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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Remote Control planes / helicopters


neilp9876

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Its my birthday soon and i wouldnt mind getting an r/c plane or helicopter.

 

For a complete beginner what would be recommended? I don't want a toy but something that will be impressive to use. I would also like it be a kit so i can make it myself.

 

Helicopters are supposed to be hard to fly so would a plane be better? How much runway does a plane need to land on and how smooth does it need to be, can planes survive a bad landing at all?

 

Or are helicopters not too bad, which one would be ideal to get in kit form and not be impossible to fly?

 

Any advice gratefully received.

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It won't be "impressive" but you can pick up a micro indoor helicopter for between £40 and £80. There are some even cheaper than that, but then you are verging on "toy" territory. However, if you go for one of the better micro helicopters then it will enable you to learn how to fly one before you go splashing out on an expensive kit because you will spend a lot of time crashing.

 

I have no experience of planes but if you want to go down the helicopter route I would get a four channel RTF (Ready To Fly - comes with its own cheap controller) that can be switched to three channel mode for starters.

 

Three channel helicopters can fly forwards, backwards and make flat turns left and right. They go up and down by changing the throttle. Very unlike a "real" helicopter, but if you get in a muddle you don't have to think too hard to steer it towards safety, even if it is heading towards you so left and right are reversed.

 

Four channel helicopters can also fly sideways - i.e. one of the control sticks mimics a proper cyclic pitch lever from the real thing. With this extra control you can also do banked turns and hover more precisely over one spot (essential for landing).

 

Most low-cost helis have contra rotating rotors which negates the need for a tail rotor, and makes then very stable. You can hover them "hands off" if they are trimmed properly. I have been told that the next step up from a four channel would be to go single main rotor + tail rotor. These are one more rung up the realism scale but tend to drift off more quickly and require more adjustment during flight.

 

The next steps up after that are to add a fifth channel of control for collective pitch, which gives you independant control over height and throttle.

 

You can get indoor and outdoor versions of all of the above but when you are learning, the real advantage of the smaller models is that altough you only get ten minutes or so of flight, the batteries are tiny and only take half an hour to recharge, compared to up to three hours for an outdoor model.

 

The problem for you will be that pretty much all the above options will look like toys compared to the large outdoor models - mine cartainly does - but you have to start somewhere. I've had mine for a couple of weeks and I can just about land it on my ironing board :)

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Planes although not easy to fly are easier than helicopters.

If you want to get into flying the proper outdoor helicopters I would recommend you join a club and start training on a buddy box using a proper heli, and plenty of simulator practice, Phoenix is the best for helicopters.

 

Most of the cheaper helis are not really any fun to fly and really are just toys. I would recommend you getting into a club and flying with either a raptor 30/50 or a t rex 600, or if its electric you want the t rex 500 is perfect, it flys just as well as a raptor 50/t rex 600.

 

If your planning on flying on your own in your garden then none of the above are suitable, anything other than a coaxial would be no good, a collective pitch helicopter would be a very bad move as you will destroy it straight away or hurt yourself. Trouble is a coaxial is to much like a toy and wont be impressive to watch or fly.

 

I learnt on a raptor 30 and am glad I did it this way, I now own the entire Align t rex collection and various raptors.

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Thanks for the replies guys. I need to read a bit more about it all and I think I will try and get down to a club somewhere.

 

The ones I had been looking at are the Belt CP and the Interceptor 400, but having a look at Pulley's website the E-Flite ones look good as well. I will try and give you bell at some point and have a chat. At the moment I am trying to convince myself to be realistic and not just buy a £500 monster which will be buried into a wall on its first flight.

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no expert but i've been learning heli's for the past year (electric) and I would highly recomend eflite blade msr for beginning and a mcx (sp?) CP heli for after you get bored with the blade. Dont bother with co-ax as they're toys and they hover hands off which imo is pointless. MSR will nearly hover hands off but you can practice proper flight like nose in circuits. I bought a trex 250 and its AWESOME however I have planted it twice and I have repaired however it threw the tail belt pretty soon after, turns out repairing them is not for beginners.

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I have a shed full of Rc planes 5 electric an 3 large scale nitro. If your a beginner I would recommend getting a park zone micro p51 mustang they are 4 channel quite cheep and I personally think they are perfect for beginners! I'm not a professional Rc pilot but I lernt to fly with them and they can take quite abit abuse too ;)

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