What was your learning process and first "proper" heli?

[NoFixedAbode]

I am a great fan of the mcpx. You can learn ALL the basics on it, cheap to repair etc.... if I had my time again I would like a trex 500. Never flown one....but I have the 550 which I do not think is in the learner class.

[Bikermurg]

My start was at this xmas with a honey bee fixed pitch v2, took ages to be able to do all orientations hovering and forward flight, crashed no end of times, suprisingly spent very little on fixing it as the parts were cheap, then in april when i knew i was hooked i spent a fair bit on phoenix sim, Dx6i and an mCPx. The sim is great to practice on and so is the mCPx, you could call it a real life sim as it really is hard to damage as it sort of bounces rather than crashes. Next step, who knows, 450, 500, 600, 700 ? will wait and see.

[Cagey]

One point to add to most of the already said is that you have to enjoy the process of learning rather than gritting your teeth, cursing and having to take a bag of bits home for repair ( yet again ) So with that in mind I'd deinitely recommend the mCPX route, because of it's renowned crash resistance and cheapness to repair, it generates a real fun factor that you will not get with anything bigger. I learnt most of the basics on a coax and went straight onto a Trex 450, believe me the number of soil hardness tests I carried out nearly had me giving up, cost didn't come into it, just bloody frustration and to be honest if I had an mCPX back then I'd have progressed much quicker.

[helimadness]

I had several 3 channels and they are fairly useless. I went from them and a sim to Trex 500 with good training gear. After about 40 flights took them of and shortly after had a couple of roll overs on take off but that was a setup issue. There is plenty of help here if you ever get stuck. I now am about 3 months in and starting to learn inverted in different orientations. I was pushing the learning curve fairly hard but only had my first real crash on the weekend after about a 120 flights. You can never say you wont crash but I was very very surprised at how far I got and how much I pushed it without crashing. It really has not been that big a deal.
Also try and stay a step ahead of your self on the sim. If you can get comfortable hovering side and nose in on the sim then I say you are ready for tail in on a 500.

[Pabs]

I am learning on a hirobo shuttle, raptor 30 and the sim, and a 450 clone. However, due to crash costs (although I haven't actually had a crash yet!) I'm very tempted with an mcpx to get me lots of flight time (I can't fly a nitro very often as not in a club yet) and fancy learning quicker - think the mcpx will get me doing some circuits and nose-in... I hope!

[Jez N]

I bought phoenix sim and a 450pro. Still use the 450 more than any other heli and if i could only keep one, i wouldnt even think twice.

It would be a tougher choice starting out nowadays as the mcpx would seem the obvious choice for learning orientation and having lots of fun in a cheap and sustainable way. Crashing the bigger helicopters can feel soul destroying at times, especially when every time you go out to the field, you come back with yet another broken part. But those days soon pass and you will have more crash free days than not!

[AcidDrink]

I had been advised to go for something like the Msrx so may opt for that. I always thought people that said they haven't crashed we're lying lol. You're the second person ive seen today who have said it....

No, we are not lying. I know quite a lot of people who rarely crash and have very few or no crashes during initial learning process and later.
It's about how you approach it. I've spent over 250 hours on simulator (I do it every day, no excuses, not that I need one, I enjoy it), practising, not fooling around, when I started, I asked a very good pilots how to practise and followed that advice very carefully. I literally spend 10s of hours doing slow pirouettes on the simulator (both upright and inverted) and on real heli.
It's also mental thing. If you accept this BS that "crashing is part of the hobby" early and treat crashes as something to brag about, then you will be crashing a lot, because you are going to treat it as normal thing. Same with mcpx, it encourages people to crash. People crash, I'll crash at some point, but it's not a normal event and nothing to brag about.
The truth is that crashes are caused by a faulty machine or it's the pilot who suck, can't fly and attempts maneuvers which he can't control - there is absolutely no need for this when you have a simulator. Treating the heli as full size aircraft helps a lot mentally as well.

Personally I consider pilots who crash a lot unsafe and stay away from them when they fly.


The result is that I pretty much can fly in any orientation without much trouble. I have preferred and ones which need work, but I don't really need to think how to move the sticks. Far from being a master, obviously.

I am careful pilot, but it's all about safety, I don't do maneuvers which I can't control 100% (unfortunately I see people flying beyond their skill level all the time, thankfully not at my club).

p.s. I've crashed my msr a lot when I couldn't fly. It's still going, no repairs at all

[PeteStewardson]

No, we are not lying. I know quite a lot of people who rarely crash and have very few or no crashes during initial learning process and later.
It's about how you approach it. I've spent over 250 hours on simulator (I do it every day, no excuses, not that I need one, I enjoy it), practising, not fooling around, when I started, I asked a very good pilots how to practise and followed that advice very carefully. I literally spend 10s of hours doing slow pirouettes on the simulator (both upright and inverted) and on real heli.
It's also mental thing. If you accept this BS that "crashing is part of the hobby" early and treat crashes as something to brag about, then you will be crashing a lot, because you are going to treat it as normal thing. Same with mcpx, it encourages people to crash. People crash, I'll crash at some point, but it's not a normal event and nothing to brag about.
The truth is that crashes are caused by a faulty machine or it's the pilot who suck, can't fly and attempts maneuvers which he can't control - there is absolutely no need for this when you have a simulator. Treating the heli as full size aircraft helps a lot mentally as well.

Personally I consider pilots who crash a lot unsafe and stay away from them when they fly.


The result is that I pretty much can fly in any orientation without much trouble. I have preferred and ones which need work, but I don't really need to think how to move the sticks. Far from being a master, obviously.

