As a heli flyer I appreciate someone in the drone community trying to get more people familiar with the hobby!!! I would recommend probably looking more into the basics of heli flying and maybe trying out a simulator first. some of these machines, including that 300, can severely hurt yourself or someone else if not careful. Good luck!
100% this. I love my helis but the learning curve is steep. The simulator is your best friend when learning. The bigger ones like the 330 can really hurt you. Also, learn to love fixing them because you will be doing that a lot.
I concur. I never began with a quadrotor, only small co-axial rotor helis, then fixed pitch then CP and Nitro CP. Due to the cost and power of large electric helis I'm happy with 450 size electric - my Raptor 30 fulfils the need for a larger RC helicopter for me. Just need to find somewhere private to fly it here in the UK because I don't agree with all that CAA registration malarkey. We're not all terrorists who need to fly them straight into the compressor of a passing 777, nor do we want Amazoogle to have sole rights to sub 400 AGL airspace...
@@TachyonDriver Yep I started in 1978 pre gyro's and ended up with Align 700s and I love Steves drone videos but to be honest I was cringing a bit with him flying helicopters sooo close as even the very small ones can do a lot of damage, it might give people a false sense of safety flying them that close especially the 330 he was flying. These videos that Steve does are great ut remember the safety aspect.
I second/third/fourth/whatever the simulator first thing also. The beginning of the video makes true helicopters sound like a single rotor quadrotor as far as skill required and it's just not true. With a gyro stabilized drone, you can literally turn your back on the machine for significant periods of time and it'll still be roughly in the same place as when you looked away for the most part. Even a minor mistrim of the main rotor in a heli during the hover, you look away and you just created a dirt torpedo. Helicopters are NOT trivial to fly and it's a near truism that people buy helicopters thinking "pffft, I have 20 years of fixed wing under my belt, I'll be fine" and end up coming back the next morning for a crash kit. Lol! I did the same thing. I still vividly remember thinking to myself "why does this thing seem so uncontrollable?". All it was, was my brain didn't understand the mechanics of the hover yet. A good sim is worth the price of a few crash kits and it allows you to learn the hover (And every non crash flight starts with a hover and ends with a hover... Unless you're doing max pitch explosive launches anyway. :P) with no risk at all. Once I realized how helpful they were, I started using mine even once I was a fairly decent pilot just because you can use it to perfect stuff and try new stuff without any real consequence. CRASH! Hit the spacebar and tada! New $5000 high end 3D heli! :)
I was told 25 or so years ago, to learn to fly a rc helicopter, it is a lifetime achievement! (He was right!). Only after I learned, I truly appreciate & admire ALL 3d heli pilots! 👋👋👋
@@jfivecoat This is absolutely true. A plane and a drone both want to fly and will do it without any input. A heli is afraid of heights and fights to get back to the ground the whole flight ;)
"Flying a helicopter" is a broad term. You flew in Safe mode which on a drone is Stabilized or Level horizon mode. Typically helicopter pilots fly what's Acro or race or unstabilized mode. Stabilized is good to get a feeling and learn orientations in yaw, maybe it's what you like to stay in. Acro is what allows you to do steep continuous turns, flips and what not but if you let go of the stick there's no guarantee it will be level so if you lose orientation you're crashing very quickly. All that considered I would call learning to fly a helicopter flying in Acro and I'd practise in a simulator such that you don't break hardware until your brain adapts. Cheers.
After 5 years flying drones, I tried to fly an helicopter a few months ago. Let me tell you, I have a lot of respect for helicopters and model plane pilots. When I am flying drones, I can relax. As a matter of fact, I started flying drones as therapy to deal with my PTS and anxiety. I can’t fly helicopters, I get really anxious 😂😂😂
I recently got into RC planes, and i got a carbon cub S2. Its a very nice beginner friendly plane, and after some practice and 5-6 fllights i got more confident and i find it very relaxing now. Note: It also has stabilisation modes, making it easier to fly especially in wind.
With hundreds of hours in real helicopters....It took me a long time to learn to fly the RC version. Its not easy by any means. But ..once you do, its a blast .
I wondered about similarities...I've flown RC helis for years, scale type flight, and considered taking lessons on the real thing. probably zero head start I'd guess.
