R/C RC Helicopter good first choice?

I am curious letsjet, what are you flying the most heli wise in the sim? Are you able to hover in all orientations yet? I should probably recommend you go through the RADDS school of flight when you actually get a heli. Any questions at all let me know

 

I've been into the Heli thing for a year or two and went through a CX2(great starter and still fun), CP/CP Pro/Trex 450/Trex 600/Draganflyer(4 rotor)/Blade 400.

I can say the Trex 600 is the easiest to fly because it is so stable, but the Trex 450 was the most fun to me. The Blade 400 is too twitchy.

I use Real Flight for my simulator and downloaded a Trex600 for it.


What do you want to do with this helicopter? If you want to just hover/be stable get the CX2. If you want aerobatics go with the TREX 450. I'd recommend the 600, but it is alot of money and batteries are $150 each!

 

I would agree that the TRex 600 and something like a Raptor .90 would be the easiest to fly, they are both incredibly stable. By far the most fun and best handling IMHO is the 450. It is the perfect blend of responsiveness and stability, and the parts are fairly cheap and readily available for it WHEN you crash. My advice is practice in the simulator till you are blue in the face, then practice some more. It is not a perfect rendition of the real thing, but you will learn habits that will let you instinctively save your bird when flying IRL. It is a great hobby, almost as much fun building and tweaking these things as it is flying them. Another really good forum with some great instructional videos and a lot of helpful people is www.helifreak.com.

BTW, I think the physics/realism is about the same between RF and phoenix, RF is just more resource intensive on your machine.

 

I like FSone as a simulator better, but as he said....none of them give you the same feelings as when you go out and fly one. I'll hover upside down all day long on a simulator, but not in real life. I have done some flip/rolls but nothing over a second.

The 450 is probably the best all around, but I sold mine hoping this cheaper blade 400 would replace it. Ummm no not even close. Now I'm going to go build another 450 haha.

From what you say I'd go with the Align Trex 450.

 

If you are good then you can fly it in the garage(not recommended!) If you have 3 clear acres then that is plenty. These things aren't like planes.....meaning you can always stop and hover if you get to close to something, whereas a plane goes sailing right into the object.

Just like cars buy the best/most expensive version they have out. I think the 450 SE V2 is what I had and will re-build shortly.

 

If your REALLY good you can fly it in the shower. I have a 450 SE V2. It's been sitting in a box for a year but I think I will like it if I ever start doing this again. The FSone software is OK, but like somebody mentioned above the sim is never like the real thing.
As far as space needed to fly, do be careful and stay away from other people......farther than you think you should. Especially little kids that will make a beeline for the thing as soon as the blades start moving.

 

I have the T Rex 450 SE that's pretty much finished. I just need a new spectrum radio and some spare batteries. Its such a nice piece of equipment I'm afraid to fly it. I've flown my friends T Rex 450 and it was a dream. Super nice autos when set up right great 3D as well.
Being a helo pilot I thought this stuff would be easy when I first got into it. Boy was I wrong! There is a big difference between sitting in it and feeling it versus watching it. I did figure it out eventually but at a staggering financial cost. I might ad that was after I was doing good on the sim. The one thing about these things is that no matter how good you are you will still have crashes. It's just part of the game I guess.
I can't stress enough what has already been said here about having plenty of room and flying safe. When one of these things gets away from you things go bad real fast and you definately don't want to hit some curious onlooker. I had to stuff one into the ground rather than take a chance on hitting a kid who was watching me when I had a servo failure.

 

I think It was because I let my oversized pilot ego get in the way I sucked so bad. You'll do just fine. Stay away from the big ones unless you plan on buying one or have a good friend 'cause no one rents them and these things are real wallet adjusters to own. However, once you learn to fly the scale ones and understand the flight principals you will be ahead of the game in the full size ones. If you want real fun check out www.rotorway.com I helped build one of these several years ago and it was a hoot.

 

I have an old Kyosho nexus 30 that has seen it's better days. There is probbly not much left on the helicopter itself that is actually original. I found the folks at heli-world.com to be very helpful, as well as a book called Rays Helicopter Manual. This was all 10 years ago, so perhaps things have changed, and there are new and better books out there. i spent about $200 on the kit, and about $1500 more just to get it flying. Crashes were about $150 plus time spent fixing and rebalancing everything.

One essential tip which i can pass on is this - dont fly it in front of your friends until you are reasonably competent. You may attempt to "impress beyond your abilities" and that's when things go horribly wrong. Helicopters tend to beat themselves to a pulp when they crash, and I have made this mistake myself - I felt pretty stupid afterwards.

 

I have a TRex 450XL cde (the good one) with mostly cnc head and tail, 3 sets of blades, pitch gauge, extra tail boom. and a buttload of other parts that I will let you have for a very low price. IMO, It is an excellent heli for starters and intermediate users. Let me know.