annoyed newbie just started today

[nobbycopter]

+1 to what Idleup95 says....then a fixed pitch heli...then a small collective (or large if your budget can stretch that far)

P.S Welcome to the forum

[Vikki]

+1 as well.

I'm afraid it is not a cheap hobby to get started in. No worse than any other technical hobby really. I think you might be looking at not a lot of change out of £250-300 to start properly. Skip the sim and you prolong the learning agony. Sims give cost free crashes.

[cjcj1949]

One of the problems with advice is that it is often not what you want to hear. Most people ignore the advice and go their own way, me included. We do listen in the end. A heli sim and a tx box is the cheapest way. If you buy the Phoenix sim you will be able to sell it if you don't like it. It is the only thing in helis that saves you money. I thought by strafe you meant gunfire. Helis is a bit like gambling except that you never win, all models end up broken. All you get is enjoyment and that part is vale for money and addictive.

[doublej]

oh my .... it seems i best get saving up then haha ....also seems my poor little heli is quite pants .... owell ill have to stick to that one until im rich enought to spend 300 pound

[BenScoobert]

oh my .... it seems i best get saving up then haha ....also seems my poor little heli is quite pants .... owell ill have to stick to that one until im rich enought to spend 300 pound

Consider used, but from someone you can trust, long term forum members or fellow flyers.

Absorb all you see on this site
http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/

[Vikki]

Cheapest non-sim way I can think of, just to try it out, would be NanoCPX RTF (Ready To Fly). About £108 + £6.90 postage. E-Flite Blade Nano CPX Helicopter - RTF - Instock Now

Practically bomb-proof over grass. Lots of fun to be had for a beginner

[doublej]

mmm turns out i dont think i can use a sim as my laptop doesnt have a 3d graphics card

[DALE313]

No. You need four channels of control. Roll, Pitch, Yaw and motor.

Blade mCX RTF (eflh2200): E-flite - Advancing Electric Flight

Each stick is used to control two things. Usually (called Mode 2) The right stick controls roll and pitch and the left stick controls Yaw and motor. Motor is up and down and has to be varied all the time for a hover. Yaw is controlling the heli about a vertical axis. Pitch moves the nose up and down and so makes the heli go forward or back and roll angles the blades to the left or right and makes the heli move left or right. A heli like the mcx with two rotors is easier to control than one with only one rotor.

Get your self a mcx i first started with one of these there nice and easy to start off with you will enjoy a bit more pennys but its repairable easily and very durable

[cjcj1949]

You don't have to have a 3Dgraphics card. Any laptop will work. Phoenix allows you set the quality to match what the laptop can do. You can download a demo of phoenix and there are more basic sims like fms that allow you to use a joystick. fms is free. You can also connect a tx via a usb interface. You don't have to spend money to start but you will end up spending a lot.

[mark_w]

oh my .... it seems i best get saving up then haha ....also seems my poor little heli is quite pants .... owell ill have to stick to that one until im rich enought to spend 300 pound

I am going to go a little against the grain here, if you are on a small budget then forget the sim and more advanced transmitter.

just get this

E-flite Blade mCX Micro Helicopter RTF - On Order

and have some fun

[Boggy]

Hi joe
as jimmy says above put your twenty pounds towards something better. Try a google search for

Mini twister sport 2.4 rtf. It's a great little heli very similar to a blade msr but half the price,and spares are easy to get.


6600013 MINI TWISTER SPORT 2.4G 4CH RTF HELICOPTER

[jimmyhorns]

Thanks Boggy.

Looking back I think my comment probably sounded harsher than I intended it.

The first 'heli' I flew was a 3 channel. This was a toy given to a friend at Christmas a few years ago. At this point I was flying RC planes, but not helis. At the time I thought.... "I dont know what the big deal is", mostly because it was completely stable, and apart from hovering, did very little at all.

Paradoxically Joe, we are recommending going down a path which leads to you getting a heli which you have to work to keep it hovering.

The trade off is that you end up with a heli that isnt so much a toy, as a model (thin line I grant you), and will be able to perform a lot more than just a hover in the long run.

[tomatwalden]

mmm turns out i dont think i can use a sim as my laptop doesnt have a 3d graphics card

You'll be amazed what you can get away with. Phoenix runs on my (2006) Macbook under bootcamp with just the built-in Intel graphics chip.

Download the demo from the Phoenix website - it uses the same codebase, so will verify if your laptop is up to it or not.

T

[tomatwalden]

I am going to go a little against the grain here, if you are on a small budget then forget the sim and more advanced transmitter.

just get this

E-flite Blade mCX Micro Helicopter RTF - On Order

and have some fun

Yeah, I kinda second this. The sim is a brilliant way to progress - but unless you like staring at an LCD and flying a virtual heli, it's boring as hell (at least in my opinion). Nothing beats the fun factor of actually flying something that is beating gravity!

A (decent) cheap heli like the mcx2 or 120SR is a much more fun way to progress. Fundamentally, you want something with mode-2 controls so that whatever you learn is valid for the next step up.

[cjcj1949]

The sim wasn't boring when I couldn't hover... It's not boring when I fly inverted either. I agree that an msr or a Twister from Boggy's favourite shop are much better. No complaints about the shop by the way, except they don't do clones.