Hello folks,

I was wondering for those of you that had purchased this heli if you had had any problems with the default configuration of the unit as a RTF.

For me what I had found was that for a unit that is supposed to be shipped as a Flight tested RTF Heli, it did not preform as it should have.

My unit as purchased new from a company in newfoundland called siginal hobbies which is in st. johns newfoundland, had problems out of the box.

first, the batteries, not a big deal, however the AA's supplied for the transmitter were actually blistered in the package, and unsuitable for use.

(Installation of Fresh Panasonic ALK, or NIMH is better anyways..)

pre flight testing indicated that although mechanically appears to be working fine, mix and gyro defaults appear to be within reasonable trimmable limits via remote.

In air, as a RTF the unit did not preform as expected, all it does is spin out of control in a clockwise rotation once in flight.

as a RTF I was disappointed in the preformance, and would suggest end user preform tail Mix adjustment. and NOT to depend on factory adjustments as a RTF.

My initial judgement was that I should have tweaked the trim, however after reading in the manual that each unit is flight tested and as such should not require any adjustment by myself.

I should have trusted my instincts, and preformed my own adjustments...

the first flight of this heli resulted in damaged rotor blades and pitch

the unit is extremely delicate, and easily damaged.

for me I have much expierence with operation of various rc models, cars, and planes. as well as a solid understanding of flight principles and operation.

I was disapointed in my initial operation of this RTF Heli.

However, after discussion with the USA office, they had indicated that there was indeed a problem with the heli as there are problems sometimes with mass produced electronics...

I dont feel that the problem was as such with the electronics, but the manual as such makes the end user to believe that the unit should be fine out of the box. and is also test flown.

if the unit is infact test flown, then why would it appear to require a adjustment.

I should have tweaked the unit before flight, and not have relied on the understanding that the unit was already flight tested.

Anyways they DO have good support for their customers, my first call, i had basically laughed. but to be honest did not know eather to laugh or cry basically.

but yes I was correct...

and they do carry a warranty, however it is at my expense to ship.

what I paid for was a RTF Heli.

what I ended up with was NOT a RTF.

if you are purchase as a RTF, treat as a standard KIT and verify and do all initial trims yourself.

in my instance, the manual and flight testing did not prove to be accurate or valid.

im sure its a good product, however, is somewhat over priced, extremely costly to rebuild.

25$ for a set of balsa blades. we can live with... but the plastic of the rotor assembley is very very brittle.

you would think that if it gets a occasional clip of the blades you just need new blades...

think again...

the little plastic pieces are extremely brittle and expensive.

I do not recomend this product unless you have a thick wallet.

for the monies spent you would expect a more durable product that is in fact properly calibrated from the factory.


to be honest it is like the product is meant to break the first time flown.

the sales pitch is basically you just need to replace the little balsa blades... which is false.


truth is these products are expensive and for many unknowing the real expense for a item that is basically non returnable.

I have had some expierence with a couple of different kits, and i am sure it is not my fault.

it is a over priced item meant to have problems from the time it comes from the box.


as a RTF, I was disapointed.... I should have bought a complete kit and assembled it myself.

sorry to sound negative... but its not a good price value, nor was the RTF quality acceptable.


the guy asks, got any expierence with collective pitch...

collective pitch has nothing to do with a improperly adjusted RTF.

I know the way it operates, and should preform.

this unit did not operate as it should have out of the box...


be warned...


Best wishes to everyone, I hope it was a isolated incident

One thing that it could be is altitude. Air gets thicker and thinner as alt changes. I'm around 5k feet and my tail was underpowered so I had to adjust the mix. I wonder if you are closer to sea level than the factory and that's why yours had the problem. Also because the batts were toast, it maybe could have got some heat damage in a container or somewhere else along the line.

As far as it being expensive... yes it is, but pretty much so is every other decent heli out there. A few parts they really charge alot for, like the spindles (1 for $6 where a trex 450's are like 3 for 6). The trick is alot of the esky parts fit the blade and are alot cheaper. They just take longer to get here from Tiawan, but I am not sure about where you live. $25 for woodies is quite expensive. There's a site that has woodies for $8 bucks, and another one with plastic coated foam blades for $3.75. Anyways basically yeah it is expensive, but there are also deals to be found =)

good luck with your heli and I hope you get it back in the air

Two of my friends and myself bought one Blade CP Pro each, and all three units were flight tested by an experienced pilot out of the box. Two of them were found to be very satisfactory, one of them was basically flawless. With an experienced hand at the stick, mine was tuned to peak performance in minutes, and I then proceeded to destroy my first set of blades and bend one main shaft. I am very happy with that product, considering what you get for less than 300 CAN$. Of course, I was forewarned before I bought it, so I expected to crash, and I expected that it would be costly to repair. But you have to remember how much a RC helicopter used to cost to fly and maintain ten years ago. I also think I entered that learning experience with a very humble attitude, I did not expect to succeed the first time.

