My RC Helicopter Review

Here is the Exceed-RC Falcon 40, touted as a good beginner fixed-pitch heli. At the time that was likely true.  These images are stock photos off of Google and reflect the one that I have.  I am using the stock photos because mine is in pieces.  There is a new version out that uses a better radio which should make this a lot easier to fly but I haven’t flown the v2, just the original.  Some know this better as a honeybee helicopter by E-sky.  In either case I don’t recommend this as your first fixed pitch heli.  It s not super-stable like some of the others that I have flown.  I was very excited when I got this as it was my first non-coaxial heli I ever bought.  The videos made this one look easy to fly so I bought it.   If you don’t have much experience then this…

The Align Trex 250se is a great, stable full collective pitch kit in a smaller scale. It is unassembled and you will likely need some kind of magnifying device as the screws are really small The Trex 250se does come with a set of tools that fit the majority of the screws that the kit has. My kit came with a ball link tool that was akin to a set of tweezers with the link tool on the end. These ball-link pliers are nicer ones and easier to use. Screws do strip on this heli pretty easily so I would get the spare part that is the screw kit. These screws are small! I eagerly opened the box and laid out the bags while reading the rules. It is pretty cool that all of the helicopter fits in such a small box. The instruction manual was an easy read and…

Dual blade coaxial helicopters have always been fun to fly and it also revolutionized the overall design approach in RC helicopters. After the success of MCX RTF, Blade is now offering the latest in their line of RC helicopters which is the Blade MCX2 RTF. If you are looking for a fantastic first helicopter, look no further.  This is it.  I just can’t say enough about how fantastic this indoor heli is.  It comes in both a RTF (Ready to fly) and BNF (Bind & Fly) versions.  The little 4-channel controller that comes with this works very well and has dual rates.  The default is very docile and if you think it flys too slow click the stick and you are in hi-rate mode where it zips around the room quite effectively.  The original mCX was the best beginner heli and now that they have the mCX2 it is just…

I got the E-Sky Belt CP after I had had my Lama for a while and having had the Blade 400 (which wasn’t fully mine) for a while also.  I was feeling cocky after flying my Lama (another e-sky product which was just brilliant) and having logged something like 20 hours on the Blade 400 I thought for the price this just was too good to pass up!.  I had the 72mhz one.  They have a newer V2 version like the one I show here in the picture. When I got this I was pretty green with regard to my flying skills.  I could do some forward flight but still really having some issues with hovering and keeping it in one place. It comes RTF (ready to fly) with just a need of a charge of batteries and you are good to go.  Mine was more smother and a tad…

This is the very popular co-axial Lama V3. I think that, for a time, more people got started in the hobby with the E-sky lama V3 than anything else. When I went to my LHS for the first time and mentioned some of my trials and tribulations with this RC hobby the owner said I should really consider one of these and when I get good at that then move on. He was right. This is a good beginner helicopter. It isn’t as stable as some of the newer ones out now but at the time this was the thing to have. It is still available although its popularity has waned some. This is a 300 – sized helicopter that is a coaxial with no heading-hold gyro. The stability is controlled by the counter-rotating blades. This one uses two 370 motors and stiff hard plastic blades for lift. The tail,…

As an update, the Cypher is unfortunately no longer available. Sad A lot of this comes from a thread on Helifreak.com which you can read here. First thing that took me in is that this bird just looks cool! The canopy is big enough for the battery and everything in the nose and it slips on/off very easily much easier than any other heli I have owned. The instructions are in full color and easy to follow for the assembly process. Weird to me was the fact that you had to remove the main gear and main shaft (which were already assembled in the heli in the box) in order to install the elevator servo. Also the wires weren’t color coded on the motor but believe it or not I got it right on the first try as my blades were going the correct way when the motor was started up! The…

When I went to my LHS looking for something other than my Blade 400 to fly, I was introduced to this “stepping stone” helicopter by Heli-Max.  It was a joy to fly and a nightmare to fix when you crashed.  I also had the idea that I had had a ‘ bad one’ and bought a second one as a ‘backup’.  It was a fun helicopter to fly while I was trying to learn this whole CCPM flying.  It flew really well in the backyard but was a bit ’ballooning’ in the wind ( most likely due to the size and tall profile). The box and the website both stated (as you can see from the official pic from Heli-Max’s website) that it was docile enough for a beginner and yet 3D capable for the expert.  At the time I was definitely a beginner. For sport flying this bird really…