whats a good beginner heli

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renbar

renbar

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i keep looking at heli's but whats a good budget setup for a beginner[as in never touched one]have been looking at the esky honey bees i want to learn on somthing with same controls as the top of the line helis so if and when i can just upgrade any help advice links ect would be great
 
I started on a TRex 600 Electric. It might be a bit more $ then you want to spend, but you get a more stabil heli. A small heli ain't a good beginner heli, it's to small and to quick responding. You won't big and forgiving ;)
 
dual counter rotating blade helis are great to start on and learn controls. and they can fly indoors. personally though, I learned on a flight sim. when I started with a 30 sized nitro, it was quite easy to get flying and I practiced auto rotations on the sim. amazing how early in flying I had to use that... crashing with a sim costs nothing and you can learn tricks and such. realflight even has a flight instructor thing to show you stick movements and such from basic to advanced
 
I have an esky belt cp v2..
good little heli and got me started but I still cant fly it right...
also got phoenix flight sim and that is great...brilliant graphics and teaches you alot...

my problem is too long between flights so what I do learn is lost for next time..lol
 
actually the little indoor ones arent too bad. i started with a blade mcx2, its a coaxial heli, meaning it has 2 counter rotating blades. this makes it very stable and easy to fly. i moved up to an msr, its a single rotor with a motor driven tail. its great fun for flying indoors. i tried a blade 120sr but its a little light for outdoor flight and too big for indoor flight. my last heli was the blade 450. its a colective pitch, belt driven tail, its a typical electric heli. its hard to fly, and yes, ive crashed it a lot. a sim is money well spent for learning.

myself, id say if your looking to learn to fly and think your going to stick with it, pick up a dx6i and a blade msr bind and fly. this will give you a chance to learn the controls and give you a great radio that gives you room to drow. from there you could move up to the blade mcxp (collective pitch micro) and that will teach you how to handle a collective pitch, then move up to the bigger stuff. the nice thing is these small helis are tough, you can drop them without worrying, and when you do break something its cheap to fix.
 
thank guys im looking at around £250-£350 but want extra batts as well

fixxed pitch colective pitch all means nothing to me all i know is there little helicopters,so if anybody can explane whats what ect,,i refuse to get anything thats not like a real heli so the ones with 2 blades on top of each other are a no no,,i want it to be as close to a real heli as poss so at a later date if i get on with it i can upgrade to a nitro/petrol

i know its not the way to go but me learing to fly a 3ch heli if i want to get a 6ch or whatever its at a later date
 
Not a single one of the small helis mentioned above, will learn you how to fly a real RC helicopter. You will learn to fly on those small heli's a way that you can't mirror over to a larger scale heli. Dual counter rotating blade helis, has nothing to do with real RC helis.
Small helis with motor on the tail won't give you real tail training.

If you wan't a small heli, start with a Align Trex 450 or 250. But you will have a harder time learning to fly.
 
yeah i hear you i think im trying to run before i can walk or fly in this case the trex's are all out of my price range,im not so interested in moving up to nitro/petrol what i call real heli's straight away i probaly never will but if i did move on i wondered if it was same movements on handset i didnt want to get used to one then buy a new one and all the controls are different

re; helis with motor for tail rotor im not a lover of the look and would go for a belt/shaft drive would this be better for me
 
coaxial- 2 rotors, one on top of the other, no tail rotor. very stable, once you learn a bit you can hands off hover the thing.

fixed pitch single rotor- it has one main rotor and a tail rotor. the pitch of the blades doesn't change, to adjust lift you increase or decrease the throttle.

collective pitch- single rotor with a tail rotor. the pitch of the blades change to increase or decrease lift, rotor rpm for the most part will stay fairly constant.

