Hi Everyone,

I love to step out the front door of my house and fly my electric airplanes (Pico, IFO, Soarstar...etc.) Now, I think I'm ready to buy and try my luck with an Electric Heli.

My question to you guys and girls... which one would be right for me.

Here is what I would expect in a heli.
1) To be able to fly it in some wind like the Soarstar airplane.
2) I would like to Hover, Fly Inverted, Do Loops and Rolls, you name it. Yes I'm a HOTDOG flyer or at least a want to be.
3) My point is I want to get a Heli I can grow into. I remember I bought items in the past that didn’t have all the features that I come to like. Like someone on the e-zone says buy cheap buy twice…or something like that. I want to get a GREAT machine the first time. I think I like the size of the Concept30. Now that I think of it I don’t want to fly in my house at this time. So the Piccolo would probably be to small. Seems like I also don't want a Fixed Pitch blades.

So please tell me where this leaves me. Oh you should know I have an older JR-X388s radio that I will be using for my new heli.

Thanks so much for your help, comments, suggestions.
-gerald
www.officeshops.com
Besides if I get into this Helicopter stuff I may start stocking things and hopefully save us all a little money.

Well it really depends on how much money and patience you have. One of your requirements is to fly inverted. But you also say that you haven't flown heli's before. I don't think there is a heli on the market that would be good for both training and flying inverted/3D. Sure you COULD start out with something like a Logo 20, but the repair costs would absolutly kill you, you'd probably give up before learing to fly it. It's like starting out a new airplane flyer with a 1/3 scale extra 300, not very smart. To be honest I think the most economical solution would be for you to buy 2 helis, 1 for training purposes, and then move up to a 3D capable model. Don't fall into the trap of thinking, "I'll just hover close to the ground while I'm learing, I won't crash". The fact is when learing helis, you WILL crash, better for that crash to cost time and CA with a good trainer heli than $200.00 on something like a Logo20. My recommendation is to get something like a LMH120 Corona (I've never flown one but the little brother LMH110 is/was very durable), or a less durable but better flyer is the JR Voyager. After you've spent a few months learning these, then you can move up to a "hotdogging" type heli.

Wouldn't the Voyager be a good candidate? I don't own one so I can't speak from experience, but it sounds like a good, durable first-time heli that can do some nice aerobatics with the proper setup.

I have a JR 388. You will probably need to add CCPM if you are interested in "hot-dogging" it, but this is easier than you think - I sent mine into Horizon and they added the programming at no extra charge. Turn-around time was less than one week.

Woops….I just checked out that Logo20 http://www.rc-direct.com/mikado_first.htm
on the web and your right. I don’t think I wanted to spend that much on a Heli for starters. I understand your analogy perfectly when you talked about an Extra300 for a beginner. Looks like the Logo20 is out for me.

I’ll look into those others. The saga continues.

-gerald

I hover my Voyager in front of my house once a while, on top of a two car sized driveway. To hotdog it would require a bit larger area because of the trees and safety concerns. But it stable enough to fly in any condition that a 30 size heli can handle.

I also fly Hornet in front of my house, but it's a bit sensitive to wind gusts. So eventhough it's smaller than Voyager, I still feel more comfortable flying Voyager in front of my house.