@@TheBikersurgeon other than the expanse, it's the best flying ever I would suggest you get your fixed-wing license first and then get an helicopter add-on rating
@@914va man...if I had the money an ultralight would be heaven honestly. I love fpv cuz it gets me in the air, free, but to actually be up there must be so much better.
In real helicopter, front is always the nose and back is always the tail. But on rc, it changes. Also I kinda wonder how would it be to fly 3D on real helicopter, It would be really disorienting and fun as long as G forces are comfortable I guess
With flybarless choppers it’s either the flybarless unit that you can adjust or possibly set the expo for a bit more mellow on the control inputs to outputs.
I was taught to take-off and land in normal mode. This way, in normal mode on the ground, you can let the main rotor build up speed more slowly. It won't wobble as much and the tail won't wag as much. Once the head speed stabilizes, lift off to clear ground effect. Climb to a hover at 5-6 feet. Your collective (also controls throttle (head speed)) left stick will be in the middle or slightly above. When you're in a stable hover, move to stunt 1 or 2. The transitions will be much smoother and it should feel more controlled. Transition back to normal mode a few feet above your landing site. Then you can slowly lower the left stick. It won't slam down like it does in stunt modes. Just MHO. :-)
I would never startmy heli idle up. This guys just learnin still lol. But he explained it perfect. Left out the fact that u domt start flying the heli in CP for most people
It's actually piloting, not having a computer do all the work. Another reason why actual hobbyists kinda clown on "drone pilots" fpv guys even clown on them. If you have to use stabilization or gps, your not really the "pilot".
Yeah, flying a racing quad line of site, acro, which is what he is referring to, is very similar to an rc helicopter. The only difference for me is on RC helicopters the yaw is more willing to turn the craft, whereas the quad is quick in pitch and roll. I switch between the two very easily. No one cares about Mavic “pilots”
@@10fantic I begged a differ! The whole point of any hobby is to have fun! Many people chuck the helicopter hobby because without stabilization, These things crash and cost shit loads of money to fix. And yes, they break far easier than quadcopters. Stabilization has made the hobby more accessible to many new pilots. Did you know that many if not all jet liners use stabilization. Its call auto pilot!
@@johnnytrongaming Buddy, it's almost impossible to master. Unless you want to focus exclusively on RC Helicopters (the ones with no GPS), it's no fun honestly for a hobbyist.
Nice job Steve, I have been flying helis for seven years and the key to not crashing as much is learning to maintain your orientation as you said. Flying a heli especially a 3D one is not like flying a quad. It is best to learn on a simulator first. I would recommend the FW Flywing 450 heli, it has GPS.
Forst Heli for lots of crashing I recommend the XK K110, then go up to the Omphobby M1 once you are more confident. 450 class is great and the Fly wing with GPS really good.
On the 3rd Larger Heli, it was flying in what's called Acro mode on your quads. For every action you'll need an equal and opposite reaction because it's not going to self level ever. If you pitch forward 20 degrees and release the stick it'll continue forward at 20 degrees until it crashes or the battery dies, whichever comes first. If you can fly your quad in acro mode line of sight you can handle this mode
I've converted from collective pitch helos to drones and haven't flown CP in a couple years. But one word of advice is to practice on computer sims as much as possible. Bigger helos are easier to fly but are a lot more expensive to fix.
Before all the 3axis gyro stuff when I was learning, when all you had was head hold gyro in the trail, I found the bigger the heli the more stable it was. 450 is a good size to learn on real flight skills (after flying simulator), big enough to be stable and visible, but not ridiculously expensive to repair. I started flying helis then moved to fixed wing which was a cake walk.
Same here, learned to fly R/C heli on a good old gas powered model with a mechanical (flywheel) gyro. Learning with only a tail gyro meant *days* of practising a careful hover above the ground trying to keep the thing stable and in one place, often using a training hoop to keep the craft from tipping over. Then you'd try careful turns in place. Finally taking the thing a little higher and going to forward flight was a major milestone.
