Which Electric Heli ???

[moose]

Well guys I've always been a fixed wing guy and quite honestly hated it when the Heli guys showed up at the field cause they where loud ....very loud and always hovered around my head giving me the sense that one of those blades was going to slice me in half, not to mention that I could no longer here my gasser so overall it was a real PITA.

The saying goes if you can't beat em join em so I bought a Hirobo 50 (shuttle) with all the possible upgrades that one could think of for a killer price off one of my friends who very sadly decided to part from the hobby. I of course having no previous heli knowledge or experience decided to park it and buy a Heli Max Axe CP from tower hobbies to bash out and get some stick time before going for the real thing.

I have a few problems with this Heli and would like to know if this is natural or if my choice of helis was just poor.

1) The battery doesn't last more than 5 minutes.
2) The tail has to be constantly flown (you can not trim it) and has different settings through out the flight as the battery gets weaker (its got an electric motor on the tail rotor)
3) The sticks are as sensitive as hell.....I mean the whole flight is done with no more than a couple of mm movement on the sticks.
4) I feel it is really a hand full as it is always wanting to go somewhere and twitching around.
5)WHEN steady in a hover the whole fuselage is kinda leaning sideways.

I've been told buy a couple of buddies that this plane is more difficult to fly than a normal/standard glow Heli, and I am the only one flying mode 1 so I can't really get anyones help out here.

I think I've probably bored you guys by now but my question is which heli would be good for inside the house flying (currently where I'm flying this one) as most of the summer the temperature her is in the range of 45 C / 113 F and real humid.

I'm looking for a reasonably priced heli that is good for indoor flying for a newbee to heli's ......that can be taken outdoors when the weather gets better.

Thanks for your inputs !!!

[moose]

come on guys.....there must be a Heli pilot out there that can offer some help ????

[KingAirGuy]

I don't know if I can answer your question. I flew large gas helicopters before planes, never electric helis. But from looking at a lot the trex helicopters seem pretty nice for the money and if you can spend a little extra get the 600 size. Bigger is always better!

[aerohead]

Check out the Gaui Hurricane 550

[RAPTOR357]

I'll say get a trex 450 or 600 and don't get the bling out version until you are ready to thrash it around.

[Neogenesis]

If you looking for small.....got with the TREX 450. Great for indoors, but if there is a little more than a whisper of wind.....they will get blown around. If you want something a bit bigger look at the Century Swift. It's a .30 sized heli....but flies incredible. Parts availability has not been a problem, cost of those replacement parts has been very reasonable. Century also has a pretty good selection of metal upgrade parts...so if you want to bling it out you can. The main decision maker for me was what packs I could run. The Swift only needs a 6s1p maximum to really perform well. I personally went with 6s1p 15C packs to learn on and I've got a well powered setup that would be capable of basic aerobatics if the pilot was up to the task. To get similar performance out of the TREX 600. you are looking at 8 to 10 cell packs from what I've been reading. That is a lot more cost in just batteries and chargers alone.

I can't say enough how much I enjoy mine. I went from no heli experience to hovering and starting forward flight on all my own. Like I said...no previous heli experience and no outside instruction. I do attribute on other thing to my sucess though....and that's the video's on helifreaks' website. www.helifreak.com There are full build video's in the tech room portion of the site and they gave a lot of insight and the proper way to setup the heli. He's done a lot of different helis so do check it out...it's worth taking the time to do.

Good Luck and let us know what you choose,

Neo

[e-gull]

A Blade MCX would be great for a beginner indoors. It is stable enough to hover hands off for extended time. It can take a lot of abuse without breaking. It is possible to break, but I had one skid off a table on landing and fall on a cement floor without sustaining damage. Eflite and utube have plenty of videos to see how well MCX flies in tiny rooms. For outdoors it is best to go with a heli that is way too big to think of flying indoors.

[SHANERC]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I agree. and if you are just learning go with any counter rotating model (blade cx, mcx, axe ez, etc.) they will teach you the basics and you will get alot less frustrated tring to learn. I learned on
a counter rotating model and still use it to warm up the thumbs after a long break from my other helis. everyone progresses at a differant rate and has their own veiws & opinions, even flying styles. once you move to an variable pitch machine find someone that is patiant and experienced to help you. good luck and I wish you hours of happiness with your choppers!

[Matchless]

Moose, you're going through what I just went through.

For me, after flying planks for 20+ years I decided to try shanks..... My first attempt with a heli similar to yours had much the same results....

Then, earlier this summer, I started flying helis on the sim a lot and eventually got a used T-Rex 450. I now have about 3 dozen flights on it and have progressed to inverted flight, basic aerobatics, some 3D, and really wanting to learn backwards and backwards inverted to build my fundamental skills.....

Here are some of the things I learned......

Buy something that your LHS stocks parts for. You'll break it often and it sucks to wait for parts, as well as making it cost much more because of shipping costs.

Avoid helis with a motor driven tail rotor.... that is part of the cause of your current problem.

A heli with tail driven off of the mains is much more responsive to fly and handles much better. Couple this with a heading hold gyro, good batts, and a good brushless motor and the problems you're having will go away!

For a small electric, get a good quality rcvr or go 2.4. I had constant radio hits until I took the 2.4 plunge.

Take the time to learn to set it up right. Learn from someone else if possible. Helis are much less tolerant of poor setup than planks....

Go as big as you can afford to go. Bigger is easier to see, and feels easier to fly. I know I could afford the 450 and would have loved to go with the 500 or the 600, but thats just not in the cards for me now....

My current setup gets me 4.5mins of hard flight. That is electric heli typical (IMO). Running my setup longer than that torches the batts and shortens their life substantially.

Small helis are designed to have 'sacrificial parts' so that breakage is cheaper. The plastic blade grips on a T-Rex are a good example.

Lock-tite is your friend. Don't fly your new heli without taking everything apart and locktiting it in place.

Heavy paddles make the heli more stable, as does higher headspeed.

You run exponential on your airplane, so why not on your heli? Its good stuff!

The parts are much cheaper in the sim than IRL (in real life). : )

Good luck.

[CSpaced]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Neogenesis
	If you looking for small.....got with the TREX 450. Great for indoors, but if there is a little more than a whisper of wind.....they will get blown around.

TRex 450? A whisper of wind? I don't think so. The 450 is a powerful and solid heli, you can fly it outside in any condition you would fly a larger glow heli. I would even go so far as to say it is an outside heli, and if you can find a big enough indoor space to fly it in then thats a bonus.

As far as batteries on electrics and flight times. I get 6 mins of good power, flying 3D, from a 3S 2200mah pack on my TRex. You will get longer flight times with that setup if you are not flying 3D.

The MCX is a great little heli, lots of fun and easy to fly.

Matchless makes all good points

Also check out here for great heli info - www.crackroll.com