Hello Dave,

First off, ZX Shuttle parts are readily available from most all heli distributers so dont be afraid of it in the least. I've crashed and rebuilt once already, crashes are a great way of getting to know the intimate details of your Hirobo............trust me

Here is a link to my recent flight with cheering section after putting Funkey fiberglass blades and a Century muffler on my ZX Shuttle. The JR Max Computer came with the purchase and works fine!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXoJyiFBHvU

I was in the same boat as you about 9 months ago. Bought a ZX heli off ebay that came with a Max computer radio and I had no clue what I was getting myself into!!! My only reasoning was that I thought Shuttle heli's looked cool[8D]

But no matter what kind of heli you have, one thing is for certain.............you will learn things you never knew you would learn and do things you never dreamed you could do.

With that said.........

Pull the helicopter apart from the ground up and check EVERY part............

If it needs to be replaced replace it..........

If it looks like it might need to be replaced replace it...........

If it doesnt look like it needs to be replaced keep a very close eye on it!!!!!!!

If it spins..............balance it!!!!!!!

If it doesnt spin and its metal............loctite it!!!!!!

Check everything before every flight!!!!

The Max Computer radio WORKS EXCELLENT for hovering and forward flight. Its completely programable but you have to do everything through the small LCD window. You can program pitch curves, throttle curves, idle up, and throttle hold. The downside is the curves are only adjustable on 3 points (lo, mid, high) where the newer radios have 5 (or more) point curve adjustment. I will upgrade to my JR 8103 but honestly I have not needed anything more than this radio and it has kept the cost down. It even came with a PCM receiver to boot. Gold label frequency ready and I havent had a glitch. The only issue was the small base loaded antenna that took a dump so I just soldered in a new full length one and routed it down the tail.

So far I have learned to hover and do forward flight without a simulator. I do "play" on the sim in the hobby shop now and again but for the most part its been pretty straight forward just taking baby steps as I get comfortable.

I'm an old school R/C er from 1982 and am going out of my way to prove its possible to fly a heli without exclusive sim training............The Shuttle is a stable platform to learn on and very forgiving of my mistakes!

Good luck and happy hovering!!!!

I have the manual and it has a programming flow chart in it. I'll try to scan it!!!

Tony