That comment was not directed towards you jdoug, I should have been more specific I guess.

Basically, any ESC that is meant for a heli has a slow start built into it as an option. This saves many gears, blades, motors and smashed helis from inadvertantly hitting the stick by accident. The soft start option overides all throttle stick commands when powering up. In soft start mode if you flip the throttle to WOT it will still start slowly until it reaches your preset throttle curve where ever your throttle stick may be.

An ESC w/o soft start will go from zero to full throttle in just about a second. This can be very damaging to a heli. Yes, you can use an ESC that is not meant for a heli, but you will have to control how fast it starts up.

ESCs meant for helis also have more options like timing, throttle sensativity and governer.

Hope this helps better than the last post.