How far can a Belt CP V2 take me?

[Rattler888]

Hiyas,
Hopefully not too contentious a topic..

Like most people I've seen the pro 3d youtube vids and thought 'cool I wanna do that' . I've learnt basic inverted hovering, flips & rolls on the mcp-x, and I am hoping to go a bit further with my Belt CP (only upgrade is HKSCM9 servos & dx6i). I was expecting to be able to push it pretty hard and start trying to learn rainbows, tic tocs, piro-flips, ie. moves that require a very fast change of direction and orientation.

Am I expecting too much? Just how 'hard' can the stock Belt go?

Also are there (cheap) upgrades that will make it more capable?

Cheers

[sutty]

I think if you can get it to take you to all orientation hovering, FFF, circuits in general, and the equivalent for inverted, then that is about the limit, and you will have done well with it. Despite the videos, in my opinion, it is 'almost' impossible to get them to perform like that.

I made a video, just recently, of my Belt-CP doing some fairly basic 3D, however, I do not believe this would have been possible had it not been extensively modified.

Sure, the Belt may be able to do 3D, with difficulty, for the first 5 flights but the strain will soon cause failure after failure in flight critical components. Most are on a heli aren't they, so you would probably end up picking up the pieces.

If you get to the stage listed in the first paragraph, or are already there, I would seriously consider getting a Trex, or a clone. From my own experience, the things that made for massive leaps and bounds in my progress, and roughly in this order were as follows:

Belt-CP (First heli), cTx (Huge improvement), clone metal trex head upgrade (good improvement, but due to skill, still limited), clone heli (More improvement still, but again limited due to slow learning curve and fear), trex 450 (Moderate improvement), trex 250 (Massive improvement. One of the single biggest reasons as to why my flying improved was due to the lack of fear of flying and the relatively cheap cost of repair for this heli. Fly it over very long grass and it will very often not even break.), fbl (A whole new level of flying experience, once again a massive leap forward.)

Now just waiting for GPS virtual hard deck, at a reasonable price, to help me go that next step.

Course this is just my experience. See what the other guys say.

Cheers

Sutty

[dayshaddow]

i can only comment on a slightly modded v1 belt and she will take you to the clouds if your brave enough..that is


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j_6HxsjHj4[/ame]

oh and you can blame luke for this video..LUKE its all your fault

EDIT running stock head and fm rx and tx

[dayshaddow]

still flying the same canopy from a great member from here on my clone 450 with far more guts than the poor belt

[jperkosk]

The stock Belt can take you about 40m from where you're standing if you flying very gently, can see the canopy very well and there is no wind at all.

Anything beyond that is creating false expectations.

[sutty]

It is a nice video Antony, and it shows clearly that it is quite an agile bird for normal flight, but his question was about can it take him to 3D. In my opinion it will not. He is already as far as he could go on a Belt with his mCPX.

Cheers

Sutty

[dayshaddow]

ar yess 3d,i can conferm it can loop and flip.would i recomend it.my pants shorly wont

[Rattler888]

Thanks everyone for your opinions

Originally Posted by sutty

Belt-CP (First heli), cTx (Huge improvement), clone metal trex head upgrade (good improvement, but due to skill, still limited), clone heli (More improvement still, but again limited due to slow learning curve and fear), trex 450 (Moderate improvement), trex 250 (Massive improvement. One of the single biggest reasons as to why my flying improved was due to the lack of fear of flying and the relatively cheap cost of repair for this heli. Fly it over very long grass and it will very often not even break.), fbl (A whole new level of flying experience, once again a massive leap forward.)

Now just waiting for GPS virtual hard deck, at a reasonable price, to help me go that next step.

So the t-rex 250 was better than most at handling crashes? Interesting.. I had assumed most every chopper larger than the mcp-x would require a trip to the LHS after every crash, like my Belt has so far. Would your 250 stand up to, say, tipping over on take off at full throttle, or an inverted landing with throttle hold?

* What is a cTx?

* What is a GPS virtual hard deck?? Sounds hot..

