgy connection as it worked perfectly from then on.

So back in the air and on to the next issue - massive vibration and tail wagging. Back to the bench and found that the main gear was not correctly aligned with the "D" flat on the main shaft. Re-seated the main gear correctly and at least half the vibration was gone and the tail had stopped wagging. Then finally a bit of tape on one blade cured most of the remaining vibration and it was finally good to fly and surprisingly very stable in a hover. So not exactly bnf then but Google can be a wonderful tool.

Then I ran about 6 packs through it, with a couple of flights in the garden and I'm now actually very impressed with it. It's much easier to control than I had expected and slow circuits were quite manageable even on full rates in a bit of gusty wind. Indoor hovering is also no problem providing the room is a reasonable size, but you certainly wouldn't want to run this thing into any expensive furniture, kids, pets or yourself!

So in summary I think it's going to be a great low cost CP trainer for me, that I can safely fly in the garden/park and hover about in the house. But I'm really glad I held off on this purchase until I'd had a good 2 months on the sim, mCX2 and Nano QX. If this had been my first heli I don't think I would have stood a chance. It's a fearsome beast compared to the mCX2 but I can now confirm first hand that it flies much like the Nano QX, except it feels a fair bit heavier and much more powerful. The difference is that the Nano QX is totally harmless in an indoor crash where this could do some pretty serious damage. So on that basis I really have to hold back when flying this indoors. I would imagine the smaller Nano CPX is even closer to the nQX in feel. I may just add one of those at some point too!

Finally, this positive experience has now made me seriously question my next step. My original plan was to get a 200 SRX for solo outdoor training in the local park, but I'm struggling to see the point now that I'm confident I can fly the mCPX and 130X I already have. If I was in a position to join a club and fly in a safe place I'd be all over a 550 or 600 at this point, but unfortunately I simply don't have the time right now. But I can get out to a very quiet park and probably local farmland as I live in a rural village. I'm thinking 450 might be the biggest I could get away with without causing any trouble with the locals, but perhaps that's for another thread.

[myxiplx]

Sounds like you're progressing nicely. You'll find the mCPX a great trainer, far better than the 200SRX would have been. You probably won't need the nCPX now, I'd save your money and put it towards a bigger one if I were you.

Give yourself another month or two on the ones you have, and bear in mind that if you're interested in trying it out, with the mCPX you can start learning flips and inverted flight once you get the hang of it, that's great when you get it but really does take some time to sink in. When you start inverted it's almost like learning to fly all over again, so it's ideal to work on early on while you're still learning all the reflexes.

The mCPX is a great trainer, because it's so small and agile you will develop great reflexes, and by the time you move up to something like a 450 size it'll feel like you're flying in slow motion. Learning on a micro makes the big ones feel really easy.

You'll love the big ones though, the first few flights on a large heli usually has the heart going, it's not unusual to have to land because you're physically shaking from the adrenaline!

[Peteski]

Thanks, I think I'll take your advice and keep plugging away on the models I have for now, plus the sim of course. I'm finding that holding back a bit at each stage is making progress a lot smoother and painless. Once I'd got over the teething troubles with the mCPX I was quite comfortable flying it around the room from the moment I finally got it to take off without shaking itself to pieces. So I guess 300+ flights on the nQX and many hours on the sim did help. I got a couple more flights in the garden with the mCPX today and it felt great. Just need a bit more space to open it up a bit now. Also gave the nQX a few flights to compare. I can obviously push the nQX a lot harder at this stage and it's still great fun to fly in the garden. But the mCPX certainly feels bigger and much more powerful. I'm really looking forward to getting more time on my 130X too.

I'm not in a hurry to get into inverted flight, but have already played on the sim and can do simple rolls and loops okay and just about hover inverted, but I'm absolutely nowhere with my inverted orientations! As you say it feels just like starting all over again. To be honest I'm not really interested in 3D flying but I do want to be able to perform scale aerobatics and basic inverted flight. I'm sure it will help my overall flying if I can learn basic 3D moves.

I'm really looking forward to flying a large heli now, but unfortunately that's going to be a long way off for me yet due to other hobbies and a young family taking up my weekends. So micros are going to play a big part for me in this hobby for the next year or two, with perhaps a 450 as the biggest size I will fly this year.

[Peteski]

I finally got the mCPX out to the field this afternoon for a couple of flights. With a bit more space I thought it was great fun. It's certainly fast and nimble but pretty stable too for its tiny size. I thought I'd be holding onto my hat flying this for the first time, but it was surprisingly controlled. I didn't try anything out of my comfort zone, but I was happy flying fairly quick circuits. Also flew my 130X and that was great too and with no mishaps. So my plan now is to put some decent mileage on these two micros ahead of getting a 450 size for the summer. I'll definitely skip the 200 SRX I had originally planned now.