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Ok, first off I know that most people on this board don't go in for the tiny little electrics, especially the uber-cheap-and-nasty chinese ones. But I was on a business trip to Seattle, was sitting in a wind-tunnel for 12 hours a day and a hotel room for the other 12, and wanted something to play with.
I was wandering around a large electronics store and found a little PicoZ for 30 dollars (~15 quid) and bought one of them. Hovered it around my room for a while and decided I wanted something a bit more complex.
So I found a hobby store and, to his huge credit, the guy behind the counter pretty much pleaded with me to buy a simulator before buying anything else. They happened to stock Realflight G3.5 so I bought that. I was hovering pretty well within an hour or two and doing 3D nonsense within a couple of days.
I went back to the shop and, mindful of the fact that I only had either my room or the underground parking lot of the hotel to fly it in, looked for a small electric RTF. I also was thinking of how to get it back to the UK so looked for the tiniest thing I could find, which turned out to be the Walkera 52.
It's plasticy, not actually so cheap, is a bit twitchy and fits in the palm of your hand but actually does hover ok. Mine came with only a 300mah battery so it runs out pretty quickly but because it's so small, you can make some of your own spare parts.
I broke the carbon-fibre tail-boom that it came with so replaced it with a similar size piece of aluminium I bought for about 50 cents in a hobby shop. The plastic tail-strike protector (protects the tail rotor from impacting the ground) broke so I replaced it with a paperclip!!
It's given me hours of fun so far and cost me £100, and has now inspired me to move up to a 450 size. Despite the (probably excellent) advice of some of the guys on this board I went for what looks like a Trex clone off ebay, which should arrive in about a week. I'd love to get a proper Trex, but for the moment this will have to do.
I was wandering around a large electronics store and found a little PicoZ for 30 dollars (~15 quid) and bought one of them. Hovered it around my room for a while and decided I wanted something a bit more complex.
So I found a hobby store and, to his huge credit, the guy behind the counter pretty much pleaded with me to buy a simulator before buying anything else. They happened to stock Realflight G3.5 so I bought that. I was hovering pretty well within an hour or two and doing 3D nonsense within a couple of days.
I went back to the shop and, mindful of the fact that I only had either my room or the underground parking lot of the hotel to fly it in, looked for a small electric RTF. I also was thinking of how to get it back to the UK so looked for the tiniest thing I could find, which turned out to be the Walkera 52.
It's plasticy, not actually so cheap, is a bit twitchy and fits in the palm of your hand but actually does hover ok. Mine came with only a 300mah battery so it runs out pretty quickly but because it's so small, you can make some of your own spare parts.
I broke the carbon-fibre tail-boom that it came with so replaced it with a similar size piece of aluminium I bought for about 50 cents in a hobby shop. The plastic tail-strike protector (protects the tail rotor from impacting the ground) broke so I replaced it with a paperclip!!
It's given me hours of fun so far and cost me £100, and has now inspired me to move up to a 450 size. Despite the (probably excellent) advice of some of the guys on this board I went for what looks like a Trex clone off ebay, which should arrive in about a week. I'd love to get a proper Trex, but for the moment this will have to do.
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