I'm looking into getting into electric rc helicopters. Been looking at getting an E-Sky Robins 22 R/C Electric Micro Helicopter. What are your opinions on this helicopter as my first? It is ok for a beginner? I did try gas rc helicopters many years ago. I had a grauptner bell 47g and a helibay with full collective. I never masterred the art of those helicopters. The 47g I dorked it in good and totalled it and sold the helibay before I did it in. I feel the twin coaxial rotor at least 3 or 4 channel with gyro would be best for me to start out with

the robins is a nice stable heli and is a blast to fly indoors. you can't really fly it outside though except on completely calm days as any wind will throw it around. if you're an aggresive flyer you'll out grow it very quickly but it is a nice first step.

Well here is my view of it all. Flew full scale helicopters for 20 years. Been flying RC for 10. Decided to try helicopters 2 months ago. I stated here somewhere that if i knew 2 months ago, what I know now, I would have done things a tad different.

I tried to be careful as not to ____myself. I had good intentions and the support here on the heli side of things is great but it did not turn out right for me. I have learned alot during this time and simply trying not to waste time or money but succeeded in doing a bit of both.

I suggest staying away from anything with an electric tail motor and especially with nicad batteries. Helicopters are hard enough to learn to fly on without having the very systems your trying to master working against you.

Flight time on any helicopter is virtually nothing. 5 minutes would make me jump for joy! The nicads drain at a horribly fast rate. This causes the electric main and tail motors rpm to go up and down and run directly off the charge going on at the time. tail rotor running on its own sheet of music makes things worse.

Helicopters already have the basic torque effect from the general operation but with the charge of the battery doing what it does, its a handful. After a few flights, I was getting to hover fairly well and was alsoevaluating what was going on and i could not keep things constant to to the drain of the battery.

Sohhhhh finallyabout three weeks ago, the lord blessed me with an ending to it all when i was hovering around and the head blew apart and put the thing out of its misery! I sent it in for a refund which I recieved. Also during this time i had ordered my "second helicopter" which is my winter project that will have a nice setup but this is not a cure to the immediate problem which is I need a trainer to carry me through.

I had also mention it would be better for a person to learn on a heli with Belt drive so as the tail would be constant and not come on and off with regards to the juice from the battery but who wants to spend $700 on a trainer? So I looked around and their are a few. First off stay away from Raidentech.

There is another what seems to be a popular brand called a Belt CP and there is a forum right here under "Esky." Here are a couple links to some reputable sites. It is a ready to fly setup which i just ordered today from the guy who sold my my winter kit. I suggest you go with the belt drive system which also have a lipo battery setup.

I also suggest you get a simulator. Real flight is nice but very expensive, FMS is $20 and gets the job done whic is to teach you to hover. This Belt CP is around $200 which is also inthe same cost range as others with an electric tail setup.

http://store.rcsupersales.net/servle...RTF-Kit/Detail

http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...roducts_id=351

http://www.xheli.com/e4chflsitrki.html (Simulator)

Well from what I've read the twin coaxial rotor units with no tail rotor and gyros are the easiest to master. So I won't go wrong with the E-Sky Robins 22 R/C Electric Micro Helicopter?

only you can determine whether you go "wrong" with it as everyone learns at different rates and has different expectations. it is also almost always a case of 20/20 hindsight. I got a lama v4 and i enjoyed it for about a month but started to get bored, bought a king2 then started to really get the bug, in the next few months I kept buying and buying and now I have 8 heli's....

Along this track of thinking is if you just want pure clean fun and fooling around, your on the right track. if you think when your done with that heli, you'll be able to fly a CCP fully functional "trainer." you wil be in for a rude awakening. For simple fooling around, I got one of those little Venom things for $30. Is a only a toy and teaches me nothing but it is fun to fool with. Does the same thig as your Robins for $100.

I would get the G3.5 sim.
The amount of flightime and training you can get out of it,is impossible to duplicate in real life.
Then you can probably start out with a good quality decent chopper ,like a Trex or a Blade 400.
You can buy them in complete ready to fly versions if you shop around.I know the initial $ is high,or so it seems.
Or you can get a toy and get bored and wreck it and keep upgrading and buying next step choppers.
Its cheaper to go the first route, sim,and then to 450 or bigger size chopper.
I could hover and do cautious forward flight on my T Rex on day one,after spending over 100 hours on the sim..

Well in recent weeks I have been reading all I can on this forum and the net and had decided on an LMH Corona which seemed to be the "Perfect Trainer" only to be disappointed that they don't seem to be available anymore. I was looking for a fixed pitch helicopter to provide true training. I fly multiplex profi 4000 radio so it can do anything I need.

Any suggestions?

thanks

http://store.rcsupersales.net/servle...RTF-Kit/Detail

Ok I'm not looking to get into high tech single rotor with collective and all the bells and whistles. All I want is something to just have fun with. I'm looking at one of these two helicopters the E-Sky Robins 22 R/C Electric Micro Helicopter or the LamaV4 RTF Electric Coaxial Micro Helicopter. Which one would be better. Mainly for in the living room flying

Okay, so now we have to pick. One that will bounce off the furniture, bang it up a bit or bring the wife in frm another part of the house after hearing some "shattering noise." If I have to guess, those double rotor things are all the same. Probably go with what looks really cool. How about this thing?

http://store.rcsupersales.net/servle...ky-Lama/Detail

the r22 and lama v4 are basically the same, pick the one that looks better to you. although the body on the v4 is affected more by wind.

Cyclic, thanks for the recommendation on the Belt CP, I'll look it over!

Just an FYI: Xheli, Raidentech are the same place, and both managed by Nitroplanes. I've had no issues with Raidentech nor XHeli.

Yeh I realized that too. I guess it was just one of those days. The simulator went off with no problems which is why I tried it all again.

Anyone have any links to electric rc helicopters in Canada other than Matotoys Canada?

ushobbysuplies ships to canada. Seems like alot canadians have been impressed with the service =)

probably the biggest online rc store in canada is www.greathobbies.com

I'm somewhat biased however. Enroute to a collective pitch machine I find a person has to learn to crawl before they walk. I went with the Eflite Blade CX2. Perfect indoor flier! Lots of fun outdoors on calm days. Lots of upgrade parts to really have some fun with. Next step is into a fixed pitch machine....from there collective pitch. This seems to be working so I'm not going to fight it. As winter in Canada is too long I find having a heli to blast around the living room sure takes the itch off. With a few upgrades the CX2 can handle pretty much anything you throw at her indoors. I'm lucky in that I have two hobby stores minutes away with good Eflite support. All my good upgrades have come from USHobbySupply.