How so? Well, I've conquered my fear of the wind - to the point of actually enjoying the challenge. I've finally got my orientation sussed. I don't crash with dumb thumbs near as much and generally I'm oozing confidence in my, still developing, abilities.

And that's where I usually fail.

Yesterday I was ragging my Master CP in idle up, doing 8s, circuits and stall turns - all at a rate of knots. I was thinking about loops when I looked at my watch to see how much lunch break I had left. Yes: mid flight, I looked at the time. Stupid complacency or over confidence caused a brain fart and my beautiful MCP went hedge cutting. Not much damage this time but I was lucky. It could've been so much worse.

In other news, my continuing interest in the ultra micro class is still strong. The once great CPS is a distant memory now that the XK helis have arrived. Heck even my son traded his FX067C for a K100. Right now I have a K100, K110 (awesome tough bird) and a K120 all ready to rock. If there was a UK or even a EU distributor for XK gear, I'm sure they'd make a killing.

I ordered the new Blade 130S before reading the reviews. I hope it wasn't a hasty decision...

I'm still feeling lucky. Despite the fact that it's winter, I'm getting loads of heli time in. I've been posted all over Scotland to various farms to gps map their fields and fly my helis (at lunchtime, honest )

My newly acquired XK K100 is proving to be a tough little bird, but I wish I'd never read about the brushed motors being short lived because now every time it starts to tail off with the battery running down, I'm paranoid that it's the motor getting tired. It's a great bird but not any kind of patch on the V977 which is still missing. With every day that passes I'm losing more hope of her turning up. Or turning up working at least. We've had rain, snow and frost in the days since she went MIA.

In other news, it's been a week of repairs. The Master cp got a new servo and tail unit.

The 200 srx got new servos, blade grips and other bits. The Super cp got a new servo, skids and canopy. The Super Nano was returned to Nano CPS status but is now refusing to bind. I've lost the will to carry on spending money on this heli now. Benched. 230s got a new main gear but not much flight time. Still awesome though.

I'm still waiting for the Slow Boat to deliver parts and my new XK K110. I also used Bitcoin to buy another K100 but I suspect I'll sell it on unopened to try to recoup cash. Also my 180cfx went to a new home this week as I just can't face rebuilding it every time we come home from yet another crash session!

Happy skies!

It's been a funny old week. I was working away and, as usual, took my bigger helis with me. the Master CP, 200SRX, 230S along with my X-Drone Nano and Super CP and 'Super Nano' (CPS with Super CP rotors and tail boom) were all packed in a bag and whisked 130 miles north to NE Scotland, where I'd been contracted to gps-map various agricultural fields.

I'm really making progress with the Master - I've conditioned myself to not jam the sticks suddenly up and down and make the thing go mental. Instead, I've been taking my time and getting to know the beast. This has paid off as my confidence has grown exponentially with my ability. The once-illusive banked turns and fast 8s are now second-nature, so things are progressing well. The 200SRX and 230S were fantastic as ever, apart from one massive POD from the 200, which I got away with lightly (broken frame).

The real stars were my newly-rebuilt-with-SlowBoat-parts V977 and the aforementioned Super Nano. The 977 is a flighty beast which I'm developing new muscle-memory for with every passing minute and the SN is a beast in the wind. Or was until she started getting dull and lifeless. I can't get to the bottom of it at all. I've changed the main motor 3 times with the same results. I even restored her back to factory built CPS size and she's still dull. This morning she would barely take off. Back Burner now. Then disaster struck on Wednesday night. The V977 got small really quickly when we were outside in the dark carpark out...Continue Reading

You know, it's funny re-reading my first blog posts from a year ago. Here we are in January and that makes it a year of heli forum posting and 14 months from first picking up a transmitter. Ever.

As previously stated, I started with 3 channel, co-axial 'toys', thinking I was the business because I could circle my front room without hitting anything. Now, with a considerably lighter wallet, I'm ragging my Blade 180CFX, 230S and Master CP across the skies, here in South East Scotland. I say 'ragging', I actually mean 'careful circuits and nervous thumb-twitching', but still, it's a bigger leap than I ever thought possible.

There's been a host of flying friends in my life, who've made a brief appearance then exited as quick as they arrived:

DH9053 Volitation - big, horrible co-ax that gets everything you can think of wrong. Too big indoors and pointless outdoors. Pointless, period.
V912 x2 - flybar nastiness, but great orientation tool.
V913 - big, slow bus with blade strikes you can hear in the next town.
V911 x3 - fantastic, invincible little training birds. Everyone should have one in their hangar.
Blade 130X (waaaay too soon for that baby!)
FX071 x2 (one lost and one sold)

Still here:

Blade 230S - super-friendly in stability mode/high rate, yet easily fast enough to keep complacency away.
Blade 200SRX - special mention to this bird as she was my first 'proper' machine and literally every single part has been replaced multiple times.
Master CP - rebuilt...Continue Reading

I'm noticing a pattern emerging here.

