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Child Item

Anyone that can teach me how to fly RC helicopters?

euser1984

Thanks.

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Storm 10

Bought a remote control helicopter and to be honest I gave up on it, very difficult so I went and purchased a Parrot Bebob Drone and never looked back absolutely so easy to fly and so stable the HD camera is brilliant, a child could fly it straight away well worth looking at a Drone.

euser1984

thanks, but i have a drone already

Discodog

This would appear to be the place to start. Either good flying or a crash about to happen

www.galwaymodelflying.org

biko

From Galway city

T-Maxx

Simulator

Henry Ford III

I have a Blade 200S and learned from scratch. Alone. It's just trial and error. Lots of errors and lots of spare parts.

Henry Ford III

Storm 10 wrote: »

Bought a remote control helicopter and to be honest I gave up on it, very difficult so I went and purchased a Parrot Bebob Drone and never looked back absolutely so easy to fly and so stable the HD camera is brilliant, a child could fly it straight away well worth looking at a Drone.

Chalk and cheese really.

A drone is inherently stable due to multi rotors and clever electronics whereas a heli basically isn't.

The hardest thing about the heli is identifying and then coordinating any of 8 different inputs quickly. It needs patience and practice. Lots of both actually.

The Doktor

Henry Ford III wrote: »

.... Lots of errors and lots of spare parts.

Thats where the simulator shines.... a lot less spare parts.

Henry Ford III

The Doktor wrote: »

Thats where the simulator shines.... a lot less spare parts.

I guess.

Should have mentioned I'm a reasonable fixed wing r/c pilot, which helps to a degree.

desodon

Great to see there is still an interest in this. With the drones now, which need no skill and basically fly themselves , Helis are quickly becoming a lost art.

I have many sizes of helis from the 150 to a €2k 700 Align dominator kit and I have to say the XK110 is the best learner machine I have ever used -a chinese make! Much better than any of the Blade stuff or the Align micros. I wish they had them when I was learning , I would have the price of a nice car now! Buy it - you wont regret it. It has a ‘6G’mode for extra stability for beginners. Then when you are feeling brave flick it into acro. Find a field with long grass and 9 crashes out of 10 you will break nothing. Unlike a Trex 450 or something where each crash will cost you a lot of time fixing and big money.

As mentioned above A sim is an invaluable investment, costs maybe €100-200 but it will save you thousands in the long run.

I don’t live in Ireland at the moment otherwise I would love to help you directly but I can give you my skype if you need help.

coolwings

If you are prepared to learn to fly fixed high wing, then fixed low wing, that might be eg lesson 4 stage in RC flight. A heli (with collective pitch) would be equal to an acrobatic fixed wing which is the next logical step up in difficulty.

So the stages are: 1 high wing plane 2 low wing plane 3 fast plane 4 aerobatic/fast plane = collective pitch/heli. So that's how starting at the heli stage is learning lots of skills at the same time instead of one at a time.

Now here's a funny thing. if you learn on planes the money saved will pay for the planes, compared to if you are doing trial and error with the advanced heli from the start. So you end up with the planes and heli at the same cost. If that way seems interesting.

Definitely use a simulator, not to do so would increase the cost considerably, and there are the delays waiting to get new parts and reassemble with those, much frustration eliminated and cost is reduced when a sim is used.

Use a tether of eg 1-3 cm with training undercarriage. They slide when close to the ground, which is where you want to be while learning. but with a tether you can increase power against the cord and the increased airflow makes the controls more reactive, allowing you to learn faster at that stage.

Finding a friend who can teach is invaluable. They might try to guide you into the tech they prefer to use which is a natural thing.

euser1984

thanks for the replies guys...i've used sims a lot and practiced a lot on the helicopter too.

Would like to meet someone experienced that I can setup a buddy-box type setup with. I checked out the galway model flying club website (thanks for that link) and there is nowhere to find what day and time it's normally at....

I can travel as far as athlone, sligo, galway from mayo - equivalent distance in all directions - thanks a mill.

euser1984

desodon wrote: »

Great to see there is still an interest in this. With the drones now, which need no skill and basically fly themselves , Helis are quickly becoming a lost art.

