Andrew Cummings 2

A beginners journey to successfully flying a Blade 450 3D. Hi, I thought I'd share my route to learning how to fly a heli. Obviously I'm still learning but I'm now confident enough to fly my Blade 450 in figure of eights around the park. More importantly without any crashes so far. I'm a moderate plane flyer but out of practice as I took a break for a couple of years. My interest in Helicopters was ignited when a friend showed me his contra rotating indoor heli. I popped back to RC Groups and had a look at the recommendations of what to buy. So I bought a MSRX which is a micro Fixed Pitch heli. I was blown away by how it flew. Compared to my friends heli it was in a different world. If you have a the room 3 metres by 3 metres this is a great learning tool. I spent mornings learning to hover in all orientations. This took about a week of 30 to 40 mins a day. It did get a bit frustrating, at first, the way it just shot of left at take off. Slowly I was getting off the sofa less to reposition the MSRX after hitting something. I was going to buy another MSRX and then discovered the NANO which is a Collective Pitch heli. I also purchased a DX6i radio. With this radio the NANO can be tamed down to fly very docile. But it was a learning experience again, It was back to square one hovering in all orientations. I recommend the Nano so highly to the beginner as it is virtually indestructible if you're not completely stupid. The Nano taught me about Throttle Hold and Idle Up. To help my progression of flying a 450 sized heli I purchased Pheonix flight sim. This is a great tool, I know there are others sims out there which are probably as good. I like this one as you use the radio you fly with which helps with familiarisation. I bought a Blade 450 when I saw them for £136. Practised hovering on a tennis court for 4 batteries and then took it out onto the playing field. I still get nervous as hell but I have progressed to flying circuits, seeing it fly out away from you can be a little scary but with the experience of the sims and nano I have the confidence to bring it back and land fine. I love all of my helicopters but you could probably miss out the MSRX and get a Nano with DX6i radio and tone it down. The great thing about these helis is the amount of stick time you can get. And that helps. I highly recommend this website for info. It's very informative without all of the differing opinions that can sometimes bog you down. **LINK**