Thinking of getting one

[Frostman]

Me and my son are thinking of getting a electric rc heli.We have never tried one before.We don't want to spend to much in case we don't like it.But it could be a stepping stone to a better one If we get hooked. He's 10 years old.Thanks

[dezflyer]

I would suggest buying a sim before you get a heli. Without the aid of one, especially since you havent flown before, you will crash in seconds and bum yourselves out. Since they have released real flight 4 you can pick up version 3/3.5 for pretty cheap. Check the for sale section for deals.After practicing on the sim for a while when I first started I got a Honeybee FP to learn hovering orientations in the garage. Albeit not a trex, it runs for about 100 bucks with the TX ready to fly and its a great learner. Some people say to go straight to a trex (which I did after) but the buy in cost is ALOT more (for a new one your looking at 800-1000 bucks at least for everything you need). Whichever heli you do decide to get (trex, blade 400, honeybee) theres lots of info on here to help you out. But if you are serious, do yourself a favor and get the sim first. I cant imagine learning to fly helis without one. Good luck and most of all have fun!

[Frostman]

Ya I think your right. I bought a heli sim "realflight " I think back in 2000 I think.It came with the controller but the controller was only good for the sim.I got real good on it but never bought a heli and sold it :( So how should I go about getting one now. Do I by the controller of the heli I want to buy like a HBFP then buy a sim ?not sure what to do. I would like to try the HBFP since it's only 100$ I see FMS esky on ebay?any good?
Thanks

[akshaw]

I agree with Dez--a honey bee fixed pitch is not a bad way to start--a cheap beater heli to learn on.

If you buy a current version of realflight (g3, g3.5 or g4) it should come with a controller. I have g3.5 and one thing I think needs mentioning is that, though realflight is a fantastic simulator, it is a resource hog and needs a good graphics card (I would say at least 256mb, but better yet 512mb) to get it running nicely. If you don't have a good graphics card you may end up spending total $400+ to get realflight running the way you want.

One high end simulator that I know of that is not a resource hog is phoenix, but this simulator does not come with a controller. From what I've read the esky controller doesn't work with it either but you could do a little research to confirm that. If you are really serious about getting into the hobby you could make the all important investment of buying a good transmitter like a spektrum dx7 and then use that with phoenix. Eventually you'll be needing a transmitter anyway. Pheonix works out of the box with dx7.