Well here is my view of it all. Flew full scale helicopters for 20 years. Been flying RC for 10. Decided to try helicopters 2 months ago. I stated here somewhere that if i knew 2 months ago, what I know now, I would have done things a tad different.
I tried to be careful as not to ____myself. I had good intentions and the support here on the heli side of things is great but it did not turn out right for me. I have learned alot during this time and simply trying not to waste time or money but succeeded in doing a bit of both.
I suggest staying away from anything with an electric tail motor and especially with nicad batteries. Helicopters are hard enough to learn to fly on without having the very systems your trying to master working against you.
Flight time on any helicopter is virtually nothing. 5 minutes would make me jump for joy! The nicads drain at a horribly fast rate. This causes the electric main and tail motors rpm to go up and down and run directly off the charge going on at the time. tail rotor running on its own sheet of music makes things worse.
Helicopters already have the basic torque effect from the general operation but with the charge of the battery doing what it does, its a handful. After a few flights, I was getting to hover fairly well and was alsoevaluating what was going on and i could not keep things constant to to the drain of the battery.
Sohhhhh finallyabout three weeks ago, the lord blessed me with an ending to it all when i was hovering around and the head blew apart and put the thing out of its misery! I sent it in for a refund which I recieved. Also during this time i had ordered my "second helicopter" which is my winter project that will have a nice setup but this is not a cure to the immediate problem which is I need a trainer to carry me through.
I had also mention it would be better for a person to learn on a heli with Belt drive so as the tail would be constant and not come on and off with regards to the juice from the battery but who wants to spend $700 on a trainer? So I looked around and their are a few. First off stay away from Raidentech.
There is another what seems to be a popular brand called a Belt CP and there is a forum right here under "Esky." Here are a couple links to some reputable sites. It is a ready to fly setup which i just ordered today from the guy who sold my my winter kit. I suggest you go with the belt drive system which also have a lipo battery setup.
I also suggest you get a simulator. Real flight is nice but very expensive, FMS is $20 and gets the job done whic is to teach you to hover. This Belt CP is around $200 which is also inthe same cost range as others with an electric tail setup.
http://store.rcsupersales.net/servle...RTF-Kit/Detail
http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...roducts_id=351
http://www.xheli.com/e4chflsitrki.html (Simulator)