Hey guys! I went ahead and got a heli from Xheli.com. No problems at all. Everything came in together and packaged great. It only took two days to get to me but I'm in San Diego. I got the Blue Ray 450 PE with the training landing gear. It looks really nice. I also went and bought a charger for the battery. Ended up getting the Vision Peak Ultra charger by Dynamite and it seems to be a good all around charger with A/C and DC inputs Lipo/Ni-Cd/Ni-MH capable, peak charger, current adjustment, auto trickle charge and more. It didn't come with a balancer but you can get that separately. I charged the battery and hooked it up so I could program the ESC with the tx. I set up the throttle range and then the battery type and start up mode. That was it. After hooking up the training landing gear and making sure the servos were working I began to power up and trim the heli. Finally I lifted off the ground and I am glad I put the training landing gear on because it's a bit harder to control the heli on take off, hover and landing than on the simulator. Seems like it would be easy to tip over onto the blades when you are just learning how to take off and land on the real thing. Now I'm practicing low hover and orientation.

I keep hearing about the upcoming sales for Friday and I'm wondering if I should pick up an EXI 450 so I can begin putting one together and also for when I crash the Blue Ray. Would like to think that it's not going to happen but we all know the question is not "IF" it ever happens but "WHEN" it happens.

One thing I'd like to ask is about battery packs. I'd like to get an extra 2-3 more packs to allow for more flying time. Any suggestions on what packs to get? I'd like get something for a reasonable price and with extended time. The battery that it came with only lasted about 8 minutes yesterday. Also, where can I get the batteries at? Any info on this or any more tips you can provide for this new pilot will be greatly appreciated. Thanks and Merry Christmas to all!

By the way, what type of routine maintenance should I be doing to keep the heli flying well and consistently and prevent any accidents due to improper up-keep? Thanks again!