Hey, I've been flying helis since I was a child and the easiest way to learn them it to stick with hovering them tail in as that's the easiest to orientate. You keep doing tail in until you can hold it dead still in the hover like it's painted in the sky. Once you do that you can rotate the Heli 45 degrees either to the right or left and then stick to that until it's dead still. You you keep repeating this process while rotating 45 degrees each time until you get to the Hardest orientation for most which is nose in hovering. I should also stress that if you want to learn helicopters properly safe mode is useless you need to learn with no stability to get the true feel of a Heli and how to react to it's movements. If you take your time and learn how to hover in all of those orientations then you're pretty much good to go with flying circuits. It does take a lot of time and patience especially without safe but it's better in the long run. I learned before flybarless was even a thing. Also I noticed you fly with your thumbs so I'd add some expo into your cyclic to tame down the stick at the centre to Help you. I hope that helps :)
Thats great advice. The expo thing especially, its always nice to set up a gentle curve. Hell, I use a curve on my drones too, set it soft near the neutral hover point and give it a nice sharp punch at the ends for stunting.
@@NeoIsrafil you've got it exactly. People also forget that a Heli should be setup for your flying style not everyone is the same. Though it is good to have a solid baseline and then you can tweak.
My favorite practice routine was always pirouetting hover and circuits. I've sit and burned 5 gallons of fuel just pirouetting in place and doing big pirouetting circles around the yard.
@@mckrackin5324 yep exactly I suppose everyone finds a way they find easiest to learn. I always tell new people to buy a Heli that has cheap parts and can handle a few crashes without breaking parts everytime then they don't have the money side of things coming into it.
Here is a tip for the blade 330 if you're a newbie. If you're raidio will let you program exponential into pitch roll and yaw it helps. Program in to where it feels comfortable to you, as you get better slowly program it out. Some people like to leave just a little expo in. It's all personal preference as to what feels good to you. If you're hard core you don't want any.
Couple of things. I've been flying R/C helis for 20 years. Collective pitch helis use throttle/pitch mixing. The more pitch you have the more throttle/RPM/Power needed to keep the blades spinning. When the blade RPM slows too much you lose cyclic control. When you fly in idle up or "stunt" mode you set your pitch mixing to have roughly 50% throttle in the center with a blade pitch of 0 degrees and +100 stick at a blade pitch of +9 and at -100 stick a blade pitch of -9. Doing this allows you to fly upside down, and do a stunt type of flying known as "3D". 0 blade pitch allows you to have cyclic control through maneuvers like rolls, piro flips, stall turns, etc.
I started with helis then moved on to drones once they hit the market. Helis got too expensive to crash and rebuilding was complicated. My biggest achievement was learning to auto rotate them down.
For beginners i recommend the XK Helikopters!! Before flight you should lower the values of the Servos in the transmitter. Then just choose a day with no wind and try! You can crash, its not that easy to break them!!
I have an xk 130 and if you crash, you just have to change the gear, sometimes spindle, and if you didn't press the hold, tail motor could be burned, so not a big deal in comparison with bigger models
Tip for practicing nose in hovering: follow the heli with cyclic. If heli moves to you, back stick. Etc. All movement of cyclic with nose in that follow the heli will stabilize it.
Yes and requires far greater skill. Heli's now that is an RC Pilot with skills. In the 70's you had to fly the tail yourself with the left stick and no gyros.
yes! Quads are very Boring for me. no Offence to folks that Like them.. lol btw I had a Blade Ncpx back in 2012 before Safe mode. it was fun for back yard flying. then Last Year got a Mcp s seen Safe mode on the Box was like wtf! Drone mentality is Taking over! ok I will Just avoid that mode. well I had an Old Dx6 with only 0 and 1 switch so I was stuck with what I call Drone Mode on 0 and the Old Normal on 1 no. I Had to Buy a New Radio was a bit Pissed lol. I Just Missed the Hobby and wanted one Cheap Heli to fly. and Because people are getting more Lazy I had to fork out $ for a new remote..
I have an Align Trex 500 and a Blade 450X. Both are fitted with a Revolectrix CoPilot II stabilizer system. Primitive by todays standards but this bit of kit really works. I'm not sure if the company still makes the CoPilot II or even still exists. If you want to fly helis with 'training wheels', this is what you need. Be warned it only works in daylight, even then it needs cloudless skies to 'read' the ground and sky to get its stability.
I was more of a heli repairman than a heli pilot for my first few weeks. Of course they have come along way since the esky honeybee king days. LoL. Dual rates were my best friend and dialed down the collective throw too.
