Raptor 90 for a newbee!

[Dave]

I have been playing around with an GWS Dragonfly long enough to get bit by the Helicopter bug and have decided to step up to a nitro.

I have heard that the bigger the better and rather then going the more traditional 30->50->60->90 route I decide to just start with the 90 and suffer throught the slightly more expensive parts as I break them! I order an standard 90 from Heliproz last Friday with wood blades.

What I have yet to decide on is engine and gyro.

My gut feeling is to go with the OS 91 C-Spec with a pump and the Futaba 601 gyro and 9252 servos for the cyclic controls.

Instead it has been suggested that I get the OS 70 instead of the 91 C-spec as it burns less fuel. In fact I was told that it would burn 1/2 as much fuel as the 91. I also was told that as a newbee I will not see any difference between the 401 and 601 gyro. I guess there is not much question about the 9252 servos.

My concern with going with the 70 engine or the 401 gyro is that some day I may want an more powerfull engine or better gyro. It certainly is cheaper to buy the more expensive engine/gyro now then to buy the cheap one now and the better one later.

Any and all additional advise would be appreciated. I was just told about helifreak this last weekend and this is my first post. I was certainly surpized I was able to get the user name of dave but it will ceratinly be easier to remember!

Thanks in advance for your input.

[DebianDog]

Umm being a newbie with a Raptor 60 I would say NO. How good are you with your Dragonfly?

Edit: I say this because it is expensive to crash the 60. It is REALLY expensive to crash the 90. More than the cost of going 30->50 60->90

If you already bought it... I would go cheap and get a LOT of sim time. Even with sim time it does not stop the random crash. I just had this little disaster this weekend (bad transmitter or antenna ie - no forward cyclic) Damage? Crash Kit plus = $150

Crash video slowed down for your enjoyment - Sorry about the other site ad.

[iayla]

i have to 100% agree with DebianDog, dont do the same mistake that i did, even tons of hrs with the SIM and having a xprt settign up evrything i still crashed my R60. Now i am going back with a evo 50 !

[Russ McC]

Dave,

Read this thread https://www.helifreak.com/about5935.html from frount to back and send that 90 back! I hope Heliproz did not sell you this knowing you are a begginer! That would be very bad policy to not atleast try to talk you out of the big machine

[WillJames]

Raptor 50 is the best price/performance setup for a newbie IMHO.

HeliProz will exchange with you.

[Dave]

DebianDog,

I am able to hover the Dragonfly fairly well but the batteries just do not last. I can hover very well on the sim. My gut feeling is I will do even better with the R90 once it is set up right (I will have someone check it out to make sure it is right before I start flying it). I plan on doing most of my "practice" on the sim before trying it on the Raptor.


I strongly consider going to the T-Rex but you can buy an 30 nitro for about the same amount of money. Once I had talked myself into glow it was not that difficult to talk myself into a 50. It really was not that much more for the standard 90 kit over the better 50 kits and my guess is the cost difference on broken 90 parts will not be that much higher then broken 50 parts.

While I do understand that parts will cost more for the 90 I do understand that it is not all that much different then the R60. (Note, that I did not go with the 90 SE as I do understand that it's part are more expensive then the standard 90 and my guess is that 50 parts are more expensive then 30 parts as well.)

It does seem that while it is likely that I will crash the 90 several times in the learning process I should not loose the engine or the gyro but perhaps I am being too optomistic. If I am likely to totally destroy these parts in the learning process perhaps I should consider the OS 70 or the 401 gyro.

It looks like I can get the OS 70 for about $300 or the OS 90 C Spec with w/pump for about $350. That is not that much difference in my book and I would guess parts for these two engine to be simular as well.

There is more of a difference in the 401 and 601 Gyro price. It looks like the 601 could be as much as $150 difference and it sound like as a newbee I will not see the performace difference for some time if at all! Still, if the 601 is expected to make it through my learning process and that I am likely to want an 601 some day then perhaps I should start off with it.

While I am a newbee my logic may be faulty and perhaps I am not looking at it correctly.

