There are a few things all newbies should know that are rarely mentioned so here are a few of my tricks that may help.

1. Get some bright (Hot pink, neon orange or neon green) adhesive covering and cover your tail surfaces, vertical and horizontal stabilizers. Then put a strip on the bottom of your canopy and you will never lose orientation. you can always take the covering off later with a heat gun .

2. As others have mentioned, altitude is your friend, once you can hover good you should start running the heli at 20 feet or more so you have time to correct mistakes. I have crashed from every altitude and I can't say there is any more damage by being higher, I have had more damage from tipping it over on the ground in idle up than from 80 feet for example.

3. Wind is bad, if your learning just wait for a nice calm day, I cannot tell you how many times I have said "dammit I should have known better" after trying to fly or rather crash on a windy day I knew was going to cause trouble.As they say "my hindsight is 20/20"

4. The high pitch ratios (+10,0,-10) are for 3D pilots not beginners, when I started I tuned the pitch down to (+8,0,-8) and set all the CCCP percentages to 70% to limit collective and cyclic pitch. When your learning you want control which means slow movements until you get the feeling for what you need to do. I also set the throttle curve to (0,50,80), it shouldn't feel mushy on the throttle but you don't want it too jump in the air either, you want smooth presice throttle response, if you ESC supports throttle response set it to low.

5. use exponetial rates, some experts say no- but maybe they have always been experts in there mind, I am not. I used 20% expo on my cyclic the first year and am happy I did, many people I know commented on how stable my Trex was and the fact I could hover rock solid in a two foot square with no movement. When I told them I used expo they tried it and never looked back, It helps more than any other adjustment you can make when learning.

6. Fly the damn thing! don't let it fly where it wants to go, your in control or should be so take control. I have found being confident and focused is 90% of flying well, don't get me wrong you are going to crash over and over due to stupid mistakes we all have made but you shouldn't let it get to you, its all part of a very steep learning curve. As well your never done flying until the blades have stopped, some of you may have learned this the hard way I know I did.

7. Know where throttle hold is (set it to 0)and if you know your going to crash, I mean "know" your going to crash make sure you hit the switch "before" the heli hits the ground. The Trex is one tough bird and you can prevent a major amount of damage by cutting power so the drive train is free wheeling before you hit the dirt otherwise your doing the chicken dance and this is all bad.

8. Setup is everything, if you half-ass the setup it makes flying so much harder than it needs to be. My heli can fly hands off for 10 seconds or more, Yes 10 seconds or more. If the setup and balancing is bang on and the heli is trimmed out right the trex almost flies itself. So if your fighting the controls and always correcting something is wrong and its going to get you sooner or later.

This covers most of the stuff I had to learn the hard way, the trex is a very stable and tough heli which I abuse on a regular basis and Im sure once you get the basics down you guys are going to have a blast.