Hi and have messed up my HBv2

[Primalife]

so Hi,
I have a honey bee v2 which was bought as a 40th birthday present for me. RC Heli's had always been on one of my 'thats a luxury hobby I probably cant' afford lists. but I started getting out and flying in short stints - I got the free flight sim setup and did hours on that too. although I can easily maintain a hover on the flight sim - but not for real.

Unfortunately most of my 'flights' have resulted in waiting for postman to deliver something to patch my honey bee back together. So after a while I started buying some more robust parts, I upgraded to the extreme metal head/swash plate etc. which went ok and reinforced fibre blades. I recently upgraded the tail to a direct drive, but when I was flying this weekend the heli was constantly wanting to turn clockwise - I had the trim set right over and it was still turning very slowly. should I have shortened the boom? it seems this new motor was just too powerful or something.
Having said that this weekend was a genuinely new experience I got through 3 full battery charges before breaking anything (still crashing though - but more gently) - usually in hover/chaos trying not to crash (hover sounds a bit grand for what it really is) but uptime seemed to be regularly 10-30 seconds now.

Interested in any thoughts

My thoughts are going down the route of getting a better simulator and maybe Dx6i or something - but I don't think that will work with my honey bee.

Thanks

[Scooby1doo1]

Hi

My first heli was a bee, bought from feebay with all alloy upgrades. I could hover it with a full pack no probs, any thing else ended in a crash. Super glue fixed most times apart from when a blade snapped after hitting a metal post at work.

Sim helped me more then that thing did, was just to hard. Seen loads of YouTube vids of them flying, so if you master it a proper heli should be simples to master.

Tried selling it on eBay with no joy, even broke it down to sell as spares sill no joy.
Now I have a trex as my sig states, and it's totally different and it respondes to stick movements.

As for it turning left or right mine did the same, could not be dialed out with trim or 4in1. So when I was in a hover I always had some stick inputs.

Crap iPhone alway puts an I insted of an i, just can't be botherd to keep pressing x to cancel it

[tiddler]

Hi Primalife and welcome to the forum.

Well you've made the same mistake so many people make when first entering this hobby, and that's getting a cheap rubbish heli
Sorry not trying to put you down, most of us have been there and done that as well.
Trying to learn on theses cheapo helis can be very counter productive tbh, cos they fly like a house brick and are just too dam hard too handle.

You mentioned the free simulators. Again, they are, I suppose better than nothing at all, but in comparison to a good sim they are pretty misleading rubbish as well

Now to the good bit
You say your considering getting a DX6i and a better sim That my friend is your best decision so far. The DX6i is a superb first radio, and coupled with the Phoenix simulator will teach you far more than the Honeybee ever will.
Once you've got the hang of the basics in the sim the DX6i will work with pretty much any of the recommended helis your likely to want to buy.

Hope you enjoy the hobby btw. Oh and you've definatly landed in a great place to come for advise.

[Scooby1doo1]

Hi Primalife and welcome to the forum.

Well you've made the same mistake so many people make when first entering this hobby, and that's getting a cheap rubbish heli
Sorry not trying to put you down, most of us have been there and done that as well.
Trying to learn on theses cheapo helis can be very counter productive tbh, cos they fly like a house brick and are just too dam hard too handle.

You mentioned the free simulators. Again, they are, I suppose better than nothing at all, but in comparison to a good sim they are pretty misleading rubbish as well

Now to the good bit
You say your considering getting a DX6i and a better sim That my friend is your best decision so far. The DX6i is a superb first radio, and coupled with the Phoenix simulator will teach you far more than the Honeybee ever will.
Once you've got the hang of the basics in the sim the DX6i will work with pretty much any of the recommended helis your likely to want to buy.

Hope you enjoy the hobby btw. Oh and you've definatly landed in a great place to come for advise.

I think you hit the nail right in the sweet spot, harsh but true.

[Lynx.1677]

I learnt on a HoneyBee (not v2) just over 2 years ago and found it a great learning heli. They are dirt cheap to fix and most of the time all that fixing required was straightening out the blades. It's easy to say they're sh*t as we all own nicer heli's but they taught me so much. I still have vids of me flying my Honey Bee at the field doing circuits in 10mph wind so it can be done. Not sure what the new one is like but could be that the gyro in the 4in1 is either faulty or just can't keep up with the new motor. I did that mod though and it worked well, just used to pulse the tail a bit more. You sure you have the correct sized tail blade on? It requires a much smaller tail blade than the stock one when you change to a DD motor.

I say stick with it until you can hover it in all orientations. Once you've licked that move up to something like a Blade or maybe even a Trex 450 of some kind.

There's a great Honey bee section on Heliguy and on Helifreak, they will probably have all the answers.

[tiddler]

I learnt on a HoneyBee (not v2) just over 2 years ago and found it a great learning heli.

Yeah but your a natural and could probably fly an actual house brick with a motor and blades screwed on to it Not like us mere mortals

There is I suppose, something to be said with gritting your teeth and getting to grips with one these hard to handle cheap helis. Cos if you can manage to fly one of them with any degree of success, you'll then be able to fly just about anything.

Oh and Phoenix is still one of the best ways to approach heli flying IMO

[Lynx.1677]

Lol!

Gritting the ol teeth seemed to work for me but I really used to enjoy my little bee. But yeah, if you can fly a bee you can fly anything!

[Primalife]

Thanks guys, I do have the right blade on it - yes its much smaller, I think it might just be twitchy as its now not doing it all the time - I have changed the batteries in my controller as I was getting servo twitch and its seems to be better on the tail now too but that could just be coincidence.
Anyway the good news is postman delivered phoenix the other day its just installing and going to patch in a sec.
So if the HB isn't that great and as I haven't bought the Dx6i yet, but I seem to be able to get goodish discounts if i buy with a heli - so without going crazy what would you say to go for a better specced smaller heli (trex 250 etc) or a more standard 450 or even interceptor 400 ? (although the T-Rex 450 Sport Super Combo looks nice)

thanks for your advice

Cheers

Steve

[murph]

In answer to the tail drifting, try centering the trim on your tx and adjusting the gain on the 4 in 1. If the gyro is working correctly by having the trim off centre means the heli is getting a constant input to turn the heli, so the gyro is countering that movement and so the heli turns without your input.
Secondly, if you're going to get a better heli, go for the Trex 450 (any version is good!) the trex 250 is too hard to fly IMO as it is very twitchy to get it to fly well. The 450 is MUCH better. If you have found a deal with the Sport and DX6i then defo go for it!