I had the same problem when I started. I've got Ray's Third Edition. There seems to be excessive focus on building blades and balancing them and on actually building the heli from the ground up. My opinion is that a beginner will start off with an ARF, prebuilt wooden blades and perhaps try a bit of fine tuning on the balance. My edition doesn't even mention HH Gyros! After reading the easier parts of Ray's a couple of times, I realized that I was enrolled in Advanced Heli's when I really needed "Basic Heli's.

Hence, I purchased MAN's "Basics of Radio Control Helicopters". Great book for beginners, just as Ray's is a great book for advanced heli flyers. MAN's book covers the basics and covers them in understandable terms with diagrahams and illustrations. Don't get me wrong, it still has shortcomings (It mentions "Solid-State" Gyros, the latest advance in gyro technology)- and has no reference to HH Gyros. This book was published in 1995. Have we come a long way!

For $15, it was the best heli purchase I ever made. Now I understand about half of what Uncle Ray writes!

Bob