RC helicopters

[julesbristol]

I'm after a cheap ish new RC helicopter as an xmas present for my dad. Been looking on ebay and there are hundreds out there - majority the usual Chinese / HK £50 delivery rubbish.

Has anyone got any experience of these things? Only after a small indoors one with a short range for a laugh - but i don't want a wire one, must be real radio control. Probably £50 tops.

Thanks in advance. Jules

[Gruntfuggly]

I've got a spare Eco Piccolo you could have, although it doesn't have gyro, servos or receiver.

[Igottamiya]

The Hirobo Lama XRB is very good. Even better are the cheaper oriental versions, but I suspect they may be slightly out of your budget.

I have personally witnessed one of these dual rotor helicopters being flown indoors at my local hobbyshop. I almost felt myself "needing" to have one immediately.

Regards

Riz

[Wireless]

To be perfectly honest Jules, £50 isn't going to get you anything but a toy that flies nothing like a helicopter - it won't even get you a Chinese Piccolo clone let alone a real Piccolo. £50 will get you some way towards a starter r/c plane - something like a JP Electrafun would be a great start at around £80-£100 or a Parkzone Parkflyer like the Bellanca Decathlon they do - again, around £100-£115.

Scrimp and save the extra £50 and get a good starter electric plane rather than a cack helicopter...! To fly a heli that's half reliable, half predictable and worth having your investment is really going to be north of £200 and that's second hand.

The indoor helis aren't much of a laugh. They are extremely hard to fly, not very robust and very maintanance intensive because the components are pushed very hard to get the performance. Sure, the plane is outdoors, but it's way better than an indoor heli.

If you want to commit to several new motors, rotors, frames and undercarriages a month then get an indoor heli.

Lemme know if you want more info, I've had fist hand experience of a bunch of helicopters from Piccolo upwards - see my site at www.raptorv2.co.uk

Cheers,

Roop

[Tipsy]

And Roop speaks from experience with a costly Zoom 400!!

[Stevenchat2000]

Dont waste your money on the Rubish , tryed them all even the Piccolo pro , rubish also to weak

If hes not flown a heli before then dont have a electric one to start , he needs a set up like the Raptor 30 , but your Talking around £500 , I fly a Raptor 90 and an electric Trex , the trex is alot harder to set up and fly [V]

I do love it because I can fly it around my garden , but with no experence will end up in dissapointment.

[raemin]

I do have a piccolo µCP with no nonsense modifications and it flies well, from that I decided to tune my brother century heli (just a chines based one) and have to say it flies but it took me hours of tuning. Electronic and gyro are pretty poor in these heli which makes them less forgiving.

In short chinese heli can fly if you use little (80g max) 3S lipos and if you find someone to assist you in tuning the beast. Otherwise go for a more wellknown brand such as piccolo / hornet as these are worth the extra cost for a beginer.

If you need advice, go for someone with experience in these micro helis and not someone with big heli experience as these heli are totally different.

On a positive point these micro heli can accept much more abuse than 30-60-90 class helis and won't kill you if you accidently collide with one of these.

If you can't find someone to help you, try an hirobo lama or a graupner bell 47G, these do fly out of the box.

[Wireless]

You're all right guys, but the end result is still the same - there's no way you're gonna get anything resembling a heli flying for £50 I'm afraid...

Gotta say when I finally got my Zoom 400 flying properly it really does fly a dream, it just costs an arm and a leg in spares as it chews up parts left right and centre.

Nearly bought a Raptor 90 SE the other week but blew the cash (and a lot more) on a new wris ****ch...! Doh...! Having said that, I can't fly the heli here in Mac anyway, it would have just sat on a shelf until I got time... [V] Anyway, 4 helis would be greedy...!

[Tipsy]

I like the editing on your purchase Roop. Wonder what that said ehh[]

[raemin]

To get back to the subject, these heli do fly but be prepare to invest an additional 30GBP on a lipo setup, spend hours in front of the sim and take time to carefuly tweak the heli. I do have a piccolo CP, a humingbird (same as the chinese ones) and a raptor 30. My favourite isno' the raptor

Last point...

To get the Hirobo XRB to fly I had to:

- Pay (well my brother did as its his)

- Charge the batteries

To get the Piccolo fly I had to:

- Balance blades

- Adjust tracking

- Find the appropriate hover throtle and pitch.

- Replace the tail rotor

=> peace of cake. With additional lipos it's a dream

To get the century fly I had to:

- Add lipos

- Chop the blades (see P.Golez website)

- Balance the blades

- Add extra weight to the bell

- Relocate part of the electronic (ESC is to close to the receiver)

- Cut longer carbon rods in ored to protect the rear tail

- Add an head stifener

- Cut the aerial (better to have an aerial that's half the size rather than an aerial stucked against carbon bits)

- Replace tail motor

- Spend hours to get the Bell 222 retractable gear to work properly (this one was a lovely but nasty add-on).

All the above do cost nothing but do require patience and knowledgeable -good- friends...

Raoul