Wondering about buying one of these birds?

[phunkodelic]

I have been trolling this MSR – MSRX boards for a while and am wondering about buying one of these birds but had several questions. I grew up in the world of RC cars as a kid and am now forty years old and have flown a three channel cheapo heli. I appologize up front if I sound like noob, as I am and know relativly little about helis.

1. MSR-X seems to have less fun factor time as you can only run it one time and have to let it cool for ten minutes? Flight time at around four minutes seems very short. I am used to a 12-16 minute run I would get out of RC cars.

2. Quality/performance/price? I see lots of folks putting longer tail booms on what are solid rod carbon with a different tail motor. If EFlite made a good product then why did not incorporate this in their design and put a MCPX tail motor on it? Why did they not design it like the MSR where heat does not seem to be such an issue? I wonder about the overall quality/price points after reading this guys reviews on Eflite products in geneneral. http://z8rc.blogspot.com/ I realize its just one persons opinion but this guy seems to know what he is talking about and since he is not selling/endorsing any product he is totally honest.

3. Single batter charger? What happened to the quad battery charger that came with the MSR?

4. Battery life? Is there a way to get better flight times? What is the max flight time?

5. Trainer/sim? I have thought (planned on) about getting a SIM first and flying it for a month to see if I truly liked it. If I did then I would be better at it, and if not I would just ebay the SIM. Does a SIM help fly the real thing?

6. RTF controller? Is it any good with the MSRX? I have not seen to many reviews or comments on it in regards to the MSRX.

7. Is there any competition in this size of heli that is very good that can give this bird a run for it money, or does e flite have a corner on the market?

Any and all opinions appreciated as I am sure this thread may be of interest to others who are trolling.

[Edge767]

I can only answer a few of these.

Numbers 1 and 4: I have been using Turnigy 160 mah batteries and I get at least 4:30 out of them consistently. I can go to LVS which happens within 10-30 seconds after that, but to me it's not worth the wear on the batteries. As for cooling, I let mine cool for about a minute between batteries. I don't feel any excessive heat on the motor after the minute of cooling down is up. I've got over 4 hours of flying time on it with no failures so far. It still flies very well with lots of power.

Number 2: I fly mine stock and it's a lot of fun. I am new to helicopters but not to RC flying, having 31 years experience fixed wing. The transition to rotary wing seemed easy to me with this one. The MSRX is a great first helicopter if you have lots of fixed-wing stick time.

I fly mine with a DX8 controller. I'd love to find an SPM file for it, but so far, I fly it with no expo or mix and I can hover, fly forward, and keep it under control quite well although it requires small and precise input the way I've got it going now.

I recommend this micro helicopter highly. It's a lot of fun, and stock, it does quite well. Just remember to chop throttle if you're going to hit something.

[GOTFrog]

Just got mine today, and I'm loving it so far, I'm a beginner in the RC hobby so I have absolutely no experience here. I'm really loving it bone stock and I am using the RTF radio, it does the job quite nicely of course there's no programming with the stock radio you do have the dual rate option witch lets you go high/low rates aileron, elevator and rudder.

Loving it thats all I can say.

[BunnMan]

I'm getting between 5:30 - 5:50 on the stock 150mAh cell with no perceivable temp problems on the motor. A fingertip after a run and it feels just a touch over room temp. My hyperion 180's should arrive today, comments this evening on how they effect runtime on a stock bird. DF has posted flight imes with the hyperion 180's but he's flying a fat girl...lol. Seriously though, much of the modding you mentioned sounds like DF's heli. He has done some wonderful work on her to customize her to his taste by dumbing down some of the responsiveness of the mSRX to tame her a bit. I'm flying mine stock, only mods I've done have been adding rubber grommets to the ball links that didn't include them from the factory. The grommets I used came in the box with the heli as spares. Today is a week I've had mine and I've progressed OK and haven't broken anything even after a couple full speed collsions into trees outside. My worst damage so far was a bent elevator link that took all of five seconds to straighten out.

As for that sim...O HELL YEAH!! Definitely a great investment! You likely won't be putting it on eBay or Craigslist later either. It will continue to serve as an invaluable tool for leanring and practice. Hell, crashes are always free and you don't even have to get up to set it rightside up again!

As for the stock TX, I didn't care for it and feel it would be more difficult to learn on vs. the DX6i. Folks have done it though so it's certainly possible, just a matter of comfort vs. $ really.

As far as the quad battery charger, I don't beleive it was ever included with the mSRX. I'm pretty sure that was an mCPX thing. The connectors are slightly different on the mCPX and the charger is equipped accordingly. The mCPX no logner comes with the 4 port though, now it's a single port variable rate AC/DC charger with an included AC adpater. A guess would be that Eflite, in trying to keep the price down, decided to skimp a little on the areas that are commonly replaced anyway as most folks opt to purchase a more complex charger after a short time in the hobby anyway. The stock charger will keep you in the air but it's no iCharger.

As far as the blogs you refer to, yes...remember that's the views of one individual. I didn't have time to review the detail but I did notice he has Eflite/Blade products on his "Recommended" list as well. I have been extremely happy with the mSRX and Eflite's support of it. Last Friday I called into their tech line with a few questions regarding whether the gyro's authority was adjustable and why they say to bind in ACRO rather than HELI on the Sprectrum TX. After an automated answering service and a keypress followed by a few minute hold I got a genuine living breathing tech that knew what he was talking about and spoke like a natural born US citizen. There's alot to say for that alone. Also, the RTF kit was truly 100% ready to fly. As stated above I didn't care for the stock TX but is included and would be adequate to fly. The kit included everything down to AA batteries for the TX and charger and a few spare parts. So far I have a high degree of respect for Eflite/Blade. I'm amazed at the functionality of this tiny little contraption. You are free to form your own opinion of course. Personally I think you would be making a mistake to look away from an mSRX as an option based on a bad press for Eflite...I think bad press is the exception rather than the rule for those folks.

All the best...

[phunkodelic]

Thanks guys! I am definitely going the SIM route as it seems that it will pay for it self in parts/rebuild savings as well as the frustration factor. I like the idea of "RESET" after a hard crash that won't cost me a dime with a SIM.