RE: Heli stuff and fellowship
Welcome to the thread helorookie!
I'm sure you'll learn a lot from the guys here, they're great! Very friendly and knowledgeable. You don't find that too often, usually you find people who THINK they know everything and are god's gift to heli's. You won't find that here. When I first started with my Raptor G2, Jim(dooleyje) helped me out, told me a lot of stuff, I absorbed it all like a sponge, and I was up in the air, smooth sailin! He's always right, knows his stuff!
I've looked at the Blade 400 3D RTF kit, it looks really good, a great kit to start, the parts are also fairly cheap. I was in the mall, and saw this girl who bought the blade 400 kit, and some rolls of gift wrapping, that's gonna be one happy boyfriend! Another heli freak is gonna be born.
Ya, you should order a sim to run on your laptop, you can get a remote and FMS(free sim software) for $20, it will run on any computer. If you have a good 3D card, u can get the newer stuff, realfight G3 or G4. It'd be best to learn everything on there since you can't crash as often. And when you're waiting for parts, you can practice all those moves that you'll try once you've got it back up in the air.
If you run into any snags getting your Blade up, don't hesitate to ask!
Take care.
Dave.