What to buy for small and micro heli's?

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duramax47

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Hey every one, I'm looking at getting into flying heli's.

Iv been bashing and racing short course and boats for awhile now. looking to up my skill in the air now.

I'm looking at coaxial and fixed pitch to start with. I feel I may be wasting my time getting a coaxial but then again I'm not sure. they seem fairly easy but I know a fixed pitch with be a challenge.

The helis I'm looking at are the -
Blade mcx2 (coaxial)
Blade msrx (fixed pitch) and or the
Novus 200fp (also fixed pitch)

I could be wrong but I'm asking opinions of every one. iv been in rc a long time but havnt flown helis much and what I have flown has been coaxial. Am I starting in the right place?

Thanks for your help in advance.
 
You're in the right place if you start out with a good coax like the MCX2.
It pretty much stabilizes itself if you let go of the sticks when you get into trouble.
You'll learn all the stick movements of a heli without the steep learning curve of a CP heli. Work your way up and you won't be damaging the expensive ones.
A good heli simulator is a great help when you step up to 3D.
Rotor blades and landing gear is what you should have on hand for spares.
 
I'm looking at buying both the mcx2 and the msr2 and even the novus 200. I feel I will have the coaxial down in a day or two. The fixed pitch is where I will have a learning curve I think. I know I can't fly a collective pitch and it will be awhile befor I can. what helis do you recommend for both coaxial and fixed pitch to start off with rolex? only reason I look at the novus 200 is the pure size of it. if I'm not wrong that's about as big as I can go with being fixed pitch. I want something I can play with out side but not step up to a collective pitch.
 
You'll have to wait for another flier to reply to this. I know I have a fixed pitch heli somewhere in my hanger that was given to me, but I know I've never flown it. I couldn't tell you anything about how they handle.
 
Well hopefully a heli guy can help me out, but thank you rolex for your input. no matter how small it helped me thank you. do we have a lot of heli guys or not so much?
 
There are quite a few guys that have gotten into the helis in the last year or so. Just be patient, they'll show up.
 
Well, I've been flying for about 9 years (if hovering only counts :D). Seriously though, been flying for about 3-4 years, and here's my take, for what it's worth. A coaxial is great to learn orientation with, and even once you have that down cold, you can still buzz it around indoors and do really challenging stuff with it to still make it fun, so IMHO it's not a waste of money at all.

As far as fixed pitch helis go, no two will fly alike, ever. Size, weight, powerplant, flybar design (or no flybar at all on some), etc will make them all feel differently in the air. There's was once a time when if you wanted to get into helis, you dropped $2500 or so on a large nitro CP heli, and took baby steps (literally) forever until you could actually fly the thing. Those days (thankfully), are long gone. My personal advice now that we have micro collective pitch helis that are super durable (like the Blade MCP X, which is my personal choice for a CP trainer BTW) I would skip a fixed pitch all together.

Now, before everyone freaks out; here is why I say this.

1. Fixed pitch helis depend on pitch that is preset in the blades, and throttle to determine how much lift you get. On a perfectly calm day, that's just fine. But one gust of wind, and a fixed pitch heli will balloon or shoot upwards on the wind. So, you drop the throttle, right about the time the wind dies, now you're falling like a stone, so you jam the throttle, then the wind blows again.......... Get the picture? The wind blows a lot here, almost always at least a 8-10mph wind, and I crashed large 200 sized fixed pitch birds A LOT for this very reason.

2. Modern flybarless CP (collective pitch) helis are no more complicated really in the head setup than a fixed pitch bird. You have exactly two more links to adjust, that's all. And thank god, flybarred helis take for friggin ever to adjust all those tiny linkages, that gets old when you're learning and crashing. And YOU WILL crash, count on it. Don't let it bother you. Go home, fix it right mechanically and get back out there, soon. Not to mention, they "feel" different in the air also, they track better, like they're on rails, and they're also slightly more efficient. There's also less stuff to break in a crash, meaning less parts cost.

3. Collective pitch helis can pull themselves down out of the wind under power, making the heli stable rather than an RC kite that a fixed pitch becomes. They also handle the wind better overall, and IMHO are just easier to fly because they are more stable, and smoother when climbing or descending.

