I just bought a new blade cp, but i will not get it until closer to the weekend. just wanting to know from anyone that started out on this machine. I have the xrb and manage to fly it good, but i wanted to try and move up a step. I can still practice the xrb while learning the blade. I have decided to jump into the cp istead of getting an fp because of what most people on the forum have said. I know it will definately take practice, but i wanted somthing that i could grow with. This should work out better in the longrun. Plus, it looks like this is one of the most popular ones to get (everyone has been out of stock for weeks), customer support and part support is supposed to be good, not to mention that they fly everyone of theese machines from the factory. If any of you started out on the blade cp or have any input on my decision to go with it......let me know what you think.

yes tater, put training wheels on it and dont rush yourself. Flying heli's is sort of the Ultimate video game without a "reset " button. remember Take the time to admire how it all works. The more you understand its mechanics, the less frustrating it will be to fly and set up. It will take more patience than your XRB to hover. But if you master this little craft, youll pretty much have an understanding how all rc heli's function to a degree. Its pretty crashworthy for the most part though it all depends on your mechanical aptitude on figuring out the little problem rather than just replacing all the parts. It took me seriously 3 months to master the hover confidently enough my first gas heli way back when, and that was 3 or 4 tanks a night religiously, before I took off the whiffle balls.. I think i have fair to excellent hand eye coordination ( having all my appendages after working in a trade where we use just about every power tool imaginable ) but understand I am not gloating. just trying to put this hobby in perspective for you. I''ll let any fool grab my car controllers and have a try at it. any day of the week. and its hard to say no to all the little kids at the park that ask to have a turn at flying it. Not only that, its even funner showing up at an RC airfield with a bunch of old geezers toolin around their fixed wings.. they always seem to get a look on their face like they wanna go home.. Its Awesome.. !

I started out with this little chopper on friday night.

I have never flown a heli in my life, and i was hovering after flying for 5 seconds. Forward flight in the second flight, and am now doing figure 8's, laps both ways, and landing on the box it came in.

I have 7 flights total, and am getting really anxious to do a loop. Just gotta put my aerobatic kit on it and get the right sized lipo.

In normal mode, it is a fixed pitch chopper, and when you go to idle up 1, it's an aerobatic machine (which ill find out soon how it does)

Hope you do well,
Scott

dont click the throttle up any lower than half stick. If your set up negative like its supposed to be.. itll suck itself into the center of the earth..

what do you mean? dont flip the idle up switch when the sticks lower then half? yea, i no, negative pitch for inverted.

I meant i didnt fly a REAL heli, but i have alot, and i mean ALOT of time on the sim with heli's and i can do lots of 3D, just not brave enough to do without the aerobatic kit on blade

I've never even flown a heli on the sim and after having it about a week I am able to put it in a pretty stable hover. I can almost land on a box that is the exact size of the training gear spread. The tricky part is not letting one of those ping-pong balls hit the edge... lol You will L-O-V-E this helicopter! I almost sleep with it on my pillow at night! I've been flying planes for several years now, and couldn't believe how different these two are from each other! I've flown the full scale version of fixed, and rotor, so knew a little bit of what to expect.

My place is probably not too friendly for a new heli pilot, so will wait to try forward flight at a more open space. Every time I start to move forward things go downhill. haha. Oh well, it's still a BLAST! I already have a video camera system hooked up to it, so that's entertaining to watch! Specially my one crash from the box! I was surprised how well it did with the extra weight too... does just fine even with stock engine/batteries!

*sheds a tear *

Thanks for the input. sounds like i will have fun with it. I dont understand the thing about it being a fp in mode 1, and dont go more than half throttle. can you explain. I wont be thinking about the aero kit for a loooooong time. does it have 2 different modes?? does the cp mix with the throttle or is it seperate? just wondering if you just have 2 sticks to control with or more. Thank you.

The Blade CP has a switch on the right-hand side of the controller that toggles it between normal and 3D mode. Normal mode mixes trottle with blade pitch for simple flight. 3D mode runs the motor at full speed and your have only pitch control. Don't use 3D mode to train in -- it's easier to break .. everything that way.

Mode 1 puts throttle/collective pitch in the right hand, I believe, and mode 2 is in the left-hand. The Blade comes with a mode 2 unit and I don't know that it even has the option for mode 1. So you get throttle/col.pitch and rudder in the left hand, and roll/pitch in the right, and the "switch of doom" up in the right corner hehe -- be especially careful not to bump this thing when you set the controller on the ground to perform a minor adjustment on the chopper.. ahem...

in more detail:
The throttle up switch floors the gas, then sets your servos to push the main blades farther up and down beyond the 0 pitch to 10 + collective.. its somthing that you will learn as you fly a CP machine.. but to do a loop.. you need negative pitch for a moment to keep the heli aloft when its upsidedown.. otherwise it'll just drill in..

and learn the loop before ya try inverted.