Helicopter PHOTO Gallery and Discussion: Post Yours

An RTF? You must have picked up one from someone who built it already? The TT is a bit less forgiving on a tail rotor strike, but does seem to perform better when flying. Have you flown helicopters before? If not then I suggest training gear on the skids for starting out.

Hey GC congratulations, welcome to the club ....

A couple of things I want you to know as I don't know how accomplished the builder was. Regardless even though he probably is experience for your own safety, piece-of-mind and confidence in your helicopter it would be a good idea to check ALL the screws (and nut'n bolts) going into metal for Loctite and if there's none your going to have to re-build her with Loctite. Blue Loctite is the preferred except where the Blade Grip fasteners, motor mount and motors pinions (for that matter Pinions in general) are concerned and there you should be using RED Loctite. Even if this were a manufactures build (Almost RTF) it's STILL a good idea to check for Loctite. The RED Loctite is extremely important for the Blade Grip fasteners I kid you not!

Looks like some Google'ing on CCPM Rc Helicopter Setup would be a good place to start ...

Also I wouldn't buy the Blade because outside of "orientation" not much of what you will learn is transferable to a true Collective Pitch Helicopter (CCPM) ... Believe me it's not needed, all you need are Training Gear which is much cheaper and will give you MORE bang for your buck than the Blade ever could ... FYI:

And what Pelagic Pilot says about the Torque Tube (TT) tail is true so try not to hit teh tail during take-off. Fate being what it is, fate would certainly have you buying spare tail drive gears for yourself, front and rear Keeping the Tail Blades relatively loose in the grips can help but shouldn't be relied upon if the blades do happen to hit

Any questions (or rants) I can help with as we can't meet obviously {LOL} I'll be glad help. Again Congratulations ...

    [glow=maroon,2,300]w00d[/glow]

PS: By the way that's a fantastic idea as getting help in the person from someone with experience is the smartest thing you or anyone can do



EDIT - Oct 31/2011: Cleaned the post up slightly for the Lurkers and made a wee bit more polite for all 

{HaHa} same Radio, my Tx is also the DX6i .... Good radio cheap and functional, and I got mine FREE so ya can't beat that ... nuff said ... One thing I did though was to install a BLUE LED (see top of Tx) wired to turn on with the transmitter. {LOL} Well I kept forgetting to turn the silly thing off thus killing the batts. So naturally I didn't have a Tx at the moment I needed/wanted it. Was caught enough times and since I installed my little blue reminder I've never forgot since. Meh, just a stupid funny story 

   

{LMAO} I feel like baking a cake, w00t ummmm CAKE

Everything Wood said is right on, I would not worry about learning on a small heli either, the 450 will seem intimidating at first but after a few flights any small helicopter you own will end up on a shelf or in the trash after they get broke, they become pointless to own quickly after going CCPM. Opinions will vary greatly, but every radio I have looked at, people run a linear throttle and pitch curve. I will argue that using the curves as intended and setting it up to fly like a "helicopter" (since it is a helicopter) will afford you greater stability and bail-out when learning and even more so for advanced flying. Stay away from F mode switch, it will do you no good for at least the next few months. Also this won't do you any good right now, but check the power setting on your radio in the menu, the US247 setting is the highest transmit power available, EU and France is very weak. I didn't know about that and began flying FPV with the default EU (lowest setting), I got lucky and found out about it before I was flying far away.

Not sure if I can make it to Redwood this Sunday, but possibly the next or we could meet up sometime, I am interested in seeing your Drone FPV setup.

Here is the HK600GT I am building:

Hey GC after you get her spooled up and have a few flights under your belt here is the next step. 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUwBgAwUl6M&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

Yes, and your in good company.  ;D

I tend to agree with learning to fly with the 450 and some training gear. Just go in baby steps to start and remember, this is not going to happen over night and the more batteries you go through the better.
Here's a link I found some time ago. It has some pretty cool reading. This link is just the actual learning to fly section but you can find information on set up and all kinds of good stuff throughout the site.
Radd's School of Rotary Flight. 
http://www.dream-models.com/eco/pre-Flight.html

A simulator isn't a bad thing either. Crashes aren't as expensive. 

LOL !!!  ;D  Too funny!

[quote author=GPBill link=topic=284.msg2048#msg2048 date=1319942683]
Yes, and your in good company.  ;D
[/quote]

Well if being in good company means being surrounded by folks who have the same addiction and there is no signs whatsoever of any of them kicking the addiction, then yeah, you're in good company.

 
And I was giving you all this "take it slow and easy advice". 

Glad you had a good day. It would have been fun to watch.

Felt GREAT didn't it ...  8) ... and yeah watch out for that "Heli CRACK" it gets us ALL

I'm enjoying mine, at least when the weather not so nice and you have the itch to fly something, you can buzz around the house. Calm days in the back yard, with more room, are a blast too.
I had ran mine into so many things the canopy was looking a bit ragged so now it has the red one.
Wish I had found this site a little sooner, I would have got something from here. Check out the link, could help with the addiction.   
http://www.micro-flight.com/BLADE-MSR.htm