I am off to the hobby shop to buy yet another tail motor for my Dragonfly. Hopefully that 90 kit will be here soon. ;.)

[Dave]

OK, perhaps I am missing something here, being a newbee and all. If that is the case then please help me out and explain why my logic is wrong on this.

But first, let me set the record straight on heliproz. The folks at heliproz are very helpful, low preasure and IMHO extreemly helpful in helping me make the right decission. Yes, they did understand my skill level and they did talk me down from an 90 SE to an standard 90, because of the cost of the parts. I highly recommend Heliproz and I have no intentions at this point in sending back the kit to them for exchange. I have read every reply and suggested thread and I still think I have made the right decsision with an Raptor 90. But as a newbee perhaps I am missing something. If this is the case please help me to understand.

I tend to read as much about a subject that I can and this is no exception. I understand that there is nothing wrong with starting with a 60 size Helicopter and that there are several advantages as well since they are more stable and easier to see. The only down side seems to be that parts may cost a bit more.

I also understand there is not a lot of difference between an 60 kit and an 90 kit, other than the longer tail. I can not see the longer tail making it that more expensive to learn or harder to fly, unless I am missing something about the difference.

So the part cost more. I understand that, but will the cost of parts broken in the learning process be more then $1,000* DIFFERENCE? ($1K is about what a good 50 would cost*) If so I would expect then the overall cost of parts broken in the learning process will total more then $4K! If that is the case perhaps I need to rethink helicopters altogether! I was not planning on spending about $1,500 on a bird and then another $4,000 in replacement parts just while learning to fly helicopters!

I had not intended this to be "What size Raptor should I start with", what I am looking for is advise on the engine and the gyro. So far I have gotten little advise on this subject.

I have heard that the OS 91 will use twice as much fuel as an OS 70. This seems rather unlikely since the engine is only 30% bigger. Also I wiould not expect to be running the OS 91 any harder then what I would run the OS 70 while learning. If the OS 91 does use twice as much fuel then perhaps this is significant.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Dave

*My calucations for an 50 is $400 for the basic kit, $200 engine, $210 for 3x9252 servos, $190 for GY401 w/9254. Total $1,000. Plus none of these part, with the exception of the servos could be used on the 90, nor would you want to as it would leave the 50 useless. That is not counting RX, TX or other parts that are likely to be usable with both the 50 and the 90. Perhaps there are cheapers ways to go but this would most likely be the R50 I would put together if I had not gone with the R90 instead.

[sdixon747]

Dave

I am going to sort of agree with you. Not to say that the others are wrong, but to give my experience. I too started on a larger machine. A JR Vigor with an OS 70 and a 401. It can be done. I flew it for about a year before my first crash. I fly very conservatively partly because I don't get to fly as often as I would like, and partly because I am a little afraid of crashing. I get in a lot of sim time and I try not to fly beyond my abilities. I do progress a little each flight but I don't push it and try to keep up with the big boys.

It does cost more to crash the larger machines. I am by no means a rich man, but I don't have to dig through the couch cushions the find money for fuel. I like the larger machines because they are a bit more stable and are easier to see. I have an OS 70 and a 91 C-Spec. The 91 doesn't burn much more fuel than the 70. If you want the 91 then get it. As for the gyro, as a beginner, you won't see the difference in a 401 and a 601. Spend the difference on fuel.

Once again, I learned on a JR Vigor and now fly a Fury Extreme. My wife is learning on a Raptor 60. If you want the bigger machine, and money isn't a major factor, then go for it.

