I hate helicopters. Hate them. Hate hate hate.

I never liked riding in them. In fact, I was always much happier dangling out of them on the end of a rope. Much safer, I thought, than actually being in the thing.

I've been known to utter such things at the field as "Helicopters can't fly...they're so ugly the Earth repels them." and "If its wings are moving, it's probably a helicopter, and therefor, unsafe."

Over the past few years, I convinced myself I was "trying helicopters" by dropping the occasional $50 on a Blade CX or some little cheesy foam dual rotor'd thing I don't even remember the name of. Of course they broke at the first opportunity, and went wandering off in search of the nearest solid object upon which they could beat themselves into a bloody pulp. This, of course, reinforced my strongly held notion.

Helicopters, in short, are evil, as are the people who fly them.

So, yesterday, my neighbor comes home with a CP Pro. I've been teaching my neighbor to fly fixed wing, and, indeed, he blames me for getting him into the hobby to begin with. Now...any good red blooded RC hobbyist KNOWS I couldn't just let him become better at flying...well...ANYTHING...than me.

So I needed a helicopter. A "real" one. (Please remember..."real" being defined by this newb as something with actual collective pitch, one rotor, and not made primarily of plastic) Came home last night with a brand spankin new Axe CP, 11.1 3S 1320 mah LiPo, a set of "please don't break" plastic blades, and a pretty lousy attitude about having spent $300 on a stupid helicopter.

Put everything together, charged up both batts, and then started working on hovering. I am terribly ashamed to report that I seem to be pretty decent at it. In fact...I had fun. A great deal of fun. It was an absolute blast trying to master that little bas*****.

What i want to know is "Who do I complain to???". Helicopters are not allowed to be cool and fun, dangit.

Welcome to helicrack world

You could try Igor Sikorsky, but he usually doesn't answer his email .

Welcome to the "dark side," gboulton! I'm a fellow "fixed-winger" myself, sucked into this chaotic world of rotary-wing. I too suffered with those cheap POS wanna-be heli's at first. One gust of wind, and my Rotofly ate the side of the house, total FUBAR, I was so pissed at myself, I swore that was the end of my trials with e-heli's. That lasted about 1 month, when once again I was pulled in, a co-worker who doesn't even fly sent me a video of an AXE CP doing the coolest stuff. If I can find the web address I'll post it here.
Less than 10 minutes later I bought an AXE CP, extra NiMH (not one of my better choices), plastic trainer blades, spare tail rotor blades, and anything else I thought I would most likely break within the 1st hour or so. It was the best money I'd spent in a while, minus those POS NiMH batteries. I found I could fly, or at least hover to 3min or so. Soon it was back to the LHS to upgrade to a real gyro, a Futaba GY240 gyro and a Electrifly C-12 ESC, this made a BIG difference in how the AXE behaved, but what Heli-max doesn't say in there upgrade to the heading-hold gyro is that, you MUST upgrade to a Lipo battery! Not list it as an OPTIONAL ITEM, unless flying for less than 2 minutes is OK with you? The stock pack last less than 3min before the ESC shuts down, causing a spinning death to the ground.
This RC Universe "Helimax formites," have been a great help, just looking though the posts has provided great infomation, upgrades, and my favorite, modifications! The goal, full 3D flying, eventually ending up with a glow-powered .50 sized scale heli in AIRWOLF mods, if I can slide it by my Executive Director of Social & Finanial Affairs.

Shadow

Hey I found what I refer to as "heli-porn," video of that AXE CP, doing all the cool stuff we as newbies dream of doing, someday. I only recommend staying away from that "evil[>:]" IDLE-UP switch, right now. "What goes up fast, comes down faster (with trainer blades) in IDLE UP mode! [X(]
Hope the video inspires you as much as it has me.

www.myrctoys.com/embedded-videos/axe-cp1.html

*heh*

Thanks for the welcomes, guys. I'm having a blast, though some gusty winds have curtailed my "dark side transference" a bit today...

Did manage to get it flown a BIT this morning, and have already completed my first repair! *heh* Tipped it over into the ground (Wind i think, but who knows...could easily have been me!) and broke one of the blade grips. $2 and half an hour later, right back in business. I'm kinda digging these cheap repairs!

(I know, I know...they ain't all cheap...don't remind me)

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Thanks for the video link, Shadow...some neat stuff in there. Stuff I can DO in the sim, and won't DREAM of trying with the real one! *heh* And yes, I'm looking to go to the better gyro and ESC soon..probably a week or so.

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Osterizer,

That Axe video was neat, but you guys haven't seen a crack heli if you haven't seen this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af0bY...elated&search=

HR, That's SICK![X(]
OK, that beats the video I found hands-down. Although I wouldn't want to be a passenger on that heli, I'd loose my lunch for sure. I guess that is the EXTREME side of 3D flying! Not ready for that just yet, already had a bad experence with the IDLE-UP switch. Thank God, the training gear absorbed most of the impact in the grass. Lost the ball link on the stabilizer control hub, gonna CA it back on, and keep on practicing! One of these days I'll learn to heed my own warning, IDLE-UP for newbies is BAD NEWS...

Shadow

To be fair, the two videos are apples and oranges. The kid with the Axe was really good with it. The video I posted was Alan Szabo, who as far as I know is THE ruler of the R/C heli planet! He and is dad are primo 'pilots', having won many awards. What Alan can do with a helicopter defies belief IMHO.

They give us something to aim for, though. Watching the videos, once you have some experience with aerobatics, you can see the control motions he's going through and how to execute the maneuver overall (and in the video, he's flying very sedately-- you should see him flying hard!). Watching and knowing what to do is a long way from actually doing it, though.

[X(]

Newton is rolling over in his grave.

DaVinci is probably smiling ear to ear though.

THAT is just....gah...I don't even have words.

Guess I'll go out in the yard and practice HOVERING now. *smirk*

Stuff like this is part of why I started up with helis. I have some pretty decent aero fixed wings (including an Extra), but helis can do things that are just impossible with planks. Having full control of your lift vector is magical .