Newbie Needing Encouragement

[mskeyspirate]

Well I too am in the same boat (or copter if you will) and have grown pretty frustrated with the 120. It seems to rock back and forth quite a bit, needs almost constant trimming to keep it flying well. And is in general just a pain to fly indoors. Now with that being said, I have not crashed mine for about two weeks now. I also have another 120, an msrX, and an mqx that I fly indoors. I heard that that msrx is tough to fly for anyone, but let me tell you that it is much more stable to fly than the 120. I know that alot of folks love the 120, but I would never recommend that particular heli to anyone with out extensive skills. But just the same...keep with it, I learned to fly it indoors, you can too. Patience is the key, along with very minor thumb movements to start with. Good luck, hang in there !

[BigRHS]

Man, this thread has made me feel better.
I also started out with the coax MCX and have gotten about all I can out of it so I have been flying......errrr I mean trying to fly ( or really just crashing ) my 120 for almost a week now and i still can't keep it in the air long enough to get it trimmed out....lol. I bet i have about 1/2 dozen connecting links all over the living room that i can't seem to find....lol. My indoor flying space is not very big so as soon as i get it up in the air off to the wall it goes or to the chair or couch or........well you get the picture.
But I still love this hobby. I figure as soon as I get the weather to get outside and crash it a few times I'll get the hang of it.
I have the Phoenix flight sim and also bought the DX6i, that's why i can now at least get it in the air....lol.
On the sim, i can actually fly the MCPX and the SR better then i can fly the 120, but of course i know that's on the sim and would be different in the real world, but I'll keep plugging away and buying parts..........somebody has to keep the parts company and LHS in business .

[chuck-o]

Don't forget she has feelings. The abuse us rookies heap on these poor girls can be tough for her to take.
I made this mistake with my first bird, more than a couple full throttle burn ins, broke a bunch of rotor blades, landing gear, tail rotors, never apologized, just slapped the new stuff on and expected her to perform.
After a week she got pissed and took off into the sky never to be seen again.
So my new girl gets pampered, never a major hit, every little scrape gets fussed over, taken care of.
A couple things need to be addressed right out of the box.
First, cover those tail rotor wires. I used carpenters glue and modelers putty. Coated the entire wire and connectors with the glue, twice. Then formed a layer of putty around it filling the space between the wire and the boom.
The swash plates seem to be quite a bit out of level from the factory on many helis.
If you want a hands free zero trim hover you have to adjust the servo arms.
Search the forum for "level your swashplate" a whole bunch of guys with more experience than me will tell you how.
I was having a hard time doing circuits around my living room until I did the leveling, it's still a little off, requiring about one click of right aieleron and one click forward elevator.
My dx6i will be here tomorrow and I'm gonna wait to hook it to that before I finish adjusting the zero arms, but the arms are close enough that they stay dialed in (mostly) between batteries.
I love this little heli, she can take some pretty good hits and come back for more.
Just gotta take care of all those new noises and wobbles as soon as they occur.

[Gimpdiggity]

I am brand new to helis also. I have, however, amassed a pretty decently sized collection of Blade products over the last two or three weeks.

I also was able to easily hover my 120 SR in the basement, but any kind of movements at all seemed to end in disaster.

What has been said about waiting for the right time to get it outdoors is absolutely correct. I finally had time to get it out the other morning (at 5:30 am) in the cold (16 degrees on the thermometer) but I have never had so much fun freezing my hands off.

Once the 120 SR was free of the constraints of my basement, it moved about quickly and easily and was a lot of fun to fly. I crashed it a couple of times, and once into a tree, but nothing broke.

However, be very sure you're flying in really calm weather. The next afternoon after that maiden flight, I took it to a local field to give it a try. It had been kind of gusty, but it had died down so I took the chance. Bad choice. I was flying okay, when suddenly a gust came up that stood the flag in front of the school straight out. It grabbed the 120 and before I knew what was happening slammed it into the ground at a VERY high rate of speed. Luckily, I had killed the throttle pretty much right at impact, but I did a good job of shattering the body.

I'm looking forward to getting it outside again on a calm day that is a bit warmer. I personally think that the 120 SR is simply too big and slightly too fast to do anything in a house with other than practicing hovering.

Jeff

[Oh no... not again!]

Originally Posted by Gimpdiggity

I personally think that the 120 SR is simply too big and slightly too fast to do anything in a house with other than practicing hovering.

Jeff

Jeff,

I have to disagree.. While you can't pull bank turns inside the 120 is perfect for practicing stick control. Worn on SLOW circuits indoors. This will help tremendously with your out door flying...

I find the best practice to learn control is indoors. Its too tempting to "let'er rip" outdoors.

Stick too it..