Steve

[Russ McC]

Hi Dave,

When you claim to be a beginner and are asking for advice people like my self try to help you get started with as little pain as possible so your experience can be as enjoyably as possible. Did you actually read the thread I suggested including my experiences seeing people hit by these things? And that it is a myth that bigger is moor stable? If you read these things and still do not understand the logic of some one who has been in the hobby for over 20 years and can look back and learn from all they have done and seen then there is nothing I could say to convince you your are going about this backward. You may get along ok with a 90 and I hope you do but after some years you may look back and see I was right. The worst can and does happen and I don’t want to be around when it does. Can you imagine being a new pilot and loosing control and seeing your model hit one of your friends or your children or friends children and being helpless and the blame you will feel, now compare the result of this happening with a 30/50 or a 60/90. I don’t know your age but this is the same idea as a young man not taking his parents advice because he knew he was right, now looking back on it he knows his parents where right most of the time because they had already lived it and wanted the best for there son, I can tell you my parents where right every time! Whatever you decide I wish you the best of luck :glasses2:

[DebianDog]

am able to hover the Dragonfly fairly well

Well as someone once said if you can fly THAT you can fly anything

I ended up buying a T-Rex for when the Raptor is down :?

Anyway... I wish you luck, and will be interested to see how you progress.

[Dave]

Russ,

Yes I did read what you wrote on the other thread as suggested. I also noted you wrote:

'I’m not saying these bigger machines are only for expert pilots, there just not for beginners. If you’re flying around in control at an intermediate level then go for it, and enjoy..."

Please also note that DebianDog wrote: "Well as someone once said if you can fly THAT you can fly anything ." in reference to my quote that I can fly the DragonFly fairly well.

While I am not a expert I am not exactly an rank beginner either. Also I am doing fairly well on the simulator. At age 48 I am not exactly an youngster and do have a healthy respect for what I am purchasing.

While the hobby may not be a safe as something like kniting I do believe it must be safer with the simulators that we have today. I am sure you agree that I will be a safer pilot because of the sim, perhaps even enough to offset the larger risk of an 90. I certainly feel I would be safer with my 90 then an first time pilot on a 30. I would guess that your friend that got hurt so bad probably had not spent any time on a sim. If nothing else a sim would probably have taught him how to shut it down quicker. It was the sim that really taught me how to hover the DragonFly. I am doing well with tail in and side in hover and not too bad with nose in as well.

I did have an incident with my Dragonfly that certainly got my attention! At first I was sure that the tail servo was reversed. It was all wrong as the tail went right when I push the stick left! No problem, I just reversed the servo. The only problem was the instructions were not that clear and I reversed the throtlle servo instead. You can imagine the rest. Of course with a 90 the results could have been much worst before I realized what was happening. Of course since then I have figured out how the tail actually should work and do feel I am doing fairly well. I would expect that I have at least 100 hours beind the stick counting the DragonFly and the G3 sim.

Russ, what I also did note in trying to find answers to my questions is that you do have advise about the 401 vrs the 601 gyro. Perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts on this question as well.

Regardless, thanks for your input.

[Russ McC]

Hovering is not where the problem is, it is in learning to make circuits and come back safely, hovering is not the hardest part of learning to fly these things. No I do not agree, sim time does help but does in no way count as stick time on the real deal, I have seen hundreds of people that can fly the sim all around but can’t begin to do it at the field. If you can on the real deal, dragon fly or what ever make circuits and decent approaches then I concede but if your only hovering the real thing then you are a rank beginner.

You probably read my preference on the gyro issue already right? I make no bones about the fact that the 601 soon to be the 611 is the only gyro I will use and that it is light years better then anything else out there. This is true but I have a very high standard for the flying that I do which is of a type that requires the highest in tail performance, not to mention the rest of the machine. A 401 will be very good for you for a long time. By the way gyros and engines can be destroyed in crashes, ask me how I know.

Your making a mistake, the same one so many make and I can tell you it is not going to work out the way you think it will. The mistake is, you are trying to buy what you think you will want when you get good at this but I can tell you, you wont have it that long and if you do it will be obsolete by the time you can make much use of it any way. This is a hobby that you need to commit to for a long period of time, you have the rest of your life to move into the big dog choppers and by the time you exhaust the abilities of a 30/50 there will be a hole new crop of top choppers and the raptor 90 will be old news. This hobby changes and advances at about the same speed as the computer industry, it’s old news with in six months to a year and the R 90 is already not new so who know what they are dreaming up next. Also these Choppers are not your baby they are an expendable tool to be used to advance your skills and you will probably expend some on your way and if you don’t they will grow obsolete. So I still say start with the small moor easily, cheaply and safely expendable, then in 6 months when your doing good you can skip the cheap R 90 and just get the best and fly it for a year or two then get the next best thing when it comes along and on and on. If you try to keep up like I do you will buy/build a new machine every year on average.