I have a Blade MSR X flybarless fixed pitch that's almost the same size as my MCP X, and it just flies weird once you're used to a collective pitch heli and will tech you some bad habits once you move on to a CP heli to be honest. I never fly the thing, it just sits here in it's box.

Moving on, I have literally beat my MCP X to death over and over, including landing inverted under power on grass, and kept flying all day long. Notice I said flying over grass, this is important when learning, you want a soft surface to plant it on. Also, if you truly know you're going in, KILL THE POWER! More damage is done when all that power has nowhere to go with the blades bound up against the ground, than from impact most times. If you could put a brake on the rotor head, and stop it immediately, you'd probably rarely break anything, but all that energy has to go somewhere.

My advice, go buy an MCX2 RTF. Learn to fly it in all orientations, especially nose in. Once you have all that down cold, if you're still having fun (this is important, I've quit helis completely twice because it just felt like work, and no fun at all) go buy a DX6 or DX7 computer radio and MCP X. Learn about proper setup (always do your own setup on every collective pitch heli, never trust any RTF or BNF collective pitch heli, just ask me why) of both the mechanical aspect of the heli, and the programming of your radio. A good computer radio makes all the difference in the world. You can tame down the hottest fire breathing 3D monster to feel like a big oversized MCP X, literally.

Sorry the post is so long, but I hope it helps some. Just what I've learned with 3 goes at RC helis in 9 years. Otherwise known as my worthless $.02 :D
 
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No thank you that is a lot of good info. I will be honest one of the things that strait up scared me was when I was at the lhs, they had the dx6i set up with the simulator. I was flying (trying anyways) a blade mcp x or something similar that was a CP. I could get in in the air fly it around a little but where I was crashing it was doing nose in flight or flipping it upside down. and I was wrecking it non stop. In turn scared me away from CP helis. Now if I understand what your saying correctly is that with the right setting on lets say a dx6i, lets say I have dual rates that way I have things slowed down and what not, I should be able to learn a CP just as well as a FP? I don't mind getting a CP heli and learning I just don't want to scare my self right out of flying. I'm thinking and correct me if I'm wrong, maybe if I go with a CP after the coaxial such as maybe a helimax axe 100ss CP would be a good stater considering its small and parts should be inexpensive. Is that a good idea or not. Thanks again HPIGuy for your help, I'm so glad you chimed in to explain this and put it in a different perspective I didn't think about.
 
Going from never flying, straight to a CP heli, even on a sim is the equivalent of never having driven a car and taking drivers ed at the Monaco round of F1 (it's amazing what age and experience teach you, no wonder I failed miserably the first go round :D). CP helis are not forgiving, not even a little bit, you have to fly them at all times. Your coaxial will self stabilize if you get in trouble by just letting go of the sticks, provided you have enough altitude and don't hit anything. A CP heli by contrast, once drifting in one direction will continue on that path until something (you via the radio, a tree, a wall, the ground, etc) counteracts that drift. It will be a big jump from a coaxial to a CP heli, I'm not saying it won't. But the difference between that and the fixed pitch heli (especially with all the bad habits FP helis have) just isn't that large to be honest having flown both. I will say that modern flybarless helis are neutrally stable (look it up, I'm not doing all the work for you :D), much more so than flybarred helis.

The little heli max 100 is a great heli, a buddy has one. I do recommend avoiding brushless birds when learning though, that extra power just breaks more stuff and you don't need all that power to learn with to be honest. It just makes the heli twitchy, and the head speed even on a micro can be intimidating to some.

Now, here's something funny. I recently bought a couple of micro planes (never flown planes till last year, and they belonged to friends) and I can't fly them for crap! I'm all over the place with them, and nervous the whole time. And I always can't wait to fly my heli afterward, which I'm very comfortable with. Never thought I'd EVER say that. LOL

Also, check out helifreak.com, it's the RCNT of helis. Lots of great guys over there, and a ton of info on any heli you even wondered about.
 
Getting a coaxial for sure, no doubt about that.

I know that FP have some with and with out flybars. for example msr has a flybar, msr x is flybarless but also has as3x gyro in it.

But from what your saying, and correct me if I'm wrong its a good idea to just skip the fixed pitch all together and just take my time learning the CP heli's? I mean they come small enough its inexpensive to crash. and being young like I am I should be able to pick it up fairly quickly so I agree with possibly skipping FP all together.
 