Reminds me of the first time I tried a helicopter. It is (still have it) the Blade that has the two counter rotating blades and balance bar. The owner of the hobby shop put the trainer ping pong ball landing gear on it and flew it inside the hobby shop with customers and all kinds of models hanging from the ceiling. It flew beautifully for him. I brought it home and put it on the dining room table took off and flew straight across the room into a bead chain on the over head light. Learned how to change blades and adjust linkage to blades in first day.
Enjoyed that video, thank you! I'm just starting in drones, I did become an expert at fixing helicopters, I crashed alot!. "Idle up" is the way to go, faster the head speed the more stable I found. Thanks again .
You can do 2 things to calm a helicopter down for learning. 1. Decrease the head speed by lowering the throttle curve. This will slow down the cyclic speed and make it calmer. Don't go to far or the load will overheat the motor. 2. Use the radio dual rates and exponential to calm it down. Using a collective pitch curve from -5 to positive 11to 12 degrees is good for normal mode learning. This will keep you from slamming it into the ground when landing.
those are really good choices, 330 is easiest to fly, bigger rc heli easier to fly, your buying at a good time, lots of gyro assist and panic recovery, go back just 5 years it was a little diff, go back 10 years and they offered only tail gyros even harder to fly. nice video
Appropriate Shirt for the task. Military taught me that Jeep is an acronym for Just Enough Education to Pass. I had helicopters 14-16 years ago and had moderate success. The technology has caught up to the hobby. It is "easy-to-use" compared to the basic gyros that were add-ons in those days. I build a fly Freestyle and Cinematic as a hobby now. It's day and night. I have owned RC pretty much everything. Boats, trucks, gas and electric cars, planes, and some other weird things. I gave never lost my love for RC anything.
As Connor Cain said, master the tail-in orientation first. There's a saying in heli-land; don't know if it's also in plane- or drone-land: "Always fly at least 3 mistakes high". Make it an autonomic reflex to get to tail- in QUICKLY at the first sign of trouble. And always fly through gnat swarms. Bug-streaked blades are a like trophies.
I flew helis for years. When drones came out, I dropped the helicopters like a bad habit. So glad I did. Helicopters are the #1 biggest pain in the ass in the RC world. So finicky. I have had two 450's that literally self destructed during flight, no pilot error those times either. That was when I quit, for the last time. Drones are so easy and fun to fly, I enjoy them so much more.
You are doing very very well. Normally a first-timer would not be flying back and forth before learning hovering in all directions. The joy one feel the first couple of times buzzing around and landing without crashing.
Great that you could share your experience of flying a Hleli from a Drone pilot point of view. As an RC heli pilot for several years now I notice the turns you made on the smaller machines were about 99% Rudder (Yaw) Helicopters turn better if you use some Aileron (Bank) , some Elevator (pitch) and co-ordinate your rudder to keep the tail in line your turns will be easier and unsettle the heli less. When I fly drones I have to concously NOT use aileron and elevator lol. Watch how your heli pilot friend turned your 330 size. Also, the 300 size machine is about the smallest you would want to be flying outside on a regular basis, the smaller ones are more affected by wind and they get MUCH smaller much quicker and in fact at the club I attend, we usually suggest a 500+ size machine to learn on. That feeling you got when your 300 size lifted is what we like to call the "intimidation factor". It really does mess with your head when you have a model spinning blades 300 mm blades at 2000 rpm at eye level. Well done with your first go, keep at it and you will be rewarded :).
You did great in my opinion. I did it the other way around. I started with helicopters waaaaay back then. Haven't bought a new heli in a while, my latest one is a Protech 450 EP. It has a fly bar and tail gyro and that's it. Build three quadcopters so far, quite easy to fly compared to older helicopters with only a tail gyro, ESC and receiver for electronics.
The first thing I would to do is learn to hover the helicopter with the tail facing you so, left is left and, right is right, because when those larger helicopters are facing you everything is the opposite and it can be quite intimidating practice the tail in hover till your bored then do it a little more. When you master that try a nose in hover, and once you master a nose in hover things will start to click when sport flying, after you master sport flying, then your ready to try 3D.