Oh no...

[Murf.]

My dad was a WWII airforce vet and liked to fly RC planes. I use to go with him and watch him fly. I never really had much interest in planes, but every once in awhile someone would should show up with a heli. (This would have been over 35 years ago - gas powered.) I thought they looked cool, but dad would tell me they were very difficult to fly.

Recently I started reading about the mCX2. It sounds cool, but is small. I was wanting something bigger and thought the 120 SR looked cool. So I ordered one (and an extra set of blades, tail blade, fly bar, and batteries.) It is due to arrive on Friday. Reading the manual and looking at the how the controls work it seems logical. Also, reading (before this post) it sounded fairly straight forward and for beginners that were up for a challenge. I guess that is all relative. While I have no interest in Collective Pitch heli's - sounds like more work than fun and way too difficult. I thought this would be a compromise and "automatically" handle some of the difficult tasks of CP. I've ran a kit built RC monster truck before, but that is 2D. I'm all new to flight and heli's. I plan on doing the mods for tail rotor wires and bearing retainer and left landing gear stub removal before attempting first take off and hover.

Thanks for all the helpful info/posts on this forum.

Wish me luck...

[rdandy5875]

You guys will be fine. My first battery I couldn't get it off the ground. Now probably a couple hours of flight time, I can practice in a 5' x 5' area, but that's still just the beginning. It's very rewarding, though. There are many small facets you will be able to master each one and feel good from making progress. GL and happy flying.

[Murf.]

I suppose it is like the one fellow on here compared it to playing a musical instrument and developing the muscle memory.

That being said, I have a question about the "beginner" mode that is on the transmitter that comes with it (where you press the stick into the body to activate). In this mode, is it like a gas engine governor in that it limits the signal sent to the heli to a certain amount no matter how much you press the stick?

What I'm getting at is if I use beginner mode and get use to it, then go to normal mode, am I going to have to get use to it all over again (so maybe I should skip the beginner mode)?
Will it be like say in beginner mode maybe I move the stick a 1/4 of and inch, but then in normal mode I would only move the stick an 1/8 of an inch for the same response? So then I would be over compensating and having to re-learn the muscle memory.

I hope that make sense.

Thanks for the help.

[Chris.S.]

No, that's not really how beginner mode works. Moving the stick 1/4" in beginner mode will produce the same result in advanced mode, the difference being in advanced you can push the stick further. You don't want to restrict your self to beginner mode for too long.

Low rate (beginner mode) restricts the servo's up/down travel and thus the control input to the swash plate. High rate allows full travel to the servo's which allows increased throw at the swash plate.

As an analogy, maybe think of it as being similar to restricting the steering in your car. If you can't turn the steering wheel all the way it may be easier to drive in a straight line but you probably want to get rid of that restriction as soon as you feel comfortable behind the wheel.
Same with your heli, my advice is to switch to high rates (advanced mode) as soon as you feel even a little comfortable with your bird. I think you'll find that having the extra throw makes flying easier.

[-kenny-]

I was once in this situation too. Started with a mcx, got bored after a week and bought a sr :o bad decision. Was to intimidated with it and bought an msr. This helped me a bit and is quite suitable for flying in the house. Then i wanted something slightly bigger and bought a 120sr. At the time i thought it was me, but now i know better. The 120sr is not a real good heli. It, along with the sr, caused me a lot of frustration. Struggling, crashing, buying parts. So i ended up selling everything and was done with the hobby.
About 6 months later, the mcpx get's anounced. This seemed like a real cool concept. A crashable cp heli! I couldn't get it out of my head but decided to take things slow this time. I bought a second hand phoenix sim and practiced for a few weeks. Then i bought a mcpx and was immediately able to fly it. I was doing flips on my second flight! Since then i have been flying the hell out of my mcpx and simulator and about 5 months ago i bought a trex 450 pro v2 3gx on wich i have about 80 flights without a single crash! 3 weeks ago i bought a trex 550E v2.1 3gx wich is now waiting for it's maiden.

So the advice I would give you is: ditch the 120sr and get an mcpx. Since that heli has come out i find the micro fixed pitch heli's useless. Atleast, if you want to be flying "real" heli's at some point in time. Also get a sim. That combination has helped me make the progress i needed instead of the frustration i got with the fp heli's.
If you really want to keep the 120sr, atleast stop flying it in the house. Make sure you have the room for mistakes

[Murf.]

Thanks Chris and Kenny for your advice. I appreciate it. I'm on a low budget and wanted something low cost. I just want to have some fun and fly a heli (outside on a CALM day). I don't have any plans to move on to more expensive or more complex helis. (I might buy a mCX2 to play around in the house though.) Thanks again for the advice!