[Laurens]

Get a 30 size machine. As you say, the dragonfly doesn't fly long enough. A raptor 90 flys about 7.30 on a tank. This might be just as long as your dragonfly.

A 30 machine does 15-25 minutes on a tank. You'll fly much longer on this then the 90.

Also reconsider the Trex with lipo's.

[WillJames]

A 91 with pipe does burn about 2x the amount of fuel of a 70. I have had both. My close friend Alan Bonner has a R90 and R70 and he gets at least double the flight time out of the 70. His usermane on here is Hammer you may want to ask him.

Will your Gyro make it through the learning curve?? Well.... I have been running nothing but 601's for 2+ years. I have trashed 2 of them in that time period due to crashes. Seems to me the 601 sensor is more sensative to meetings withthe ground or something. One of them has been sent back to Futaba to fix, and it is still bad and unusuable. I ran 401's before that and I never trashed one of them in quite a few crashes.

If you are planning on buying electronics to move up with you get good digital servos with the best radio you can afford. Only thing to be careful about is that if you go Futaba, the difference in programming between the 9CHP and the 9Z are a pretty steep learning curve, so unless you have help from people flying the Z, get the 9CHP.

In JR teh 9303 would be my choice, the 8103 is next. Both of these are fairly easy to program like the 9CHP. The 10X is harder to program but not a whole lot harder from the limited experience I have with it. 9303 is easy.

Learn with whatever heli you want, but just like your assumption that a 91 will only burn 30% more fuel than the 70, there is only so much you can assume.

The best advice is to go to the fields you will be flying at and see what radios and helis people are flying. The people who already know how to fly will be the ones who are helping you as it is very hard to figure it all out and help is something you will most likely need. Good luck with learning to fly helis, it is one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. You are in for a treat!!

[Kinger]

Dave - Do yourself a favor and take the advice of the guys that are here and elsewhere. Many times, they have either seen guys that are doing what you are doing or have been there themselves. Nobody can make a final decision for you other than yourself, but believe me these guys are trying to make sure you stay in the hobby long term instead of being another guy who's in for 2 months and then moves on after they realize that the hobby is not what they thought it would be going in.

Just a FYI, if it goes on your machine it CAN be damaged in a crash......period.......end of story. As others have stated, the GY401 will be more than enough for where you are at right now in the hobby and will serve you long into learning 3D flight. (If that's your intent.........) This is one hobby where I can honestly admit that you DO NOT need the best right from the get go because a majority of what you use becomes expendable the moment you put it on your machine. The only exception to that is the radio and I agree with Will (Baja170) in that you should try to get a 9 channel from Futaba, JR or Airtronics as that item will easily grow with you as you progress through this great hobby.

Another thing to consider (and I think it's been mentioned before) is that with a 90 you will go through a lot more fuel and spend a lot less time in the air on that fuel than a 30 or 50 sized machine. Figure about 6 tanks to a gallon on a 90 and about 9 tanks to a gallon on a 50. You'll be in the air for 8 to 9 minutes on a 90 vs. 10 to 12 on a 50. Yeah, I know those numbers may not seem like much, but let me tell you, as a new guy you need to spend as much time in the air as possible so that you can learn and progress. Nothing and I mean NOTHING will replace actual stick time when you are learning. The sim is an aid and will get you there faster than somebody who does not have access to one, but at the end of the day an empty fuel jug is going to count towards your learning more than anything else. As Russ has stated, hovering is only a part of the equation, there's still circuits to master including right side up forwards, right side up backwards, inverted forwards and inverted backwards all of which can be accomplished on a smaller machine. Trust me, coming from the machine you learned on, a 30 or 50 size machine will have all the stability you need without going all the way up to a 90. Save the 90 for when you have progressed a bit in the hobby and can consider it a reward of sorts for all of the efforts you have put into a smaller machine.

