eletric helicopters help.

[NoFlyZone]

hi fellas,
Im not really up on these electric helis, having flown raptors in early 2003, so I am a little puzzled on what to get now as a starting point to get back into this great pastime.

can anyone shed to light on what to get as a starting point, also want to teach my 11 yr old son to fly helis, so something of a trainer/indoor craft would be required too.

I have had a look on Fast Lad on the xmas period and found an Eflite blade 400 with Tx for myself, and the MSR for the lad/myself to practice with indoors and Pheonix flight sim, or would you suggest something else?
I want to try and stay away from nitro for the time being as I dont have anywhere to fly a flown blown ballistic missile yet

Any help or suggestions would be greatful in getting myself and my son into this great hobby again.

thanks in advance,

Neil

[MartinH]

Buy Phoenix and mSR, cant go wrong with that combo.
Maybe a blade cx for your little one.

[sacko]

Phoenix and a Blade 400 sound good.

A step up from the B400 would be the trex 450 Sport, with Spektrum DX6i and AR6110 reciever..

All depends on ££

[est1976]

yeah the servo's in the blade 400 arent the best and every crash means changing servo gears, I upgraded mine to HS65mg's, also the tail servo and gyro arent much kop either .. again another upgrade. You'd be better off getting a trex 450 (sport or pro) if the funds permit if you can avoid the align 410 servos and get something like the hs65mgs or the digital hs5065mg's, some fo the trex combos come with a GP750 gyro, I got one with my trex 250 its a great gyro. The msr would be great for learning on indoors for both you and your son.

[NoFlyZone]

thanks for the replies, guys..

sacko, I did glance at the Trex 450/500 as a cold winters evening build (teachs the lad to build/repair as to just flying/crashing then " Dad, fix this" scenario ).

Has the sims caught up with "real" flying yet , as I remember you could "fly" helis in sim but were nothing like the twitchy little suckers in real life, have they got so reponsive its like the real thing now?

I was actually looking at the Aurora 9 for a Tx, as I have always fancied scale, and possibly "futureproof" the Tx for at least a couple of years.
can you bind a MSR to the Aurora or would it be a case of swapping out the Rx?

budget wise I have a grand to play with now but I was adding extra batteries, charger, tools, blades, "breakables" etc, but thats if I RTF as a build the cost is spread over a couple of weeks I guess the budget would be nearer £1500.00.

not that i want to get out there and try my luck to see how much I remember (ouch, thats gonna cost £££, if I recall correctly ) or not as the case may be.

Cheers

Neil

[sacko]

Phoenix is much more realistic, still not quite perfect but then id never expect it to be.

The Hitec Aurora wont be able to the Spektrum rx in the MSR.

If you have that amount to spend, start looking for good second hand gear

Heli - Trex 450 Sport/Pro, 500
Transmitter - DX7, Hitec Aurora 9, JR DSX9, Futaba CD
Lipos - Maxpoly, Loongmax from Giantcod
Charger - Cellpro 10s (charges lipos only), cellpro 4s multi (charges a variety of batteries)

[est1976]

If your set on the Aurora 9 then you could always get the MSR with the bundled controller rather than the BNF option.

[sacko]

Can you get a Hitec receiver that small?

[NoFlyZone]

Oops, my bad..of course the MSr is micro Doh!!!!
still I did say I knew nothing about leccy helis

Est1976, nothing is ever set in stone, I was looking for opinions/suggestions.

my thoughts so far are MSR with 6dxi ( to which the lad has his own TX when he moves to bigger helis) for practice and sim.
Aurora 9 for myself (solely for sim whilst I build whatever Heli I choose)
Pheonix Sim
Trex 450/500 as a kit so i can choose components Gyro. servos etc to build whilst I get my hand/ eye back in.

but nothing is set in stone , if you guys can suggest anything different shout out, I bow to your experience.

Cheers
Neil

[sacko]

Go for the Align Super Combo deals, works out much cheaper and its really good kit imo

[est1976]

I agree gt a 450 super combo kit, if anything replace the servo's straight away as the 410's arent the most reliable. Just sell them on and get the 5065mgs.

Will the aurora 9 work with phoenix? Its pretty new isnt it.

[NoFlyZone]

est1976, Hmm you have hit on something there..

but the Aurora package I was looking at comes with 4 HS5485HB servos, so thats an immediate swapout for the kit servos.

as for sim practice I will have to share the DX6i with the lad until the aurora is compatable with Pheonix ( shouldnt take that long).

still have a day or two to mull this over as Fast Lad is closed for the new year period, so all suggestions, opinions and pointers are still greatly appreciated whilst we pick and choose..

wishing you all safe and happy landings throughout 2010..

Cheers
Neil

[Dedcalm]

The 5485's are standard sized servos so cant be used with a 450 or similar heli.

The only 2 choices I believe are the 65MG's or the 5065MG's. I went for the 5065's as they are digital with my 450 - waiting for its build now...

Personally if you are planning to get your son a DX6i then it would probably be more sensible to go with a DX7 or if you really want 9 or more channels then go with a JR set (they use Spektrum 2.4GHz output). That way both Tx's could be programmed for all models and you could buddy together as well

The Aurorra is very new and to be honest Hitec has never been widely used in the UK (at least in my experience of the last 21 odd years).