RC Helicopter.. Help Needed.

Jay-_-91

Jay-_-91

Jay-_-91

Associate
Joined
13 Sep 2008
Posts
20
I am looking for a new hobby, I have a cheaper battery powered helicopter although the battery time is shocking.

I'm looking for either a helicopter with decent battery time, or a nitro one. The petrol models are far out of my price range. the price range is anything up to the £160 mark.

If any of you have suggestions or opinions they will all be appreciated.

Thanks for your time.
Jason
 
I see...

Would it be wise to buy several of the battery packs.? I imagine that would be more cost efficient than buying nitro as and when i need it.
 
You won't get a nitro heli for less than £160 unless it's used and in appauling condition, or unles syou have a mate that sells you one. If you're starting completely form scratch and you want a nitro heli you're going to have to fork out at least £300 if you want a decent model. It's the radio equipment that makes up a lot fo that though, so if you weren't starting form scratch it would cost quite as much.

Assuming the heli you've already got is a pretty good one (which came with a 4 channel or equivalent transmitter), you'll probably want to get a RTF electric heli which implements a variable pitch system for lift, like the larger nitro helis do.

These have a flight time of between 10 and 20 minutes iirc, but that all depends on how you fly them and how big a battery you put in them in the first place.
 
Last edited:
I can't advise of nitro/petrol as I never got interested enough to spend that much on a heli.

Battery packs aren't too expensive, around £10-15 each on eBay, I have quite a few of these and always have a few ready charged :) Frustrating when you only have one and then you have to wait for over an hour for the thing to charge :p
 
I cant comment on the battery powered ones, but I used to have a Raptor 30 Nitrol Heli.
It was good fun, but it is an expensive hobby. Over 1K to get all the kit you really need, then money for fuel, and lots of spare when you ditch it regularly.

I sold all my stuff on ebay about 6 months ago, think I put it up for £300 or something to sell fast (and it did).

My advise is think long and hard, before spending a lot of cash on something you might go off quickly.
 
OoOverclockaoO said:
Frustrating when you only have one and then you have to wait for over an hour for the thing to charge :p
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. And it always seems to run out when things just start to become fun :)

I've never actually flown a proper CP heli except on a sim. I do have my little contra-rotating heli for use on a rainy day though

Edit:

dalepearson said:
My advise is think long and hard, before spending a lot of cash on something you might go off quickly.
Click to expand...

What he said. As with pretty much any hobby it's a lot of money to throw away fi you find you don't enjoy it too much. And also like he said, not only are crashes pretty costly, they can also happen pretty frequently if you don't concentrate enough.

They are pretty impressive when they do happen though :p
 
Last edited:
I have a R/C Electric heli - its an E-Sky Lama V4.

The battery life is ok, its just flying it thats the hardest :(

They really are not easy.

The Lama V4 comes with a cable and software so you can plug up the controller to your PC and use a flying sim to practice. This kinda helps!
 
jongeeone said:
I have a R/C Electric heli - its an E-Sky Lama V4.
Click to expand...

That's the one I've got! Except it's the V3. I suppose it is difficult to get used ot at first i.e. you can't just take your fingers off the sticks and expect it to hover, but after you've been flying it for a bit it gets easier imo. In a way it becomes predictable because of how it uses the top rotor to balance. I mean I was able to fly it through my legs after a week or two of messing with it :D

Mind you I had been flying RC planes for a few years before I got mine so i suppoose I did have a slight idea on how it would handle.
 
thank you all, do any of you have any actual recommendations, or links for me to take a look at.

I think i will definitely opt for the battery style and get a few more chargers. Is there a possibility to change the look etc. and is it easy to customize?
 
I've been out of the whole RC flying loop for a while now, so I'm not sure where the best place to get things from is. When I did get my first heli (about a year ago now), I got it from here. It's a pretty good website and I'm not sure if the offer still applies now, but when I ordered my heli I got 10% off all future spares I ordered for that particular heli.

Two helis in particular that look like something good to start on are this one and this one, although I think the latter one might be slightly more tricky to control.

If you want to go with something a bit easier to fly then this one would probably be best to start with, although depending on how often you fly you might grow out of it pretty quickly.

With regards to customising it, there are quite a few parts on that website I linked to which allow you to uprgade your heli, but from what I saw (I could be wrong) these are only to improve the durability and performance of the heli rather than its looks. I think you can get a couple of different body shells for the lama V3, and you may also be able to get different coloured body shells for those other helis.

Edit: Now I've looked again it looks like you can get different style canopies for those two cp helis I linked to. But being an accessory they do cost extra, and I'd expect you probably have to put them on yourself. Wouldn't be too hard though I don't think.
 
Last edited:
Here's an idea of what it'll cost you from scratch if you go down the Nitro route,

A basic trainer type heli
http://www.rotorsport.co.uk/prodDetail.asp?cat=Helicopter Kits&subCat=Hirobo&prodID=A-H0412-958
£175

Engine- (Stick with O.S ;) )
http://www.rotorsport.co.uk/prodDetail.asp?cat=Engines&subCat=OS Engines&prodID=L-OS12986
£90

Radio (Spekky for the win)
http://www.rotorsport.co.uk/prodDetail.asp?cat=Radios&subCat=Spectrum&prodID=SDX-6i
£100

Servo's
http://www.rotorsport.co.uk/prodDetail.asp?cat=Radio Accessories&subCat=Spectrum&prodID=DS821
5x £20 = £100
(been a while since I had mine but I'm guessing 5 required, Throttle, L+R Cyclic, F+B Cyclic, Collective, Tail rotor pitch.)

Receiver battery
http://www.rotorsport.co.uk/prodDet...er batteries&prodID=EVOTX-15003S-SPEKTRUM-400
£32
 
Last edited:
I used to have a Robbe futura sports nito heli. First time i ever started it up, I didn't know what i was doing, i should have took some advice first. It took off uncontrollably, nearly took my head off and smashed into a wall. Cost me £120 to fix, flew it 5 or 6 times and never flew it again. If you do get one, get the simulator control box to use on your pc. They are hard to fly for a beginner.
 
Last edited:
nokinidea said:
Here's an idea of what it'll cost you from scratch if you go down the Nitro route,

<snip>
Click to expand...

I expect you'll need to get a gyro as well as all that, unless it's included in the radio set or with the heli.

Oh and I've just remembered I used to use this free model simulator to practice on, the graphics are minimal as are the crash physics but it's free so you can't really complain :) You can find it here. Unless you've got got a lead to connect a transmitter up to your pc you'll have to use the keyboard or the joystick, but it's better than no practice at all.

This simulator is more focused towards planes than helis, but there are a few on there and you can download other models form third party sites I think. There are simulators you can buy and whilst they are better they do cost quite a bit. For example the one I use at the moment, Realflight G3, costs in the region of about £130. But it does come with it's own transmitter interface if you pay a bit extra.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom