Want to return to heli flying but confused

[nheather]

For various reasons have been away from te hobby for six years or more. I left the hobby trying to learn to fly my Raptor 50, had just about managed tail-in and tentative flat circuits.

So coming back, so much is different which is no surprise, it seems my Raptor is now practically unsupportable, and barely worth anything. I’m told nitro is practically dead, everything is going electric.

I get that, little hard to stomach but I get it.

But what is confusing me the most is that when I look at the the big RC stores, they don’t really sell 30/50/70/90 helus just the smaller stuff.

And when I look at the heli specialists they have the listing but nothing is in stock.

I’m left very confused, not knowing what heli models are current nor where to buy them.

Cheers,

Nigel

[DaveJones]

Welcome back, I think confusion is normal.

Take a look at Align-Trex: https://www.align-trex.co.uk/, they sell more than just Align heli's

Major well supported brands these days are Align, Mikado (Logo's) and SAB (Goblins). Align are probably the Ford Mondeo's while the Mikado and SAB's are more the BMW's of the heli world. I generally push beginners in the direction of Align because they are perfectly good heli's capable of far more than most of us whilst being well understood, relatively cheap and as available as heli's get these days. The Mikado's and Goblins have a little more sex appeal though.

The bigger electric sizes general have numbers in the name the relate to the blade length (gets less concise and more confusing for some reason with the smaller sizes). Your old Raptor swings 600mm blades so a Logo 600,Goblin 570/650 or Align 600 would be similar sizes. The Align 550, Logo 550 and Goblin 570 are probably the biggest size you could fly with a single 6s (25V) battery, bigger than that requires 2 batteries in series (50V). This is not a bad size to come back to, big enough to see and be stable whilst not to expensive or intimdating and a single pack is less hassle. The Logo 550 is a very nice heli if you like smooth flying.

Looking on the Align-Trex site all three of the above heli's are in stock. Have fun.

[tomatwalden]

Nitro is definitely not dead - if anything it seems to be enjoying a resurgence at the moment! I reckon >60% of people at my club are now flying nitros - Aligns, Synergies and Goblins.

[waveydavey]

Hey Nigel, you can still get spares, you can get nitro so I say crack on with what you got. Midland Heli has most bits so no point in buying new kit until you want to as long as you get what you want from your current set up. You can easily convert to flybarless but little point if you don't want or need to.

https://www.modelhelicopters.co.uk/h...tor-50-v2.html

Nitro, Opti is just about the one you can get apart from Model Technics, the rest don't bother importing to the UK

https://www.align-trex.co.uk/nitro-e...elicopter-fuel

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[nheather]

Welcome back, I think confusion is normal.

Take a look at Align-Trex: https://www.align-trex.co.uk/, they sell more than just Align heli's

Major well supported brands these days are Align, Mikado (Logo's) and SAB (Goblins). Align are probably the Ford Mondeo's while the Mikado and SAB's are more the BMW's of the heli world. I generally push beginners in the direction of Align because they are perfectly good heli's capable of far more than most of us whilst being well understood, relatively cheap and as available as heli's get these days. The Mikado's and Goblins have a little more sex appeal though.

The bigger electric sizes general have numbers in the name the relate to the blade length (gets less concise and more confusing for some reason with the smaller sizes). Your old Raptor swings 600mm blades so a Logo 600,Goblin 570/650 or Align 600 would be similar sizes. The Align 550, Logo 550 and Goblin 570 are probably the biggest size you could fly with a single 6s (25V) battery, bigger than that requires 2 batteries in series (50V). This is not a bad size to come back to, big enough to see and be stable whilst not to expensive or intimdating and a single pack is less hassle. The Logo 550 is a very nice heli if you like smooth flying.

Looking on the Align-Trex site all three of the above heli's are in stock. Have fun.

It was Align I was lokking at - can’t find any to buy in the UK. Not that I am ready yet.

Will try and eek out my Raptor 50as long as possible.

Cheers,

Nigel

[trillian]

As mentioned above, nitro is still alive. In fact, when you were away from the hobby nitro did begin to take a backseat to electric but then a couple years ago it started making a comeback of sorts. The Goblin range began as all electric models and they added a nitro as did Gaui, and Align updated their models a few times.

Although the Raptor 50 is not a current model, because it was once so popular and there are so many in circulation, you'll pretty much always see spares on Ebay if you don't see them in the shops.

[Grumpy]

Align have just released a new 600 nitro called the 600XN, should be in the shops in a month or so I'd guess. Synergy recently released a new 550-600 nitro called the 556.

[PKNEC]

Welcome back
Quick UK are still doing a selection of raptor spares both upgrade and std.
Plus they do an electric conversion for the 30/50 which I've converted my 30 and it's great.
Helis, Align, Gaui, mikado, MSH protos, Goblin I'm sure I've missed some but plenty to look at.
Lipo. Optipower, Gens Ace, Overlander , revolectrix if you can be bothered importing.
Yes nitro has seen a comeback probably due to Inc stick time over Lipo.
If you go flybarless. MSH Brain2. Vbar, Spartan, Beastx, spirit ,Bavarian demon. Again not an exhaustive list and everyone has their favourite.
Enjoy the flying again.
Cheers Paul

[nheather]

Going to stick with nitro for the time-being, maybe long term.

But I am intrigued by electric too.

Am I right in thinking that the electric numbers relate to blade length, so a 450 = 450mm, 500 = 500mm, 550 = 550mm and 600 = 600mm

And as a generalisation, if that is the case does that mean that a 550 is the equivalent to a Nitro 30 and a 600 a Nitro 50?

Cheers,

Nigel

[trillian]

You're right about a 550= .30 and 600= .50. With the 450 class they're still running 325mm blades but some have crept up to being able to run 360mm or so. 500 used to be 425mm blades but now there is a new 500 class that actually runs 500mm blades so the line is a little blurred due to older 500s still being around. There is a new class that is sometimes called 420 that is roughly the size of the older '500' and runs 425mm blades. You'll also see some 360s and 380s that are '450 size' (well somewhere between 450 and the old '500') running 360 -380mm blades.

[cycled]

Well, 380 is not 360, but... yes, most of the sizes refer to blade length now, except 450 (325-360) and sometimes 500 (430, or sometimes really 500).

Some brands seem to still be well supported in the UK, others don't. In some cases you end up needing to buy from Europe, e.g. from https://www.ercmarket.com/ or World-of-Heli Ihr RC-Heli Onlineshop - WORLD-OF-HELI . There's a new UK shop, https://www.hely-shop.co.uk/ — though sometimes it's confusing what they have in stock. Unfortunately it seems http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/ have much less stock/brands than they used to (relevant to helis, anyway).