Take a look at a lot of the for sale posts here and elsewhere regarding 90 size machines. In MANY cases it's because the owner decided that they were not ready for a 90 size machine yet and want to progress their learning through a smaller heli.

[KevinT]

These guys are right. I have been flying helis for two years. I taught myself hovering, and forward flight. Then I started flying with someone who knows how to fly, and he taught me to do things the right way.
I was one of those who thought that bigger is more stable. I was wrong. My 60 is stable, but it is the reaction time that gets you. The 60 reacts so much faster. If you give the wrong input(as we all do sometime)the heli is going to be in your face, or the ground before you even realize what happened. I bought my 60 about two months ago, and I think I have flown it maybe three times. It is my back up, and my piece of mind that if I crash my main heli I can still fly if I choose to. I plan on going to several fun flys this year, and I will always use my raptor 30 as my main Heli. There is no reason to bring out the 60 when the 30 does exactly what I need it to. Get something smaller. Learn to fly. You will be a lot happier in the end.

[rcingcrazy]

all you guys are right,,,,90`s do burn more fuel .i only get 5 flights on my 90 towards my 50 i get way lot more flight time ,,and the duration is way better on 50`s as for the cost on parts ,,,boy what a difference...i had a radio lock out on my fury when i still had it,,,and parts needed were over 500.00 to repair the same bird....so i decided to get a r90se insted off reparing the same machine....as for gyro`s I`m using the 401 with no problem if you get the setup right and i`m using them for 3d ,,,,havent had a chance to try the 601 yet ,,,to much$ for the 601...reason is that i dont see that I`m in that level yet....and yes the bigger they are the more stable ,,,the only thing is dont crash them.....I also self touht my self if you can get help please do so ,,it will save you time and money in the long run,,,if you need help I`m willing give you a hand ,i travel to sarasota 3 or 4 time a week ...i can stop by if you need help

[WayneBrown]

Hey Dave!
Glad to see you found the place okay!
I'll help with setup of your bird while I'm here, give me a ring 919.619.7411 cell.

Guys, I've met and talked with Dave at length, and I think with an intermediate setup he'll do fine. The locals seem not to believe in negative pitch in normal modes for some reason. There have been zero dead calm days since I've been here. (a month) your thoughts on amount of negative pitch?

[WayneBrown]

Originally Posted by Baja170

The best advice is to go to the fields you will be flying at and see what radios and helis people are flying. The people who already know how to fly will be the ones who are helping you as it is very hard to figure it all out and help is something you will most likely need.

Considering that I have met two guys at the local field who are flying, and flying basically novice level, I suggested Dave come on here for help and tips.
Not knocking the opinions at all, Dave has what I would assume to be the technical knowledge, and mental ability to learn to setup, maintain, and fly his chopper. Dave seems to follow suggestions well, He's here and He's gone to a FF to absorb information.
That said, it's his money, and he chose a 90 size machine. Now we need to guide him to a safe setup, quality gear, and offer a bit of our knowledge to get him off the ground.
Safety concerns, frequent failure parts, and engine/pipe/ electronics suggestions will do more than insisting he buy a 30/50 size bird. (he'd already purchased when I met him, and I suggested it too, but respect his descision.)

Dave, I've met a few people running the OS 70, Revolution Muffler, 680MM blades, and 401 and/or 601 gyros, and have awesome performance. Big-block engines (90's) are really for the more power needy hard 3D flying where the changing in attitude and speed is most important. You will be 1-2 years getting there if you only have flying time on weekends.
Base your choice on how fast you think you can/will learn, but I like others would reccomend going to the lower side of the spectrum to save costs for the present. Spend the money difference on fuel, that IS where you will advance your skills the fastest. ( I burn no less than a gallon each day of flying)