ORIGINAL: toprudder

Well, a few weeks ago I splattered my BCP, while doing a roll. It rolled over inverted, I pulled negative pitch when inverted and BAM, the rotor blades stopped and it fell from over 100' up. Major damage. But, hey, it was fun!!!

Anyway, I added up the cost of the parts to fix it, and started looking at different options. I ended up buying a HoneyBee CP2 bare-bones kit, from HeliDirect. Less than $80 shipped to my door, including motors. It comes with what I believe to be a Bell-Hiller head, aerobatic blades, 9 tooth pinion on the motor, Lipo ready. Took about an hour to move the electronics from my BCP to the HB CP2 and to adjust the linkages (by eyeball!).

I did not have a Lipo ready yet (have to put the right connector on) so I just used my old NiMh battery from the BCP. Took it outdoors to try it out, and it immediately flew better than the BCP. It flew well enough that I tried it later inside my living room and I had no problem hovering in place.

So, if you are thinking about buying the aerobatic upgrade and a Bell-Hiller head, you might consider buying the HB CP2 bare-bones kit instead, will save a lot of time. I may buy the aluminum swashplate now, if it makes it fly any better than it does now it will be awesome!

[link]http://www.helidirect.com/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=599[/link]