For the radio, I would agree with Jason. Buy the best you can afford at the time. It will save you an upgrade later on. I fly the 9C and am loving it. I compared it to the features of the 9ZAW2, and yes the ZAW2 has a lot more features, but it is just about double the price. The 9C will get you through years of flying, and when you are ready to upgrade at that time, there should be something else better than the ZAW2.

After I setup my Raptor I had one of the locals check it out and take the first flight. After that I was on my own. I did do a lot of flying on the sim first, so the real thing wasn't that bad. I'm using G2 withe add-on #3 as it has a Raptor in it.

The first set of training gear I got was the for dowels with the balls on the end of them, but I had to get rid of them after only a couple of flights. The ends of the dowels aren't attached to anything, and the downwash from the main blades made them and the whole ship shake A LOT.

I switched over to a hulla hoop strapped onto a grid of dowels. The total price was about 6 bucks, about 3 times cheaper than the first set I got.

If you can, try and get someone else to check out the machine first. Maybe there is someone on this list from Brandon or Winnipeg that can give you a hand to start. After it is all setup, just keep everything really low to start, and if you get in trouble cut the throttle. The machine will drop to the ground, but the short fall shouldn't cause any damage.

There is nothing worse than trying to learn on a machine that isn't setup properly and all you do is fight it.

If you do get the Raptor, there is a pretty good video available for how to set it up.

Happy hovering

Dean