Hello All, I am a r/c enthusiast who has dealt with nitro r/c cars for the past few years. helis have always interested me and i would like to start. Several years back i had realflight g2 and was able to fly the planes with ease but i never really fooled with the helis. Unfortunately i lost the disk for the simulator so i will need a new one. My question is, should i not bother with the simulator and just try and learn with the training gear provided with the axe cp or am i just going to end up destroying the heli before i get the hang of it? Funds are a little tight as i am 17 so its really one or the other. help would be very much appreciated.
Cliffs: I am a beginner, should i get the axe cp and try to learn with training gear, or not bother and just get a simulator instead?

having done everything backwards from the way it should've been done, spending a lot of money and learning the hardest way possible... I would...

buy the simulator, fly the thing till you puke or can do it in your sleep, minimum next spring...

then when the spring hits, the weather clears up, go past the CP and go with a 400 or 450 size heli... they fly better... and aren't much more expensive than the CP with the gyro and all...

oh yeah, rad's rules of flight... both on the simulator and the real thing..

Hey strat, I did the same thing! I should have bought the sim...it would've saves a bunch on parts.....

As someone who has also just gotten into the heli hobby my experience is that you will easily spend the cost of the heli in spare parts before learning to hover if you dont spend lots of time on the simulator.

Also the AXE CP is not novice friendly so you may want to think about another bird. I would probably go with one that has a metal head assy and a belt drive on the tail rotor. Also important is the ability to auto-rotate so a model with a clutch bearing between the rotor and motor is a plus. I guess I am describing a MX450 type heli.

oh yeah, I forgot all about that.. I hated the fact that the CP would get low on battery and cut the tail out, sending you into an insane spin... I never seemed to be able to catch and control it..

that was the biggest reason I moved up to the 450 heli, it's more stable, and you don't lose the tail, it's pretty obvious when the battery is getting low and you need to land. But either way, you can do that autorotate thing to bring it down if you lose power.

The MX400 and pro version are going very cheap... they fly perfectly fine and are a good choice, along with a t-rex or one of the t-rex clones.