Which shops would you recommend these days?

[Mikej]

For what its worth, I popped into Align Trex today as its only a 40 min drive. Quite a helpful chap that was willing to have a chat and spend probably 30/40 mins talking to me as im getting back into it and i only spent £70. Plenty of kit in the shop although i get the impression they are not moving as much stuff as he said its not as busy as it used to be so now 50% of their warehouse is full of warhammer gear and that's now nearly as big as the heli stuff business wise. I really hope this hobby keeps going. I myself dipped out for a good few years and only just getting back into it. I guess the cost keeps the youngsters out couple that with the amount of cheap £20 helicopters in town that get boring after 10 mins they probably loose interest in RC heli's. I also shoot clays as my main hobby but even that is struggling to bring in "young" shooters.

I use Align-Trex a lot as they are only 15 miles from me. I've visited them numerous times to pick things up as they've grown and moved into bigger premises.

They have always done a lot of "war-game" type stuff (sorry I don't know the proper names) as well as the heli stuff, as an outside observer I would say that they have grown their heli stuff a lot (and diversified the number of brands that they cover) as well as diversifying into other areas - RC cars as well as the war-game stuff.

One or two of them come on here as well - proper enthusiasts...

I'm sure that Midland and the others are similar - they're just not as close for me

[Planehazza]

I've been out of the hobby for a while, but it seems to me that rising prices of heli kits and gear, and the advent/popularity of FPV/Drone has driven RC helis into a smaller niche. It's a shame when it's such a great hobby, but I've felt for a while now that (some) kit prices were getting a rather bit silly.