Would I be able to do any forward flight with a Belt CP in my 50 ft by 30 ft backyard?
Would I be able to do any forward flight with a King V2 in my 50 ft by 30 ft backyard?

Thank you!

Yes and Yes if you're good enough.

I've seen both flown in a 4 by 4 foot (inside) or not much bigger (outside) area by a skilled pilot (Michael @ U.S. Hobby Supply)...

What is your skill level and what do you want to do with the helicopter?

Thanks for the quick reply!

I am new to CP helicopters, but I have been flying them on G4 for thee weeks now. Mainly I would do precision flying and hovering and basic 3D flying.

Thanks!

The area I have in my back yard is 50' X 100'. I can fly circuits with tail motor helis with room to spare. These include Honey Bee CP2, Blade CP and CP Pro, and Walkera 22E. When I try that with the Trex450SA, Black Hawk 450 and Venom NR3DXL it gets spooky small because I'm not very good yet at keeping the speed down on those. Hovering, side to side, front to back and piros aren't so bad, but these things are slippery and when you go to FF they can speed up pretty quick. I just ordered a KingV2 so I'll know next week if it's the chopper for the back yard (without a tail motor).

Ok thanks!

i fly in my garage which is 6' x 6' space because of the stuff around it. did that both with the belt and the king2 without prob. with bigger space though you have to be careful and not get carried away and lose sight of it. in short, you can fly both in your backyard....i know i did!

Ok thanks now I just have one more question, which do you recommend?

1. Honey Bee King V2
- 4x Hitec HS 55 Servo Feather
- Dynam 25A ESC
- ESky Brushless Motor 3100KV

2. Honey Bee Belt CP
- Dynam 30A ESC
- 4x Hitec HS 55 Servo Feather


Thanks for you time!

Actually is there anything wrong with the stock servos?

Because I just did the calculations and I don't want to go too far above 200 dollars.

Thanks again

HBK2 with 3900KV seems to fly very nice (not 3100kv). I have not flown the BCP but I have flown much larger heli's and with size comes stability.

well the belt would be the way to go. its more stable and flys better out of the box than the king2. i do however have more affection for my king2. once you get the right parts for the king2 its flys better and is more agile. the king2 will cost more than the belt once you get the blushess motor and esc. plus the lipo cause the 1000mah wont cut it for long with a more powerful motor. you could also get a better motor than esky. but if you're on a budget than get the esky 3800kv for the king2. i was very pleased with the esky 3800kv motor on my king.

here's a vid me flying the hbk2 at week 9 into the hobby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrqSOCSz5og

and here she is all blinged out with led's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obr6AAWUG8Q

What lipo do you recommend for an HBK2 with 3900kv ESky Motor?

Thanks again for the replies

Jim,

I have a HBK2 also with a 3900kv brushless motor and a HobbyWing 25A ESC. A ton of other upgrades too - most notabily Xtreme plastic blades, a Logitech 2100T Heading Hold gyro (with fast digital tail servo) and a Dx6i programmable transmitter with spread spectrum receiver. Aside from the motor and ESC, one cheap upgrade that seems fairly common is the Xtreme 43T ("tooth") tail drive pulley ($15.70 http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ). It provides a lot more tail rotor speed, and helps the gyro hold the tail stable.

For my money, the HBK2 is nearly as big as the "400 class" helicopters but because it is a little smaller, most of the parts seem a little cheaper - which is good. You can fly quite nicely with a smaller motor (although the 3900kv is close to a 400 size), smaller ESC, and smaller battery - all of which should cost less than the same parts for a bigger copter. HBK2 replacement and upgrade parts are very easy to find from a number of vendors (although my favorite is U.S. Hobby Supply!), and there is lots of experience and expertise with them in forums like this. I figure that after I learn to fly decently with the HoneyBee, then I'll think about the bigger investment in a nice 400 class copter - like the beautiful Copter-X ( http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ) that is already on my Christmas list!

If you don't already have one, you should probably plan to get some flight simulator software for your computer, with is very useful for saving money in avoided crashes. There is a free one called FMS that is packaged with the E-sky flight simulator ( http://www.raidentech.com/rcflsitolefl.html ) package (and downloadable for free too: http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html ), but because it never worked too well on my Vista system I prefer the $39 ShareWare "ClearView" flight simulator ( http://rcflightsim.com/download.html - that has photo-realistic sceanery, many models to choose from including the HBK2, and it works perfectly "out of the box" with the E-sky USB controller.

My friend Michael at U.S. Hobby Supply recently recommended this web "flying school" to me too: http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html after seeing me try to hover for the first time. (I think he was trying to tell me something... [8D] ).It promises to help minimize crashes as you are learning and so far has been working for me.

3D flying is very complex and dangerous until you are really good and very practiced at regular flying, and others out here can advise you how to learn it better than I can - but on that topic I would just say to have reasonable expectations. It seems to take most people who ever do learn it years to get there.

There will be a ton of people out here with different opinions, but I hope this helps!

