I am new to the heli side of the sport. I have extensive experience with fixed wing and racing cars. However; as i power up and begin lift off with my Blade 450 3d, it continues to try to nose over to the right before i can gain enough altitude to hover. Do I just need to man up and gain altitude quicker or can I trim out of this issue? Thanks for any input.

You have no prior experience with heli's? If so, you are going to have a very hard time learning to fly starting off with a collective pitch heli. They completely lack the self stabilization of a coaxial or a fixed pitch heli. You will have better luck standing on a bowling ball to get around than flying a collective pitch successfully on the first few flights. It can be done, that's how I learned to fly a heli, but you will crash a lot and the fun is removed from the whole experience.

As long as you verified that all the functions of the heli work correctly, you should be able to get to a hover. A collective pitch requires continuous input on the sticks just to hover. There is no letting go or relaxing the sticks, because there's all kinds of forces and counter forces acting on the heli at all times. It will not simply lift up off the ground in a straight line and hover in place without effort.

My first Blade 450 3D flight lasted about 15 seconds and I cashed into a tree. The best advice would be to park the Blade 450 3D and buy an MCPX to learn on. The MCPX does everything that a Blade 450 3D does, but it is cheaper to fix and takes a whole ton of abuse before the parts finally break. The Blade 450 3D does not take abuse very well.

With that being said, you will need to make sure the swash plate is level on the Blade 450 3D. If it is just off by a hair, you could use trim to compensate for the drift. If it is way off, the actual setup involves a whole dance that starts with making sure the servo arm is at 90 degrees at as close to zero subtrim as possible, which may necessitate removing the servo arm and placing it back on the servo at the best position. Then one uses subtrim to make the arm exactly 90 degrees. Then one adjusts the linkages to make the swash plate visually level. Then you can use trim or subtrim to fine tune as needed to compensate for drift.

Well, if everything is properly set up. I recommend finding someplace with trimmed grass next to VERY long grass. shoot it up about three feet going towards the grass. Shouldn't go wrong

Thanks for all three points of view. I expected the crasshing parts. That's how we always did the fixed wings as well. @phoenix, learning and crashing is half the experience and fun. I purchased a lot of spare parts just for that reason. Nothing worse than 15 seconds of terror and then you can't practice the rest of the day.

I may grab one of the smaller models to gain more airtime, but then I still have to go back to learning how to give all the input on the sticks when I go back to the 450. Thanks again for the input.

Originally Posted by diveh2omike

Thanks for all three points of view. I expected the crasshing parts. That's how we always did the fixed wings as well. @phoenix, learning and crashing is half the experience and fun. I purchased a lot of spare parts just for that reason. Nothing worse than 15 seconds of terror and then you can't practice the rest of the day.

I may grab one of the smaller models to gain more airtime, but then I still have to go back to learning how to give all the input on the sticks when I go back to the 450. Thanks again for the input.

if you are going to grab smaller model, I suggest you get mcpx. mcpx is very durable cp heli and save you money in reparing. you may crash it but most of time you just pick it up and put it back in the air. Also, you can use the tx from blade 450 3d too.

Originally Posted by phoenixheli

They completely lack the self stabilization of a coaxial or a fixed pitch heli.

-As a side note: all fixed-pitch helis are not self-stabilized...

You might want to try setting it up "not 3D" until you get the hang of it. Set it up so that the throttle stick is at zero throttle when all the way down, instead of in the middle. Once you get used to flying it that way, you can change back to a 3D setup. Also try using throttle and pitch curves, and some expo, if it feels too twitchy for you. The Blade 450 thread has lots of suggestions for TX settings.

There is also a lot of good information for beginner CP heli flying in Capt. Jack's "3D is not for everyone" thread adjacent to this one.

All RC helicopters, ecen coaxials need constant input from the sticks to maintain a hover, the coaxials, not nearly as much as FP or CCP, but they need it all the same.

Because of how a model heli balances, it will want to lean to the right in a stable hover. It's because of the forces interacting.

A heli also needs to be at least a foot off the ground until its really out of ground effect.

As mentioned above, you might want to tone down the controls (dual rates and maybe some expo) to make it easier to handle. A 450x really isn't an ideal beginner heli at all. If you don't have it already, get some training gear for it as well. That'll save you lots in crash damage while you're learning to take off and land.