just want to confirm with you guys, all the blade helis have the same controls, they are all minimum 4 channel helis. your throttle/pitch, rudder, elevator and aileron are all the same, they arent like the cheap toy store 3 channel crap. they may not be the best to learn, however after 10 years of cars the mcx2 and msr taught me the controls. real flight didnt work so well for me for that, i found its hard to concentrate properly on learning when you are staring at a screen, at least at first. learning with something in front of me making noise and wind allowed me to learn the basics of a heli. no it doesn't transfer over directly to my blade 450, however at least when i have it hovering i know what control does what 2nd nature.
 
right guys im looking at the blade 450 3d rtf just over my budget with the extra batts and training thingys but it does come with a speky dx6i hand set and not a micky mouse one is this ok,,from what ive read up on,it seems ok plus spares are good,,any input would be super thanks

also is there any other stuff i will need other than a dust pan and brush to clean up the mess lol like pitch gauges and blade ballancer ect
 
everything i read on the blade 450 is good. when they first came out experienced guys were taking them out of the box, gave it a look over and within a couple minutes of normal flight were right into full 3d. everyone seems to like it. mine works well, i just have a heck of a time learning. ive smashed it up a couple times, for the most part its not very expensive to fix. the dx6i is a great radio to start with, you wont outgrow it for a long time.
 
for anybody thinking of taking the plunge into heli's for the first time id recommend having a look here http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/index.html

very good site packed full of good info and advice,
i think im going to get the blade/specky combo its about the best i can get for my budget which has got a bit bigger but i wont outgrow it for some time,the handsets more than upto the job if i upgrade at some point,plus theres plenty of spares and support ect unlike some of the cheaper one plus im sure the quality of the blade from what ive read up on is great its got alloy parts only were its needed and better servos/gyro/electrics than the cheaper ones ive looked at

i just hope flyings for me ive wanted to do this for a good 20 years i got close once but just couldn't and never felt ready but now i am and cant wait

i know its going to be one of the hardest things ive ever done and theres a good chance its not for me i feel ive gone as far as i can go with rc cars and fancy a new challenge this is it
 
the heli site is runryder.com
have a look at my gallery. I used to have some nice helis LOL. I started on a 30 size nitro. the bigger the heli the easier it is to control. I absolutely hated micro fixed pitch helis. twitchy crap. there's lots of dual rotor helis but none have the agility of a hirobo. you change the flybar placement and remove the weights and it flys like a dragonfly. I could funnel it.

I'd recommend heading to your local flying field and meeting up with an instructor if you don't want to use a flight sim. I can't stress how much money the sim saved me. I even practiced on the sim before going flying to get my fingers working and brain going, especially if I was trying out a new maneuvre. helis aren't bad on a sim because most everything you do is right in front of you.

flying a heli is like driving 2 cars at the same time.
 
ok whats a good sim,i have seen some cheap ones on ebay are they any good whats a good one going to cost,i know its going to save me money and help,but my budget i wanted has long gone allready but its not a problem to add a sim as well it makes perfect sense and one of the best tools,on the site i posted theres a 10 vid training guide which im going to follow i don't expect to be flying for quite some time anyway ,i know youve got to crawl before you walk and walk before you run ect

im not the sort of person to spunk £400/£500 on a heli and think yeah its not hard crash it and give up and shove it in the corner of the garage never to be seen again

im 100% sure i want the blade450/dx6i combo i would love to go up a size maybe a 500/600 but thats not possible by the time you add spares training gear and a few batts,i can get the blade setup with 3-4 batts spares and training gear setup tools for around the £400/£500 mark inc a budget sim which i can live with

thank for all the help guys its well handy its a minefeild but im starting to understand whats what ect so thanks
 
real flight is what I used. it even has weather you can set to make it realistic etc.

remember, your first crash is like a teenage girlfriend's father. the sooner it's out of the way the better... it's going to happen so don't fret it.
 
Heli's are the hardest hobby to master, i recommend you learn the basics on a simulator first before you purchase anything because it can get very expensive :mad: Clearveiw is probably the best sim you get just download it and use it for the trial period and if you like it you can purchase it

Goodluck
 
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