A coworker brought one of those foam air hogs things in to the office and I've since become addicted and want to get into helis.

I'm trying to decide what to get and have been torn between the heli-max AXE CP-L and the heli-max MX400.

Can anybody guide me on which would be a better first heli? Or even something else?

Thanks!

Well, since the MX400 supply is drying up, I wouldn't go looking for one. The Axe is a good heli, but since it's a collective-pitch helicopter, it's more complicated to maintain and a bit more expensive than some alternatives. Far less expensive (and more durable while you''re learning) would be something like the ESky Honey Bee FP.

I'm a bit torn on the CP vs coax. After pages and pages of threads half say the coax gets boring and half say a CP is too hard for a beginner.

then it comes down to the esky lama V4 or something like a blade CX2, I'm pretty confused at the moment, heh. HBFP looks like a good option too.
since we're wandering out of the heli max's I guess I should have put this in the noob forum.

Hi Philip,

I had to respond to this to describe my experince to you. I was in the same delima that you are in. I couldn't decide what I want to do. Buy a CP or a Fix Pitched. If you have had any plane or past helicopter experince, and were comfortable flying, i would suggest a CP (Collective Pitch) Heli. I bought the Axe CP about two weeks ago with the Li-Po battery and i'm loving it. It's hard to control period, but I was hovering it on the 5th charge of the battery. The tail moves around alot, but chasing it in my opinion make you a better pilot, but also makes it a hard flyer for the beginner. I haven't used the idle up switch on this bird yet, so the collective and throttle are mixed togeather thus making your height easy to control. You just really have to stay on top of the cyclic and tail. The only complaint I have about the thing is the battery. I can only imagine what the Ni-MH is like. I get about 10-15 min flt time with the Li-Po which I think is alot better from what I've heard from others on the Ni-MH of about 5 or so Mins. So my suggestion is, if you have any experince with RC flying in the past, I think you'll do fine with this. Just take your time. Get all your trims set correctly, and get the hovering down before starting foward flight..

rcowboy

Well if your only experence has been on a Air-Hog Havoc or other 2 channel heli, I would suggest getting a FIXED-PITCH heli to learn on. I started with a Havoc, got bored after a few days, bought a Helimax Rotofly FP (4 channel), that took a while longer to master (several months). If it wasn't for the 25mph gust that smashed my Rotofly into the house (I get alot of wind around here). It was small enough to learn on indoors (10x10 area), yet still capable of outdoor flights (less than 8mph winds, no gusts).
The only modification I'd suggest for the Rotofly is to CA (super-glue) the inner races of the bearings to the stub shaft on the Center Hub, so when you crash, and the rotor hub pops off (with the blades attached), those 2 tiny 3x6mm bearings don't disappear into the carpet or roll off into the yonder!
The best thing I loved about that heli was packing everything into the fitted case it came with, heli, TX, 2 Lipo's, charger, training gear, and some spare parts & tools, all fit in that nice package. I have to pack my MX300 in a cardboard box, ugly but functional. I did rebuild the Rotofly for my brother-in-law, he seems to have been bitten my the bug as well, and is looking to upgrade to CP.

Shadow