Dave

I use this battery: http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0

Thank you that really helped! I'm still stuck between the two birds though. How good is a stock HBK2 with brush less upgrade from your experience?

Thanks

I've observed that everyone who flys a HoneyBee King2 much seems to upgrade the stock motor pretty quickly, followed by other add ons such as I described above as time and finances permit. One nice thing about it is that there are plenty of different upgrades available - so if you look at what people out here are flying for example, you'll see lots of diversity - but the same basic patterns to their upgrades. Generally these are: brushless motor, ESC, HH gyro, better tail servo, better tail drive pulley, better (programmable) transmitter and receiver, bigger batteries, and sometimes carbon-fiber blades and components. The good news is that you don't have to do all of these on day-1!

Check out the HBK2 Tuner Shop thread for some idea of this diversity: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_6043372/tm.htm

Enjoy!

Thank you again for all the help just one last question.


I know the brushless motor and esc is a must buy to get this heli flying, but are there upgrades I might NEED from the get go?

So far I can afford the Brushless motor and esc upgrade and a Tower-Pro SG90 tail servo, is that good enough?

Thanks again for your time!

Jim,

That's a complex question... Are you thinking about "upgrades" or "spare parts"? You probably need to get some of both...

Upgrades: The helicopter will fly more or less right from the box. Electronic: The brushless motor and new ESC will help it fly better (longer and without having to replace the stock motor every few flights), a heading hold gyro (see this article: http://www.electric-rc-helicopter.co...oconfusion.php ) will help you fly it more stabily, a faster tail servo will again help with this when used with a good and properly set up gyro, and a programmable transmitter (often with a new receiver also provided like: http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ) can help you fly - since there are many things that can be adjusted in the programming (this helps by allowing you to make the controls less "twitchy" and tailor them to your preferences). Not clear to me that a faster tail servo is the best investment without a better gyro than the stock one... Mechanical: the 43T tail drive pulley is a very standard upgrade and really seems to make a difference in controlling the tail (helps your gyro do this too), plastic or CF blades won't break as much and can provide a little more lift than the stock "woodies", landing skid upgrades ( http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ) preport to protect the copter better on hard landings, and last but not least "training wheels" ( http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ) which are generally recommended, but interestingly enough are not recommended by the Radd's School of Flight link I sent you yesterday (he goes through a very disciplined way of teaching you to control the take offs, so you really don't need the gear in theory).

Spare parts: blades (main and tail), tail booms, extra screws, some of the plastic rotor control parts, "feathering shafts" (you'll break one in most hard crashes), spare battery (and yes, you will want a bigger battery than the stock 1000mah Li-Po - you'll probably also find it easier if all your batteries are the same size - so the balance isn't messed up each time you change them.), If you get a bigger battery, you'll also need a better battery charger ( http://www.ushobbysupply.com/product...63020130d54fb0 ) so they can be charged back up faster than once a week or so ( ) , fly bars and spare paddles, a main gear (this will often get stripped in crashes), and replacement tail fins. A lot of this stuff isn't too expensive and you don't have to get it all before you fly - buy some stuff and if you guessed wrong about what you were going to break first - just place another order to get the parts you need. I usually try to spend about 10% to 20% of each order that I place on future spare parts - so after a short while you'll have spares of most things laying around.

To answer your specific questions better, I would also suggest contacting someone like Michael at U.S. Hobby Supply ( http://www.ushobbysupply.com/contact...63020130d54fb0 ), who has helped many heli pilots get started. He will be glad to help you fugure out the best alternatives for your budget. The service he provides is awesome! Now that is not to bash any of the other hobby site owners that you see out here too - like Rusty at Castle Rock Hobbies, who also clearly has a love of flying and helping people - it's just that I've been so happy with Michael's service from U.S. Hobby Supply that I've personally never done business with anyone else. Be cautious about cheap, bargin sites in China and else where - since often it seems to be the case that you get what you pay for!

It is hard to figure out everything that you need from your first order when you are just begining - perfectly, but it is always easy to order anything that it turns out you need down the road later too. One of the reasons that I like U.S. Hobby Supply's service is that I always get my orders the next business day - unless I arrange to pick them up personally! That's nice with very cheap Priority Mail shipping!

As always there are a lot of ideas and opinions out here, and many of them would not be wrong either - even if they disagree with mine expressed here. Remember all the diversity? Ask any 10 people out here something and you'll get at least 15 different opinions! Keep reading and learning everything you can - and most of all Have FUN!!!

Hope this helps!

Dave

Thank you! Do you recommend USHobbySupply? I was looking at ordering from KaPlanes is that a good site?

Thanks!

Don't know anything about KaPlanes, but I'm sure someone out here does?

The service and support that Michael at U.S. Hooby Supply provides just can't be beat. He does only rc helicopters and has helped a lot of folks out here a lot. I'm a customer for life! Check out what others are saying too, in many of the other topics out here...

i can personally vouch for ka-planes. first class service and shipping. i've been in the store 5 or 6 times and ordered parts online over a dozen times without a problem. plus they are a friendly bunch

Thanks how fast is the shipping?

Thanks again for all your time in helping!