Beginner needs advice

[DemonDazzler]

I've always wanted a heli, ultimately a scale model but having to start somewhere my wife bought me a Honeybee 2.

I went along to my local club where most members were sarcastic and suggested the best thing to do would be to leave it in the box. However, one member, somewhat reluctantly, took it up in the air and was seemingly quite impressed.

Since that time l have been trying to hover in my small back garden with little success and a lot of damage.

l've been looking around and reading everything l can find for advice, which seems to be mixed.

Some say l should start with a co-axial whilst others say something like a Walkera CB100 is small enough to fly indoors to get plenty of practice. Other advice goes to the opposite extreme and suggests starting with CP is best and the e-flite Blade SR because the controls can be adjusted for smooth and easy operation for beginners.

So, at the moment l have a surfeit of information and don't know which way to turn.

Clear, concise advice will be greatly appreciated.

[robbo45]

hi you would be better with a co_axial to start with to learn stick work with and they are a little more stable ,and would be better in your little garden efite cx2 a good model to start with. the honey bee 2 is a hard heli to control even for someone who can fly well ,so put her on the shelf to you get better and save your money for the co axial

[BiG-T]

Hi Best advice I was given get a copy of Pheonix flight sim and practice on that until you are a little more confident, keep tail in to start. Are you using training gear it works for some I found it frustrated me and I seemed to have as many accidents with it as without it in the end I put 500 landing gear on my 450 sport and preferred this. I bought a MSR and flew that indoors but this was before the MCPX came out if the budget will stretch get one they bounce really well and the cost can soon be out weighed against spares on your Honeybee.

[challis349]

There are many factors that need to be addressed and looked into when choosing a first heli, size, space, crash costs etc...

I had a cb100, not the greatest and soon moved upto a trex 450, the thing is with heli's is, the bigger they are, the more stable they are, but at the same time, it costs more to crash them.

Phoenix is a must imo, I sold my copy a few months back and seriously regret it, as it would be invaluable to me now.

It all depends on how much you want to spend, as to progress in the hobby, you will definitely need a programmable tx, and money, lots of it Haha.

If you are looking for something in the garden, get a dx6i and the eflite blade msr, people have suggested a mcpx for a beginner, but my thinking is its a little twitchy, and although flyable in a garden, as I do, for a beginner, they may well get frustrated, if you want a little bit bigger, look at the blade Sr120, fixed pitch again.

Just a few things to think about

Cheers

[DanWright]

Hi, and welcome.
I'd recommend phoenix flight sim. That's probably the best was to start, then buy yourself either a eflite blade msr, or if you want a CP heli get the eflite blade mcpx. Both small enough to fly indoors and will both teach you the basics with a very low crash cost. Ive flown my mcpx into the ground, many times, picked it up and started again without having to repair it.
But what ever you do, don't get a blade SR, it was one of the biggest mistakes I made and certainly doesn't fly Smoothly.
Hope this helps.

[Sharpedge]

I started on a big co-ax that was to big to fly inside and it was always too windy to fly it outside. Beware of co-ax and wind as they tend not to fly very well. This resulted in me chopping up the peace lily, scaring the cat to death and putting several rotor blade marks on the sofa "No honey I have no idea where they came from...."

I agree with Big T about sim time, you don't have to go with Phoenix if you don't like the price. I'm running Clear View (1/3 the price) and it works for me. Using the sim, learn to fly the simple models first (co-ax) and then the more advanced (Blade SR, 120SR), then the Blade SR. If you think that you would need to physically test your new skills on heli then I would skip the co-ax and go for a fixed pitch heli. You will most likely outgrow the co-ax very quickly, most do. It would be better to spend your money on something that you can fly inside when the weather is not great for flying, something like the msr would be great for this.

[waveydavey]

My advice would be to stick with what you've got, pointless spending more money, the King 2 does fly. Buy yourself some training gear for it and a larger space. Phoenix is a great aid to learning stick movements in the first place, especially as smaller models can be twitchy. Co-axials yes, but you've already go something that is capable of collective flight.

Just to prove that they do fly okay

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?...24000&hl=en-GB

[chrissy]

get yourself phoenix sim bud it will be the best move you make

[tiddler]

Can't stress enough how worthwhile the Phoenix sim is. It will be the one best heli related investment you could possibly make.
Oh, and its fun as well

[PeteStewardson]

I'm going to disagree with people a bit and say the Sim isn't for everyone. I can happily fly around in big figure 8's, hover in most orientations upright etc in real life but can't fly the Sim at all.

Firstly stay away from the CB100 or anything Walkera. They will either bankrupt you or just put you off forever.

MSR is a great heli for a bit of practice inside, nice and stable and takes the punishment when you run it into stuff ( which you will ) I started with this but didn't use it for long before moving to a big heli.

MCPx is the next step up from eFlight and it's pretty damn good for beginners. Takes a beating but generally you don't break too much.

You don't say where you are but before you go any further I'd suggest you try and see if you can book a taster session with one of the training schools. Then you can decide if you want to really learn to fly helis, or just want something to mess about with inside.

[challis349]

I was like that Pete regarding the sim, but now I'm flipping and rolling, the sim would help me no end, now the dark nights are coming in

[PeteStewardson]

What I'm saying is the sim isn't for everyone. I only use it now for the hover training bit to learn stick movements. Learnign inverted hovering so I can try it for real some time.

[horsham rc]

the sim will get you to the point of thinking you can fly a helicopter IF you treat the sim as your helicopter.
treat the sim as a toy you will get nowhere. if you get a sim i found the biger helis (raptor 50) alot easier to fly than most.
eflight blade have loads of spares and are cheep to fix so a good choice.
good luck and ENJOY .

[derrick]

Any sim will do to start with, even the free ones will teach you basic stick movement, you can always get a better sim if you stay with the hobby, the bigger the heli the more stable, a 450 would be the smallest one i would go for, training gear is a must, and do not try to rush anything nice and slowly does it,

[DemonDazzler]

I like to thank all of you for the warm welcome you have extended to me and the time and effort that you have put-in to help and advise.

I do have the Pheonix Flight Simulator and I have a training kit for the Honeybee. The Training Kit has certainly helped me get the heli off the ground - it's done more for me than the simulator which I will go back to and practice.

There seems to be a big no-no for Walkera and some don't like the Blade SR so that's stopped me making one mistake. There's also a general consensus that bigger is better in that the bigger helis are more stable so I'll bear that in mind.

As I said, ultimately I'd like to fly a scale model; not interested in 3D although I can see why it would appeal to many.

What is interesting is that nobody has actually come out for or against fixed or collective pitch. A book I read recently said always go for collective pitch with a shaft driven tail because then you only have one learning curve - is he right?

Kind regards to all