Cheers

[sutty]

Okay, so you are more or less right. As you go up in size they soon get to a point where virtually any crash will result in damage. A tip over at full throttle with the 250, well that is a tough one. Sometimes, you get away with it, sometimes not. I have had multiple crashes with the 250 in the same 4 or 5 pack flying session, and simply picked it up, straightened the blades out, and gone flying again. A little irresponsibly my main way of finding out if my 250 is damaged, after a crash, is to go fly it again. After a first glance that is.

The main way to survive a crash is to be really fast with throttle hold and give up sooner than you otherwise might. If you are over long grass the worst you will get is some grass wrapped around the tail or main shafts. Commonly, if you are not quite fast enough, the worst you get then is a sheared fethering shaft. They are so thin they usually go before the blades get taken out. This often results in you needing, one or more dampeners, and a couple of thin washers that come with the feathring shafts. Sadly you only get two washers per two feathering shafts, and often you will lose both washers, so you end up running short. And yes, over long grass, there is a really good chance that it would stand up to an inverted landing/crash.

So, even if you do crash it, and even if you have a really bad one, it can still happen of course, then the good thing is that things are cheaper. On the down side, it is a bugger to work on something so small, and the screws are tiny. You have to avoid over torquing them or they will strip, and they sometimes get stuck, so you need good tools to help stop the heads stripping out on removal. There are a few upgrades that really help with the resilience, but of course these cost more money. There are three that spring to mind immediately, which when you need to replace them you could consider the metal versions. The AR bracket, the battery tray, and the frame bottom plate. Once those are done it is one tough bird. As a further draw back, it is a little more tricky to fly than a 450 class, as it is a little less stable, but I have gone FBL on mine, and it brings it up to the stability of at least a 450 anyway.

cTx is just short for a computerised transmitter, such as a DX6 or a DX7. I think I remember you said you have one, I just put it in the list as all of those things were important milestones on my learning curve.

As for virtual hard deck, I'm not sure if that is the real term, but people seem to know what I mean when I mention it. I know you are just starting out, so I apologise for not having explained more to begin with. Basically, in conjunction with a GPS system, which can know the location of your helicopter, and a computer controlled recovery system, you can set an imaginary floor level at say 30 feet. When you lose control of the heli, and it goes below that height, the GPS system alerts the flight recovery system and it will jump straight to a level hover at a specified height. When they become readily available it really will be like practising in the SIM as it should be almost impossible to crash, unless you have a mechanical failure of course.

These systems, which are now becoming available, also have a feature known as return to home, or return to base, which you might see described as RTH or RTB, and would be able to keep your heli inside a virtual cube, say 30 feet up, and on going beyond those boundaries it would return the heli to an upright tail in hover, say 15 feet out and 15 feet up, depending on how you had it set up. These things and more are coming.

On the 600 I'm currently testing the CPII co-pilot system from FMA in recovery mode only, together with the MicroBeast FBL system, and now, at the flick of a switch the heli recovers to an upright orientation, and keeps it there, super stable, as long as it is sunny. The speed it gets there needs to be seen to be believed. Right now it lacks any knowledge of height, so you have to be quick with hitting the switch, and then subsequently in getting your collective adjusted correctly, but when the additonal GPS module is released I believe this will be able to take care of this too. The future addition of this GPS module was the entire reason I decided to fit and test the CPII on the 600, so now I am just waiting.

Cheers

Sutty

[Rattler888]

Wow, great info, thanks Sutty. 250s are certainly starting to sound tempting, and at least I know what to expect from my Belt now.. Did someone say this was an expensive hobby?

[sutty]

lol, mmh, perhaps we forgot to mention that.

I daren't think how much I have spent since starting out with my dear ol' Belt some 4.5 years back. I know it is an awful lot, but it has been worth it so far.

If you enjoy the hobby, and decide to try other helis, then you are in for a long and quite expensive ride. I'm afraid it is almost inevitable.

Cheers

sutty

[jperkosk]

Originally Posted by Rattler888

Did someone say this was an expensive hobby?

My wife might've mentioned something to this effect, never really understood what she meant

I'm a firm believer in concentrating on loving my wife rather than trying to understand her, and I think it works out just fine