I have flow fixed pitch electric copters for over a year now. This is the first time at trying a collective pitch copter. I have a blade cp that I am trying to fly. My question is: Is it normal for collective pitch copters to be a lot more sensitive on the throttle? It is very difficult to keep a constant altitude. If I bring the throttle stick down a little too much the copter comes down fast and if I give it a little too much throttle the copter shoots up fast. Any help would be appreciated.

Yeah, it's fairly touchy out of the box. Some things that can help:

Remove the ratcheting from the left stick in the Tx. Pop the cover off and slip a piece of fuel tubing over the little metal "tab" on the throttle gimbal. That'll help a bit.

Make sure your head isn't binding anywhere. A lot of people (myself included) had a minor binding issue in the head - in my case the blade grips/featering spindle - that needed to be addressed and resolved. Take a look at bdavison's CP build guide, particularly the posts on building up the head.

Set up your pitch curves properly. Again, reference the CP build thread..

Setup is everything. Get the setup done right and the helo will behave better.

A lot of people have installed a single conversion crystal in the 4-in-1's receiver and used their computer radios with their CPs. I'm expecting my crystal in the mail today and will be using my Futaba 9CHP to "drive" my Blade. Lots of Futaba solutions, I'm not sure about JR/Hitec etc tho...

Good luck!

If you have a Hitec with spectra module, you just dial in the frequency of the OEM crystal.

On the stock TX one thing to try is upping the throttle trim. At higher head speeds you may find it easier to manage altitude control.


HTH

Si

I've also found it to be especially touch with the flat bottom blades and any kind of breeze. I now only fly the symmetrical blades for that reason, unless I'm flying inside, but even then, the throttle seems less touchy.

the thr/pitch stick is normally very responsive with CP heli and you are supposed to micro or macro manage it. unfortunately you dont have the option of playing with pitch curves to customize it to your liking.

it's something you will get used to over the process of learning:

learn to take off and land, start off in tail in hover, THEN

pitch pump to learn collective management. this is how it snapped for me. shake the heli up and down like the 3d pilots do showing off their heli's power. use lots of positive pitch if needed.

side in hovering, forward flight, circuits, nose in hover, backwards flight, etc...