I'm so desperate to progress that I'm taking ill informed jumps instead of the sensible baby steps that anyone with half a brain would know to do. And each time, it ends the same - bag of broken plastic. Case in point has already been discussed in previous blog posts by myself, i.e. my assuming that my ten minutes of three channel, indoor flying would see me alright at the field with a V913.

Next came regular repair bills for 4 channel helis slammed into terra firma at a rate of knots, all because I didn't have the sense to try to get to know my machines and their capabilities properly.

More recently, I've jumped straight in with a Blade 200SRX and already, I've replaced five (yes, five!) main gears, two servos and two sets of blade grips. All because of stupidity, recklessness and sausage fingers. And trying to walk before I can run. I blame youtube, personally, but that's another story for another time.

I realise that it could be argued that the Hard Way is the best way to learn, but I'm getting pretty teed off with having to constantly fund my own impatience and ham-fistedness. My heli spares supplier is doing ok out of it, so I suppose I'm doing my bit to keep the industry going!

I'm thinking now, as I wait for alu blade grips and a $20 CNC main gear, that I'm going to swear to take it easy and not go crazy, but I know inside that my sensible head will only last until the first few minutes pass.

Can someone help a brother out and tell me that it gets better?

Don't you just love it when things seem to just fall into place?

I had a good feeling about today. I got up an hour earlier than usual and watched my favourite comedy on tv (King of Queens) before heading to work, armed with my trusty model 2 V911, now with 'paddle' type flybar upgrade and 3 spare batteries.

I was posted to a remote farm to take soil samples and gps-map the fields. Obviously, my first thoughts are on searching for a likely spot for a bit of flying.

I posted in the Did You Fly Today? thread that I flew all 3 batteries in a beautiful, secluded spot, completely without incident. No crashes or hiking to retrieve windswept machines. My landings still require work, but hey-ho.

I did the same again in the afternoon after charging all three batteries on my work's laptop. Just to prove to myself the earlier session wasn't a fluke

I got home tonight with about 15 minutes of daylight left, so I quickly said hi to my wife and jogged down to the football pitch (again) with my V912. This time, I wasn't going to rag my heli. I was just going to take it easy and let her do her thing. I suppose the time spent 'training' with the wee V911s is finally paying off, as we hovered, swooped and glided like veterans. Something just clicked. Something inside me just wanted to shout 'I get it!' At last.

As a small bonus, there was a package waiting for me when I returned home. It was the flybar and main gear, finally, for my V913. I spent the next hour or so,...Continue Reading

To continue from the last blog post - the Learning the Hard Way thing? I wrote the book.

I broke the swash and connecting bits (still not au-fait with the heli terminology yet..) of my new V913 the day after I received it. Replacements came soon after, but I've not been able to let her soar because of the wind, rain and getting home from work in the dark. Until today, that is.

I pulled up outside my house, ran inside, gave the missus a swift peck and ran outside with my lovely bird. I should say at this point that I've been flying my two V911s in the house and actually become quite proficient at buzzing pets, annoying spouses and generally not smacking furniture as hard any more. Those little birds are brilliant. Flying the V913 must be just like that, but on a bigger scale, right?

So, armed with juvenile excitement, I jogged the five hundred yards to the football pitches and launched the heli skywards. Straight up, then straight down on her nose. I ran to inspect the damage and there appeared to be none. Bolstered by this, I gave her full throttle again, but this time she rose up with her nose pointing down and started circling and spinning on the spot. A gust of wind from nowhere swept the heli 30 odd feet away from me and I cut the throttle. She came down heavily again, this time snapping the flybar in two.

If I'd had a tail, it woud've been wedged firmly between my legs as I trudged wearily back to the house.

I was cleaning the mud from the canopy later...Continue Reading

My story is this.

At xmas 2015, my stepson received a model heli of the three channel, coaxial persuasion from our local Aldi store. No one in our house had any prior knowledge of flying at all, but pretty soon, we were all bashing the poor wee thing off any furniture or wall within a 2 meter radius.

It was great fun while it lasted, but it didn't last long. I liked it so much though, that I bought two Syma scale coaxial helis from another local store and it's went nuts from there. Ironically, my kids are not much interested in flying now (it is six weeks since xmas after all!), but I've well and truly gotten the bug.

However, rather than jump straight in with hoovering up every small, medium and large three channel I could find, I should have done some research first. That way, my Syma fleet (six in total) would be in the hands of someone not bored with their very existence. Same goes for my now-grounded DH 9053 with failed tail motor.

No, if I'd been a bit more patient, I'd have seen that four channel and beyond, plus sim, is a far better way to go.

Maybe I wouldn't have jumped right in with CP stuff, but I'd at least have had something that had FFF from the word go. Now after spending far more than I'd like to admit, I have a decent fleet which includes 2 V911s, a V913 and a V912 en-route to my house (if that mailman ever gets here).

The second thing I did wrong was thinking my three channel skills were instantly transferrable to the V913 the day it arrived. On...Continue Reading