I appreciate your opinion, when it comes down to it it makes sense. I'm going to the LHS tomorrow to look at some heli's that are small and with out flybars CP and so on. thank you HPIGuy for pointing out a lot of good points. It really helps a lot.
 
Awesome thread fellows

Being still a rank amateur, in my opinion, so there isn't a lot of helpful info that I could share, but I do have some thoughts that might be of consideration to some who read them...

Plenty of good info here above for the newcomers to RC flying, thanks.
Too bad that we can't get hpiguy to come out of his shell and talk a bit more! Smile
Actually I quite enjoy learning from him and any others who share thee welcomed knowledge and previous experience with the rest of us.

Yes, I agree to skip the FP and flybarred helicopters, which many of, are just cheaply built toys and jump right in.
I took the micro quad route to learning my very first basic flying moves. I'm sure happy that I did, as they are extremely durable and can withstand some pretty hard hits when crashing in to stuff. The replacement blades and landing skids if needed, are cheap enough. ...

My first cp heli flying conquest, came at the cost of my , which again is a very durable little cp heli, with a lot of power for such small brushless motors.

It's a blast to fly and can really get your heart thumping at accelerated beats, with it's speed and agility, once you get a good hold of it, while flying.

Practice makes perfect, and so I suppose flying any helicopter, will teach, and help a person to begin learning most of the basics.

I know there are several beginners who crashed and got frustrated enough to quit trying to learn. That's a shame, because RC flying is likely the pinnacle of the RC hobby and industry.

Thanks again for the info in the posts above. I really appreciate it all.

Chas
 
The first heli I ever flew was the mCX. It's the toughest little bird I ever flew. I lost it and it flew into the display case at my LHS. We picked it up set on top of the case and started flying again. They're fun little helis and would not hesitate to recommend them. The only downside to them is that they can't really handle any wind.

The next upgrade after learning the basics of flying it is to add a computer radio such as the DX-6 or DX-7.
 
+1 to the computer radio, it'll even turn the MCX2 into a completly different animal.
 
First off I want to thank every one for helping me out. A lot of great info was given. I went to the LHS today (Superstition Hobbies) to look at the helis again in person and watch them fly. so with every ones opinion here on RCNT and my LHS I think I'm going to buy a Blade MSR to get the flying basics down. and then I'm going to start my collective pitch training on the Blade MCP X BL. I'm also going to get the dx6 to fly both heli's. along with a new charger and many batteries!. after that I will step it up to a blade 450x or something of that nature.

I like the blade series because my LHS has every part for them but also I like how their all Spektrum compatible. and starting with these small of helis I wont feel bad when I wreck them!

Thanks for helping me get started in the right direction for my new adventure in to rc heli's!
 
If you're getting a FP, I'd just get the MSRx over the MSR. The flybarless setup really lets it handle winds better than the MSR, plus the X is about $10 cheaper. I have the MSRx and really enjoy it, it handles the wind okay (I'm sure a more experienced pilot can do much better), but flying in stronger winds seems to be taking a toll on tail rotors.

Maybe HPIguy can give some more insight on this, but I was told that if I planned on getting a bigger heli (anything above the 450) it would be better to just get a DX7 or 8. Something about the gyros on the larger helis needing the extra channels.
 
Helis are not as hard to control as most people think. I've never left one up there yet. :D

That is cause you run around the room in your shorts holding it in the air going WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP :p

What HPIGUY said +1, he is a much better pilot then I am, I know him from another forum, get the coax and have fun with it, I still do on days when I can't fly outside, it is just way too much fun indoors plus it will start to teach you muscle memory. Skip the fixed pitch and go for a mCPX once you got the coax down, I have crashed mine so many times yet it still fly's. Once you get control of that got for a 450 or bigger bird. Note: My 45 still scares the poop out of me from time to time.


wwdragon
 
GREAT FRIGGIN THREAD! :). Have always wanted to learn helis but was always too scared. Boats, cars and planes give me no problems. Helis look so fun to fly but was always told they were too difficult. Thanks for the info in this thread! Think I'm buying a heli this weekend :)

Sent from my MB886 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
 
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