RE: thinking about starting w/heli's
Hi and welcome to the world of R/C Helicopters. I will not tell again what others have explained; instead I will recommend you to buy the helicopter brand of your choice in the 400 size range with good service parts availability. I think that the Nitro Planes brand that you have mentioned is OK as well as they can have parts in stock. Non of us are in the hobby to crash our costly equipment but I can tell you that it happens more often than with our fixed wings R/C Airplanes but the difference here is that you can fix a broken plane with some balsa and parts that not necessarily come from the plane's manufacturer, in the R/C Heli world most brands are different and parts just don't fit equally among other brands, so be specially focused in this issue and you will have a lot of fun with any one of your choice.