Next Heli Recomendations

[Wolverine]

Hi, bad news, my Blade CX2 has flew away on me. Gust of wind taken it quite high so had to bring it down quickly and I now cant find it. Ive spent the last 3 hours looking around for it to no avail

Good news is that Christmas is only a week away and the other half said I can get a new helicopter. Now I loved the Blade CX2 and managed to fly quite proficianly, I'm thinking is time to upgrade to something bigger. Can anyone recommend any particuar models?

Also how different are other helpicopters to fly than the CX2? I want something that is slightly Bigger but fingers crossed, still quite easy to control. My budget is about £200

Also, will my TX work with a different helicopter? I see most of the decent ones dont come with a TX.

[Si_B]

If you could stretch to it, and have the space outside, I would go for something like a Blade 400. You could go for the MSR, but I don't think it will teach you much more than your CX2 which to be honest is very stable machine.

Cheers,

Simon

[Farmer Giles]

Flying a collective pitch (CP) heli is a whole world away from the contra rotating, very stable CX2.

I suggest you get a copy of Pheonix to practice on your computer. The £60 or £70 it costs you will be saved this first time you don't crash. Also with the crap weather you can still practice indoors and use the winter months to build up your budget again.

2p

[tiddler]

Yup, if the only thing you have flown so far is a CX2, then its defiantly worth going for the Phoenix sim before you consider trying anything other than another Coaxial or maybe the little mSR bnf.
I was able to try Phoenix in my lhs before buying it. So if you know anyone that's got it, give it a try and you will see just how different and harder to control single rotor helis are compared to what you have flown so far.
When you do eventually decide to take the next step, your better of spending out on a decent cp heli rather than one of the cheaper ones as they are just too hard to fly as a beginner.

Ps, Your CX2 transmitter will work well with Phoenix and will bind to any Spektrum receiver of 5 channels or less.

[Si Goodchild]

Another vote of support for the suggestions above. Phoenix will pay for itself dozens of times over. The good news is that a decent CP heli with a fairly constant headspeed will be a lot easier to bring down when a gust takes it away. The trouble with fixed-pitch and contra helis is that you have to slow the rotor down to come down and that basically turns your aircraft into a paperweight in flight.

The blade 400 is an excellent suggestion: flies well, is well supported for spares etc, uses standard blades and comes bundled with a tx that will work with phoenix. You may get a secondhand one for £200 but you'll need to increase your budget a fair bit to get the heli, tx, phoenix, some extra batteries and a decent charger. The blade 400 is already "set-up" so there's none of the headache associated with building, say, a trex 450 from parts. I understand that the Belt CP V2 is pretty good too, for the price.

Beware cheap helis at this point: "buy cheap and buy twice" is a motto I've come unstuck with several times.

If you want to deviate from this then come back to this forum before you put your hand in your pocket.

here to help,

Si G

[EtheAv8r]

Wolverine

There is good advice above, and a CP helicopter is definitely the way to go. However it needs to be flexible in set-up so it can be tamed for you to learn on and made ‘sharper’ and more responsive and capable as you gain skills. The Blade 400 is without doubt a good helicopter, but as someone experienced with both at your level, the Thunder Tiger Innovator is better in so so many ways.

I sincerely believe that the TT Innovator is the best first CP helicopter available today – and it has the flexibility and capability to really take you a long way on your RC helicopter journey. Very robust, very stable, very easy to fly with calm settings, very easy to set up and repair. New they are well above you budget of £200, but quite frankly you need to be able to spend more to get quality, reliability and a practical long term flying machine. The TT Innovator MD 530 was the machine that finally got me successfully flying a CP machine and took me from hovering to forward flight, to circuits to stall turns and loops. It is a really good sports machine, and is very robust – I have actually flown into trees and sustained no damage other than having to replace the foam/plastic blades! I have progressed from foam/plastic blades to wood and now am on carbons.

I have both the Innovator MD530 (with the EXP canopy) and the Innovator EXP. I tend to fly the EXP mainly now – so am thinking of selling the MD 530 machine simply because I have too many machines to fly and it now gets little use. I don’t know where you are – but if reasonably nearby I will gladly show it to you. I will be looking for £235 for it fully complete with 2.4 Tx, set-up and ready to fly with a few spares.

[simon1]

Wolverine

There is good advice above, and a CP helicopter is definitely the way to go. However it needs to be flexible in set-up so it can be tamed for you to learn on and made ‘sharper’ and more responsive and capable as you gain skills. The Blade 400 is without doubt a good helicopter, but as someone experienced with both at your level, the Thunder Tiger Innovator is better in so so many ways.

I sincerely believe that the TT Innovator is the best first CP helicopter available today – and it has the flexibility and capability to really take you a long way on your RC helicopter journey. Very robust, very stable, very easy to fly with calm settings, very easy to set up and repair. New they are well above you budget of £200, but quite frankly you need to be able to spend more to get quality, reliability and a practical long term flying machine. The TT Innovator MD 530 was the machine that finally got me successfully flying a CP machine and took me from hovering to forward flight, to circuits to stall turns and loops. It is a really good sports machine, and is very robust – I have actually flown into trees and sustained no damage other than having to replace the foam/plastic blades! I have progressed from foam/plastic blades to wood and now am on carbons.

I have both the Innovator MD530 (with the EXP canopy) and the Innovator EXP. I tend to fly the EXP mainly now – so am thinking of selling the MD 530 machine simply because I have too many machines to fly and it now gets little use. I don’t know where you are – but if reasonably nearby I will gladly show it to you. I will be looking for £235 for it fully complete with 2.4 Tx, set-up and ready to fly with a few spares.

MMMM, liked the look of the Innovator, would have to sell my mini titan and other bits to fund it thoughLooks a bit different to the norm and I like that Keep me posted?

[tiddler]

MMMM, liked the look of the Innovator, would have to sell my mini titan and other bits to fund it thoughLooks a bit different to the norm and I like that Keep me posted?

I've also got an Innovator, and I love it.