OK, I've been bitten by the heli bug. I fly giant scale gas planes, but can't always get out to the field and always have an electric foamie to pull out and fly in the park.

I recently got a Blade MCX after I saw a demo at a club meeting. I've flown that thing all over the house and in the garage and out in the driveway when the wind is calm. I've had a blast with it and crave something more.

What is the next step in electric (I hate glow fuel) helis for me? I'm not a noob to 3D flight and I've crashed and rebuilt many planes. However, I do realize that heli flight is a lot more involved.

I'm not interested in a larger coaxial heli and have been told not to even bother with fixed-pitch. I fly with a JR X9303 2.4 and want to stay with that tx. I would like to stay under $500.

Any ideas? Maybe something with easily obtainable spare parts.

A blade 400 would be one choice. Parts are cheap and readily available. It is available as a plug and play so you could use your own transmitter.

You should think about buying the combo with the radio. It comes with everything you need, lipo,charger,transmitter and very detailed instructions. It comes out of the box ready to fly. A properly set up heli is much easier to learn to fly on and proper helicopter set-up is crucial. A poorly set up airplane is a handful-a poorly set-up helicopter will become a handfull of parts quickly.
Many people bash the blade 400, the only time mine broke was when I broke it. The gyro and servos are decent. You will crash as you learn, and the manual and parts support are great. I tried to learn on a kit heli and abandoned it as the one I built seemed impossible to fly. I later bought a blade 400 and learned to fly citcuits on it. It was much easier to fly as it was set up properly right out of the box. After having learned more in the past two years I now know that the kit heli I built never had a chance. It was so far off in the way it was set-up I am suprised i hovered at all.I now have an trex 500 and a trex 600n.
I to took up helis as way to fly a few minutes from the house. I have learned a lot and found it to be a fun challenge.

Yes, I was looking at the Blade 400, but in the PNP version without tx, batt or rx. You do make a good arguement about getting the combo with the tx. I know a bad set-up on a plane will make it fly like junk, so I can imagine that a heli setup is a 1000x's more important.

Thanks for the input.

When you are ready to move up to a better heli the combo will be much easier to sell to someone wanting to get started. I think it will cost you less in the long run with the combo.

I agree. But it's possible I might create my own program on my X9303 based on the settings on DX6i that it comes with, after I get the hang of everything.

I like having only one radio for everything. Less stuff to keep track of.

Now, if I could just find someone at the heli field at Joe Nall to give me some pointers on collective pitch flying.

Originally Posted by phippsj

I agree. But it's possible I might create my own program on my X9303 based on the settings on DX6i that it comes with, after I get the hang of everything.

I like having only one radio for everything. Less stuff to keep track of.

Now, if I could just find someone at the heli field at Joe Nall to give me some pointers on collective pitch flying.

I'll be more than happy to help you out at Nall!!! See you there.