Hi. I've been trying to find out what beginner heli to get for the last 2 weeks. I'm getting frustrated. First I was almost certain that I wanted the T-rex 450XL. Then I came across the X-400 (thanks for all the info from a lot of you so far).

But now i'm not so sure.

What I've read so far, is that both takes a lot of work to keep flying - at least 50%, if not more since I'm totally new into helis. Thats too little flying time, in my opinion.

So - could I get a good/decent heli with less work/tuning?

My criterias are:
1: Not to difficult to fly (i know that larger is better, but I guess this is gonna be a trade off - just gotta spend more time in the simulator )
2: Not to much repairing/tuning/fixing needed.
3: Not too pricey. My absolute max is $500 - below $300 would suit me a lot better.
4: The heli should be able to fly outdoors in calm weather.
5: The heli should be able to take off with a camera attached.

What should I put my eyes on besides the T-rex and X-400?

Really hope you can help me make my decision.

Cheers
Malk

Yes. The LMH Corona 120, but its electric. Its a fast and easy build and very hardy. Lots of upgrades available under $500.

Where can I get that? Remember, I need Tx as well.

Helicopters by nature require tuning, work and constant maintnence. Failure to constantly keep ontop of your helicopter will often result in mechanical failure during a flight, and that usually ends up with a heap of a helicopter laying on the ground. If you want something just to fly around, stick to planes, because helicopters definiately aren't for you.

That said, there are some helicopters that don't require as much work as others, those specfically being fixed pitch helicopters. They're the most difficult of all the helicopters to fly, they don't like any type of wind (less than 3 mph), and they're not very stable in the air. However, they're cheap to repair, are very mechanically simple, and don't usually cost much to buy (you can get them for under $100). They make great trainers because of their hard-to-fly nature and crash resiliance. If you can master flying a fixed pitch helicopter, moving up to a bigger collective pitch one is a piece of cake.

Any collective pitch helicopter (like the t-rex or X-400) will require regular ammounts of maintnence and tuning, because the rotorheads are significantly more complex, theres more linkages, theres more areas for things to go wrong, and not being vigiliant in your inspections will spell disaster in the longrun. On top of this, collective pitch helicopters are typically more expensive initally because you'll need a computer radio to fly them aswell. The upshot is that they're much more stable in the air, they're easier to fly, and are often capable of aerobatics and good full forward flight (unlike most fixed pitch helicopters which REALLY don't like to do much other than hover around and very slow forward flight). They are, however, more expensive to repair, usually, and the bigger you get, the more expensive it gets.

Basically, you can only have one or the other, if you want easy to fly, you go collective pitch, but have lots of tuning and maintenence to get it flying well.

If you go micro fixed pitch, they're much harder to fly, but are resiliant to crashing, and don't require a whole lot of work to upkeep except when you break the odd thing here and there when you crash (which you WILL do, everyone does).

It's one of those things, you can't have your cake and eat it too, which begs the question, why have cake at all!?

A corona was my first heli and I will tell you that those things can take a beating. Bad crashes only cost me about $20. Put an Astroflight brushless 803HV (venture sytem I believe) on it and you'll be ready to go. The thing is so simple there really is not much to mess with after it is built. But, you will always have to trim - the environment is never constant. Watch the transitional lift on the FP. I recommend this helicopter and you can get it in a complete kit. See ya

Sorry it is the Voyager model not Venture(something told me that was wrong when I wrote that) Astro 020 motor and Phoenix 35. I do own this combo and it is very good. You will probably not have to upgrade your BL ESC again when you move on to another heli. But it will of course have to be electric also. Electric--powerful, clean, and Quiet!! These days electrics run with nitros.

Super - thanks so far. Where can I get the Corona, spending as little as possible with a decent setup?