RC Helicopters again...

The thread we had a while back about the toy helicopters was a bad thing.

My boys got two of them for Christmas and soon after I bought me one of the bigger 3.5 channel ones. Man it was fun. Before long I was modifying it so it would fly faster and turn better. Then I got bored with it. Too slow, couldn't handle much wind, just too easy.

So back to the internet where I found this:

A KDS 450QS. 6 channels of electric powered coolness. It works just like the real deal. Holy crap it's hard to fly!! The 3 channel one would just about fly itself. Not this beast. It's like balancing a marble on a bowling ball, while standing one one foot, while singing the national anthem, in a hurricane.

Three crashes so far. Where the other one would bounce, this one snaps parts because the main rotor is turning close to 1500 rpms. So far two sets of main grips, two sets of main blades, one main shaft, two servos, a tail boom and a set of stabilizer fins have been destroyed. It's a good thing the parts are dirt cheap.

This is after the last crash:

Man this thing is a blast.

As soon as I figure out how to run a video camera and fly at the same time I'll shoot some video.

Edited for spelling.

When I raced RC cars I had a friend who flew the big $$$$ RC helis. For training/learning he would get 4 ft 1/2 inch dowels and strap them perpendicular to the landing skids. Usually they would hit ground before anything else and prevent damage. Just a thought.

In reply to JThw8:

That was the first thing I built after taking it out of the box.

If you look in the bottom picture you can see what's left of that set. I managed to reduce them to component parts as well. It hit the ground pretty hard that time and snapped the dowels off even with the skids.

If you get tired of crashing it before you get the hang of it, try the Realflight RC sims. They have a USB connected "radio style" controller that plugs into your computer and allows you to learn the basics of flying an RC heli where the crashes only cost the push of the "reset" button. I'm using it right now to work on the basics of flying planes. I've fiddled with the heli's a little bit and, in comparison, the planes pretty much fly themselves. The sim isn't not cheap, but waaaaaaay cheaper than repeatedly crashing stuff. I figure the 3 or four hours of flight time I have into it would have easily costs me 3 or 4 "real" planes. Highly recommended.

In reply to kazoospec:

I've looked into the RealFlight and the Phoenix Sim. The Phoenix won't run on any of my computers and looking at the RealFlight it probably won't either.

None of my stuff has the graphics capability to run them.

There is a cheaper one out there that will work, but I'm waiting on the cord for my transmitter to plug it up. In the mean time, I just have to try to keep it in the air. Unfortunately my experience in flying RC planes isn't helping much. If anything it's caused some habits that I need to unlearn.

RC cars... easy to steer.....

If you don't mind wasting a half hour or so there is a demo of Realflight you can download. Theoretically, if the demo works, the program itself should too. Totally agree on the difference between heli's and planes. I have a hard enough time remembering which way the plane is going to turn depending on whether it is heading towards or away from me. The heli's on the sim are pretty much the same problem times four. I've decided my brain is probably too old for heli's.

In reply to kazoospec:

Cool, I didn't realize Realflight had a download. I have already downloaded the Phoenix sim and it wouldn't work . I'll have to do some digging and see if I can find it. Thanks.

I bought RealFlight 2.0 about two years ago and I still don’t have a computer that can run it.

This is 100% my fault as the outside of the box has a conspicuous warning about verifying system requirements prior to purchase.

Anyway, if memory serves, in addition to needing a big graphics card, you need a two sided disk reader as well.

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to kazoospec: I've looked into the RealFlight and the Phoenix Sim. The Phoenix won't run on any of my computers and looking at the RealFlight it probably won't either. None of my stuff has the graphics capability to run them. There is a cheaper one out there that will work, but I'm waiting on the cord for my transmitter to plug it up. In the mean time, I just have to try to keep it in the air. Unfortunately my experience in flying RC planes isn't helping much. If anything it's caused some habits that I need to unlearn.

Plus one on this point. Going from RC planes to helicopters I had to unlearn a few well ingrained habits. The first one was not to chop the throttle when I ran into trouble. Works great on a fixed wing bird not so much on a helo.

Wayslow wrote:

Toyman01 wrote: In reply to kazoospec: I've looked into the RealFlight and the Phoenix Sim. The Phoenix won't run on any of my computers and looking at the RealFlight it probably won't either. None of my stuff has the graphics capability to run them. There is a cheaper one out there that will work, but I'm waiting on the cord for my transmitter to plug it up. In the mean time, I just have to try to keep it in the air. Unfortunately my experience in flying RC planes isn't helping much. If anything it's caused some habits that I need to unlearn.

Plus one on this point. Going from RC planes to helicopters I had to unlearn a few well ingrained habits. The first one was not to chop the throttle when I ran into trouble. Works great on a fixed wing bird not so much on a helo.

Yep, that would be crash #1. Drove it into the ground from about 6 feet. Two blades, two main blade grips, one set of training gear. I thought I was doing good until then.

Flying the cheap choppers didn't help either. I had gotten pretty good with the coaxial chopper. The rotate control is on the right stick on them, where this one, the tail rotor, is on the left. That has been a hard one to relearn.

Hovering, tail in, is no problem as long as that's all I'm doing. Pushing to the next step is the problem. Side in or nose in and my brain just doesn't react as fast as the helicopter. If you have to think about it, it's too late.

Despite flying RC planes for decades, helicopters eluded me forever.

I finally practiced enough in real flight that I could sort of hover, then I bought a little Blade mcx dual rotor, which was indestructible. I progressed to a Blade msr, which is a single rotor but w/o collective pitch. It takes all my concentration to keep it in the air.

I'll stick to 40cc gas planes - I can hover those more easily.