Hey folks,

I am new to heli's. I've been flying fixed wing for about 6 years and have recently made the jump to Heli's. I am currently flying a Blade 400 which I can hover pretty comfortably and am now working on forward flight. I'm looking forward to my next project as I am already addicted. I would like to get a heli that's a little bigger than my Blade. I was thinking of either the T-rex 500 or 600, however I was looking at the price of the battery's for them and am wondering if I would be better off going with nitro instead. Any thoughts are very much appreciated.

Trex 500 electric might be the largest electric to go, anything beyond the battery cost goes up very high. But do check fuel costs, starter, and other equipment. I have heard that the difference is not much depending your location. Few folks at our club have gone the A123 route (Lithium nano-phosphate) packs. Basically buy Dewalt packs, and use the cells to create own battery packs. They are very safe, quick charging (6C charge rate, so 10-12 minutes charging cycle) and cheaper than Lithium Polymer. For larger helis, this may be more economical to use than fuel or Lipo. They can almost fly continuous, as charging and use cycle time are almost equal.

Were you flying electric or glow planes?

I fly both electric and glow heli and like flying both. So in my opinion if you want to stay electric then stay that way if you want to get into glow then go for it just decide what size you want and go for it. Since you are flying a small electric you could go into any size you want and with new heli's like the Trex 700on the market now you have almost no limitation as to what you can get for very nice and capable heli.

Of coarse the price is all relative yeah the batteries are more expensive up front but after some time the price of fuel you put through the heli will catch up with the price of the batteries.

Sorry if I wasn't much help but it is a very hard question to answer.

My 2 cents,

I fly both so in a nutshell. Electric is great for when you only have a short time to fly because you can get flying very quickly. Nitro is good if you have all day to fly as you have time to drag out all of the gear and get the engine started and tuned. Then you can fly as much as you want until you run out of fuel!

it depends if you're patient or not. Glow lets you fly over and over again without having to wait too much. To get that on an electric you would need about 6 batteries in order to keep the show going not to mention the chargers, and the larger you go the more$$$$$$ a battery will cost. So its kind of a personal thing. I just got a t-rex 450SE V2 and I wouldn't go electric for anything larger than that since the price of the batteries seem to be exponential[X(] battery for 450=$60 battery for a 600=$300. electrics are convenient to certain degree. On the other hand electrics are quiet and clean. but again its a personal thing. Calculate the cost of glow vs electric and compare them to see what you would like best.