Helicopter

[imoldernu]

No... not a big person's real helicopter, like the ones you ride in... but a remote control helicopter.

In the "olden days", circa late 1940s, early 50's, it was balsa wood stickbuilt aeroplanes, Baby R.O.G.'s, gliders etc... and then U-Control gas models. No remote control, but "free-flight" planes that would end up wherever, when the McCoy .029 engine ran out of gas. Neighbor's roof, pond, tree and if you were lucky, back on the ground. Three flights would be lucky!

So now it's time to go back to my youth, and do the model airplane thing again.
We have an R/C club in the next town, but the field is about 7 miles away, and the guys only meet once a week. We do have a large park, almost next door, with four large soccer fields. A few people fly electric "Park Flyers":
Slow Flyers / Park Flyers: Small, Lightweight RC Planes from Hobby Express.... but what I'd like to try is helicopters... the kind that is now in every toy catalog, and are often demonstrated in the Mall kiosk areas.

Sooo... looking for anyone here who has experience with helicopters... either yourself, or your kids or grand kids. Flying inside the house appeals to me, as we have a 13 foot vaulted ceiling... DW has threatened me with divorce or worse, but I believe flight insurance is available, so that would cover the heirloom crystal and the Hummels.

Not looking for a drone... just a little electric model that I can fly from room to room, or on the windless days, to the park.

Any thoughts?

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

 

[davemartin88]

I have a couple of these and have given them to friends who found them pretty easy to learn to fly.

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B009SEOV40/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Really need a windless day to fly outside but it's remarkably stable and has a good battery run time. Replacement parts and extra batteries are cheap as well. I think I first found these through a recommendation from Walt34 on this site but may not have that right?

My first RC experience years ago was with glo powered helicopters and they were HARD to learn to fly and control- these are light enough they don't cause a lot of damage either!

Good luck, you'll probably see some other recommendations as well.

 

[ls99]

I have several small electric ones, they are good for five to ten minutes of flight indoors or out. I have eight or ten batteries, for quick changeout thus can play for a half hour or so. It is a bit challenging outdoors, as they weeny on power, wind gust can knock them, can be tricky to regain control... Lots of fun.
Started with el-cheapo twin rotor- easy to learn, then moved onto variable pitch main rotor type. They require a lot more skill and hand eye coordination, and need to learn the difference in controling wile hely is flying away or towards you. Find videos on youtube for explanation techniques. Did I say they are more fun than a barrel of monkeys?

Buy several tail rotors, they are easily damaged, easy to replace.
Walt34 also had one, there is a photo of him in this ER forum.

Yes, never leave the playground.

 

[calmloki]

Costco has a $20 RC helicopter surrounded by a cage, which has to help protect the rotor, which I've instantly ruined on the few RC copters I played with.

 

[imoldernu]

Costco has a $20 RC helicopter surrounded by a cage, which has to help protect the rotor, which I've instantly ruined on the few RC copters I played with.

Yeah... but somehow it puts a limit on the imagination associated with flying.

 

[Walt34]

The first one I had was this and didn't care for it much - not enough control although it did fly. The second one was the same as davemartin88's and I liked that one much better. It had adequate control but not spectacular. For a beginner though it was fine since at that stage you don't want one that is too sensitive on the sticks.

A disappointment was that neither lasted more than a couple of months. Something went wrong with the electronics. On the first the battery (which was charged from the transmitter) went bad and would go dead in a minute or so. On the second one something went awry with the electronic gyro and it became very erratic in flight because of some oscillation going on with it. Out of curiosity I took it apart but didn't see anything obvious and since it was only $35 I wasn't going to put a lot of effort into it. The entire circuit board was smaller than a postage stamp.