Oh, and just yesterday, I bought from Jaycar a fixed pitch bird called the "Mercenary" for $89. It is a step up from my Align T-Rex 100X's and Wiltoys V911 birds.
The Mercenary claims to be flyable outdoors. This is just not possible with the 100X or 911 birds...
I will advise of progress, or otherwise, in due course...
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Maverick Model Yachting - The Only Way To Go! Secret Alias - Don Leitis
Nowhere to sail a boat, no access to water, so you go to cars.
But unless competing with someone else on a track, they very very quickly become boring. Sure some can go really fast. But you do that in a straight line. Then what? Nothing much, I am afraid.
But then helicopters catch your eye.
And they take many forms.
From my own personal experience, (and this is most definitely NOT, the way I started), a definite start is one of the cheap co-axial (2 sets of blades on top of the bird), infra red helicopter, that I will refer to as a bird. Helicopter uses much much typing. :O
The infra red birds are great to get started, 'cos they are quite slow, and give you lots of time to think about situations as they arise, regarding direction, height, speed, etc, something that stil applies to more advanced machines, but as the more advanced to get, the less time you have, to think about speed, direction, height, etc.
So, the next step after an infra-red bird, depending on how good you are at controlling the thing, is either a single blade with flybar bird of a similar size to your infra-red, or a bigger co-axial bird. These are all what is called 'fixed pitch' heli's and are not capable of inverted, or other 3D flying.
Once you have mastered co-axials, and single blade, fixed pitch helicopters, the next step is to try 'collective pitch' birds.
This is the first step into mind blowing maneouvres and if you weren't already hooked, you now would be.
But, but, but, I say this from my own personal point of view.
At this stage on my proficiency, and indeed pleasure, I really do not have a serious interest in 3D stuff. But I am definitely interested in, being able firstly, to fly competently, without hitting anything, with a fixed pitch bird, and then to take advantage, without going to 3D, of mastering simple, basic manouvres with collective pitch birds.
I started off with a collective pitch bird as my very first introduction to RC helicopters.
Foe me, that was a veeeeery veeeeery veeeeery bad decision... And it was only going back to the stages I mentioned earlier in this post, that the pleasure and excitement of flying RC helicopters has come back to me.
So now, I am really fired up to complete my Blade 400 rebuild, and the assembly of my T-Rex 450, T-Rex 500 and Gaui Hurricane 550 Collective Pitch birds...
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Maverick Model Yachting - The Only Way To Go! Secret Alias - Don Leitis