Better luck in the future,
Georges

Hi Murray,

The Blade CP, like most RTF helicopters, require that you go over the setup very carefully. The people who "test fly" these helicopters are, IMO, very experienced pilots who have many hours of flight time and experienced heli pilots can over come setup problems that will cause new pilots problems. Blade and Flybar Paddle Tracking Adjustment (pg. 21-22 in the manual) is critical on these helicopters BTW. Also be sure to check out "www.bladecprepair.com" for more info on setting up these models. The lower swashplate should be level on all sides and the C.G. should be slightly nose heavy or level as well for best results.
I have almost 20 hours on a Blade CP (my first CP heli) and am on my third set of blades, second spindle, and will need to replace the tail motor soon (the brushes are nearly worn out). Total cost of these parts is about 30 USD, which is not too bad if you ask me.

Hi murraykj, I have had my CP Pro for a month now. The first time my heli was flown was by an experianced pilot at the rc club, he had no problem flying it and commented on how he liked it (he flys nitros and a trex se). He did adjust the rudder trim a little to hold the tail straight so we adjusted the proportional pot a little and recentered my trim then it held good. I would say that going in I was warned about the difficulty and costs involved in learning to fly a heli and I accepted this and bought it anyway. I have spent money on blades and bought spareparts just incase but as I get better hopefully these costs will come down. I also spend alot of time fixing and tweaking things but that is common in this hobby, so although at times I feel discouraged with my heli it gets easier to fly each time out. When you buy them they do say rtf but anyone should know that the setup should be checked when you first fly it, before each flight and after any crash. Also before flying most people would say you should have experience on a flight sim, use training gear and follow some flying tips like radds or others you find online. Hope you don't give up, I have felt like it at times but the reward of learning to hover and ff flight is very gratifying and it does get better. Happy flying and good luck.

I crash my CP Pro everytime I fly it (seriously!). I've never broken any head parts. I've broken the frame, landing gear, have gone through about 12 sets of blades, and have bent countless main shafts and spindles. I can't figure out if the CP Pro is hard to fly or if I can hardly fly. Maybe it's the radio. I've started flying a T-Rex 450. Glad to hear the parts are cheap. I'm seriously thinking about getting a car, not to replace helis, but to wind down with because I find heli flying really stressful.

Thanks for the words of encouragement from everyone.

but ya i was kinda disapointed.

funny thing is that the unit didnt have a scratch, just poped the blades and part of the linkage for the cp and a part cottected to the top of the heli like a little plastic ball.

i expected the blade to snap, which was not a big issue.

but yes i was suprised when one of the plastic pieces of the rotor had snapped as well.

for me i think what i need is plastic blades and a metal in the linkage assembly, i think i would be more satisified with that.

im open to suggestions, and honestly i did not really want to spend much more than i already did, other than blades and such.

anyways nice folks at eflight, they offered to fix it but it is my expense to ship it to them.

i was just very suprised how brittle it was.

but yet to se a less expensive model seem to be more durable, plastic blades.


oh well. live and learn...

BTW> many of these helis look the same but just have different names on them, so its kinda like a clone of another product i would think. so what models in this series are the same as the blade cp


Thanks for the comments

I just put black symetrical jcs plasti-blades on mine and they look great, are very durable and are not that expensive. I haven't been flying that long but I would say that I haven't broken that many parts as I try to be careful and not get to high when hovering so when I land to rough it minimizes the damage. Also I had a bad habit of overcorrectig my stick inputs when first starting so letting the heli have time to react before making another input helped out alot(I had no idea I was doing this it was pointed out by some of are rc club members). Another thing that I found to help was to not let the heli fly anywhere until you can hold the tail for long hovers without it turning on you and losing control of the tail or the heli, you should just land and re-align your heli with the tail pointing towards you.. There are also lots of links in this forum to sites that show you how to tune your heli and balance blades ect. at first I did not want to take the heli apart maybe its not that important I thought, what if I can't put it back together. Wrong! after taking it apart after every misshap that causes wobble or vibration I have gotten very familiar with this heli, have gotten really good at taking it apart and putting it back together but most importantly it flys way better without as many corrections needed to hover. The others helpers I mentioned before flight sim practice, radds method and training gear. Good luck and Happy flying.

Thanks for the suggestions,

ya i would think the blades you mentioned would be somewhat more durable other than the balsa supplied.

to be honest i had thought that the blades were plastic until it had split and the covering visable.

any ideas on where the blades can be purchased and how much they cost.

what we can purchase here where i live is balsa blades and they are 25$ a set

JCS Blades...

Yes that woud be a big improvement.

http://www.jcshobbies.com/index.htm



If someone else has a good idea, and obviously a improvement, then why did they not sell these with a similar item in the first place.

now that we have appeared to found a suitable blade replacement, does anyone have any suggestions for the other parts of the assembly.


The price on the JCS Blades is definately a good investment.

now is a search for better blade hardware, and little pitch rod things...


videos on the JCS site are quite nice and shows what a properly tuned rc heli should preform like.

if you want to know why plasti-blades do not come stock... you might find some answers in my article =)
http://www.heli-max.net/mediawiki/in..._Plasti-Blades

as far as the blade grips and mixer arms... I recently posted all of that info over in the wee blade cp forum. It's $15 bucks for the parts you need to upgrade, and you can get them at www.horizonhobbies.com

There are all sorts of CNC stuff that is much more durable than the stock stuff... but you'll pay through the nose for it =)