I am careful pilot, but it's all about safety, I don't do maneuvers which I can't control 100% (unfortunately I see people flying beyond their skill level all the time, thankfully not at my club).

p.s. I've crashed my msr a lot when I couldn't fly. It's still going, no repairs at all

The problem is Michal is that everyone is different. You say if you crash you suck, and that you should never crash because you should spend hours on the sim. That works FOR YOU, but doesn't work for everyone. The big problem with the sim is it's not like real life, the helis don't fly the same ( close but not the same ) and the depth isn't there. Some people it works for though. Me I don't get on with the sim at all, and to be honest one of the big reasons for taking up the hobby was to be out in the fresh air flying, not sat at a computer.

I did chuckle at the "unfortunately I see people flying beyond their skill level all the time" that's how you learn, you push beyond what you can do. If you never flew beyond your skill level you'd never have taken off in the first place

Everyone learns differently.

[Jez N]

It's a balance isn't it, between pushing to the next level, but not being reckless. No one wants to crash and put their hand in their pocket every time they go flying. But crashing is part of the hobby and at some point it will happen to most.

I also wouldnt imagine there are many people who 'brag' about crashing as it can dent your confidence and usually significantly dents your wallet. As someone who has only had a handfull of significant crashes i can say that learning things on the sim saves you a significant amount of rebuild time and cash. But i suspect that due to cost i dont push as hard as i could and that my progression has suffered for my unwillingness to push the envelope and potentially crash.

That said, the mcpx is the perfect mahcine in which to try that next move without the fear of crashing as it usually bounces and if not is very cheap to repair. Does it encourage people to crash, i dont think so. Does it encourage people to progress, most definitely.

[iceuk]

If you got a sim and put a few hours into it so that you can hover tail on and hold it in there box with the flags on the sim then you can go directly to a 450 sport and providing its set up ok you will hover it

[AcidDrink]

Of course Pete, sorry if I sounded harsh, wasn't my intention It may not work for everyone. For me it works, the reason is quite prosaic, I don't have time to fly during the week (except odd evenings in my garden if I am not falling on my face after work ), if I'd not use the simulator, I'd be still tail in hovering now.

I still think tho, that way too many people are flying way beyond their skill level, borderline reckless. I'd never attempt dangerous (to me not heli) maneuvers like inverted hurricanes or fast funnel fig 8 without having it totally nailed on the simulator in every possible variation. At the other side of the spectrum people "fly" tic tocs when they can't hover side in. Gust of wind, little mistake and there you go, crash..

Another exmaple is tail in flip flopping which we see every so often - in other words attempting 3D when basics are not there. Not only it looks silly but also is dangerous.

Re mcpx, I can do really stupid things on my mcpx (including mentioned hurricanes), do I go out and try them on TDR right away? No, because I can kill someone, TDR files totally different than mcpx, so I take it slower, practice them on the sim until I puke , do it on 450 first etc. Mcpx is "disposable", there is no consequences to crashes (I am not talking about my wallet).

There is absolutely no reason for trial and error and crashes every weekend - there are videos on the net which teach step by step in logical progression, simulators, 450s, maybe even mcpx will work for someone.

My opinion/advice still stands. Learn to hover properly on the sim and get a 450 or bigger..

[BavarianRob]

I agree with Acid in so much as practice on the sim till you get it right then put into practice with the mcpx or the 450. I can flip, roll and hover inverted on my 450 (albeit at a safe altitude!) and I've only had it a month, that's after four previous months of mcpx and sim.

[Reality Bites]

Thanks for all the replies, didn't expect such a debate ;-)

Interesting to see everyone's different approaches starting out. I believe I would learn more starting out with a 450/500 size but I will likely get myself an mcpx for garden practise too but will look to dumb the speedy blighter down at little at first

[ACD1]

As a noob myself, I've been flying about 3/4 months now and have Phoenix Sim, MCPX with a DX6i. To be honest I bought the MCPX with the DX6i first and thought I'd learn that way, but initially I struggled and it took me 3 days of sheer practice to get the thing to steady hover. I practiced in my living room which I dont recommend now! Then after getting frustrated I went and got the sim. Best thing I ever done because the learning experience is great, try it, crash it and it resets! Try it again and nail it, done! Took me another week to learn nose in and side on orientation on the sim. Then bringing this practice to real life is about 80% of it, had to factor in wind, different set up on the heli compared to the sim one etc. But when I went down the local club (know some people there who fly raptors etc) and took the MCPX they all took the mick out of how small the heli was but when I cranked it up and started doing fast passes, nose in and fast circuits they were gobsmacked. 1. How fast I had learnt how to control the heli like that and 2. The MCPX itself.

So, get a sim, an MCPX and a DX6i so you can dumb the blade down a little and get learning! Since then I have learned inverted on it and can do it all the time everytime, fantastic heli. A note though, when practicing in real life, fly over grass and that thing just bounces when you deck it. Once you have cracked that heli the bigger ones are great, I can fly my mates Raptor no probs at all and they are solid and stable compared to the MCPX.. The MCPX teaches you a lot.

Thanks!!

[Pabs]

Must admit I've just put an order in for an mcpx as I think I'll do most of my learning on that, and will push myself to do more manoeuvres on that BEFORE I try them on my nitros, so that I am comfortable with them.
The SIM doesn't work too well for me either. I have no "fear" on it do can do most basics on it, but in real life I get stuck in the hover. Hopefully the mcpx will bring me out of that and beyond :-)