I have many sizes of helis from the 150 to a €2k 700 Align dominator kit and I have to say the XK110 is the best learner machine I have ever used -a chinese make! Much better than any of the Blade stuff or the Align micros. I wish they had them when I was learning , I would have the price of a nice car now! Buy it - you wont regret it. It has a ‘6G’mode for extra stability for beginners. Then when you are feeling brave flick it into acro. Find a field with long grass and 9 crashes out of 10 you will break nothing. Unlike a Trex 450 or something where each crash will cost you a lot of time fixing and big money.

As mentioned above A sim is an invaluable investment, costs maybe €100-200 but it will save you thousands in the long run.

I don’t live in Ireland at the moment otherwise I would love to help you directly but I can give you my skype if you need help.

I have an older 450se and a new 700x dominator aswell - few others knocking about too - indoors

haven't flied the big one - just because i hate having to sit down and fix them....i can do it but i don't normally have enough patience - so i'm going get out flying with someone else; and get interested enough again to want to fix the bloody thing....half the reason I went for the big one tbh.....450 is like a kite.

Kirby

Personally, a 450 is plenty big. I've two of them and wouldn't go any bigger. You can still see them clearly from miles away along with their orientation. It's essentially a flying lawnmower so I'm not sure I'd want to go up to 700.

As for learning, you already have a sim so good start there. The best option after that is to buy micro heli's. You can get cheap ones from between 40-100 quid and they will do the job. They are super light so wont have the same weighted feel as your 450 and especially the 700 but everything else is the same.

You can smash a micro into a tree and it will be fine. If its not, its cheap to fix or replace. You can start with 6G and then work to 3G without risking your safety or your wallet. Until you can fly the small ones second nature....I wouldn't go near the bigger ones. All it will do is cost you money. 20 years ago having a buddy with a buddy box for learning was the way to go but that was because collective pitch micro's didn't exist. You don't need that today. You can learn solo cheaply and safely.

Learn on the micro's. Trust me.

euser1984

Kirby wrote: »

Personally, a 450 is plenty big. I've two of them and wouldn't go any bigger. You can still see them clearly from miles away along with their orientation. It's essentially a flying lawnmower so I'm not sure I'd want to go up to 700.

As for learning, you already have a sim so good start there. The best option after that is to buy micro heli's. You can get cheap ones from between 40-100 quid and they will do the job. They are super light so wont have the same weighted feel as your 450 and especially the 700 but everything else is the same.

You can smash a micro into a tree and it will be fine. If its not, its cheap to fix or replace. You can start with 6G and then work to 3G without risking your safety or your wallet. Until you can fly the small ones second nature....I wouldn't go near the bigger ones. All it will do is cost you money. 20 years ago having a buddy with a buddy box for learning was the way to go but that was because collective pitch micro's didn't exist. You don't need that today. You can learn solo cheaply and safely.

Learn on the micro's. Trust me.

the bigger they are, the more stable they are

Kirby

Stability or lack thereof, won't be the cause of 95% of your crashes. User error will.

You are going to crash the first thing you fly for real. It's an inevitability. The more experience you have under your belt, the more time you get before that happens.

It's obviously up to you ultimately but you created a thread asking for advice and its the best I can give. Don't start with a 700. When you take that one up, it should be after dozens of flights on something smaller. That way you can enjoy it.

coolwings

Before they start everybody thinks that being smart will make it easy.
It's like walking a tightrope. Not easy no matter who tries it.
Everybody falls off a rope, and with RC helis everybody will have crashes because that is the learning process in action.

We can control:
avoidance of the most basic crashes via a simulator
reduction of cost via buying choices based on cost of repairs and parts availability rather than cost of model
learning on less complex models (planes) first - about how to make repairs, settings for radios controls and mechanical linkages, rather than paying somebody else (heli expert) to do that
avoiding wind like the plague during the learning period
throttling back hard just before impact when that is imminent
trainee undercarriage whether DIY or bought