The little Blade Nano is the best rc helicopter to learn to fly and learn 3D on because it is a full collective pitch helicopter that can do most everything a larger more expensive heli can do. Because it’s so small and light weight in crashes it doesn’t do much damage and when there is damage repair parts rarely cost more than $10 US. You crash a Blade 230S, 330S (450 size)or larger it will be far more expensive to make repairs to get your bird back in the air.
In the 330 it has a one way bearing so when landing get around 6” off the ground and kill the power. Leave the pitch where it is and as the blades lose momentum it’ll come form real soft and safe.👍 this won’t work to well on the other two
Flew my first RC heli 44 years ago. 1.6 meter rotor dia powered by a 10cc nitro engine. Controls were the hardest thing to set up. Only analog 5 channel radio in those days.
I flew RC helis with 'gas' motors. Now I fly drones. I know the bigger helis were more stable for me. I consider the 330s a small heli. The others were micro and minis. The rotating mass of larger blades helps on autorotations. Blade speed doesn't drop off as fast. (Can the electrics autorotate?) And you might want to look into how to check your blade tracking. Nice to see you give it a go!
I've been flying Rc Helis for about 13 years now, nitro and petrol and it took me a gazillion number of hours on the simulator and on the real ones to be kind of good at it and by no means do I consider myself a master pilot but I have and always will have a blast flying an rc heli. On the other hand, I tried a drone once....got bored to death after barely 5 minutes. Once you fly an heli switching to a drone is like going from a fully manual old racing car on a race track to a self driving Tesla on the highway. That is for the sport aspect of flying but for shooting videos, drones win hands down.
Headless mode is good to use also, esp in the beginning when learning to fly.. THis allows you to move forward & backwards with the joystick regardless of orientation of the heli
I can fly helis relatively well (8 years)and I'm oriented in every attitude. I really struggle to fly drones fpv! Line of sight is way easier than fpv for me. The 230s is perfect for inverted flight training and funnels & it's Very robust!
Been flying rc helis for 18 years and people always ask just how hard is it really? And the only way to describe it is take a bb and put a bowling ball on top that bb,now keep it balanced!!! Good job my man, don't say you haven't the skill,just work on your stick inputs rc helicopter's are crazy sensitive! You did a heck of a job for 1st time,just have work on them landings lol,,,keep up the awesome videos
had one still got it ran out of forward trim no probs blue tact lug nut on front keep adding till correct idk sometimes the best solution is simple i guess on bigger hellis the hobby gets dearer and noticed flyers going to fixed wing but its drones for me now im hooked
Nice to see a drone pilot encouraging people to get into helis, looks like you popped a link on the Nano ;) Little helis like the Nano are fun for a while but they don't pirouette well, and slow pirouettes are the best way to learn orientations. I'd suggest an OMP M1/M2, but the Blade 330 is a cracking heli too the larger size feels more floaty and they ironed out all the bugs in previous generations, just when people started to lose interest... so some newer parts are tricky to get hold of (e.g. helical main gear). I have a 400 (Trigger's Broom edition) and 450X, and an OMP M2, and love flying them all, I don't think there's any skill more difficult to learn but it's so rewarding.
RC Helis today are so much easier than just a few years ago. From mechanical gyros to 6 axis solidstate gyros with auto leveling. The advent of PC flightsims also made it very easy. PS The smaller the heli the harder to fly. Bigger helis are a larger outlay but sit in the air far more stable
flew heli's for a few years and moved to flying quads about 6+ years ago. just got an omp m1 for Christmas as i fancied getting back into heli's, going to take me while to get to grips with it again lol this little thing is quick and very slippery, reminds me of ma old fbl trex 250.
I would refer you to John Salt, and his books and videos. He explains how to set up a helicopter with “tame” settings for beginners and then other settings as a pilot progresses. I had great difficulty flying helicopters until I followed John’s advice.
with the drones your throttle is your lift, with the copter the throttle may be static and you're working with rotor pitch depending on the mode you're in. Generally in normal mode your lift comes from throttle, in the stunt modes throttle actually becomes static and the direction of lift depends on what you're doing with rotor pitch... So when you put it to 30% throttle that may be lift, but pushing the copter down, which is a good time to go inverted
The reason the bigger helicopters are easier to break is because of what is called the square cube law. Basically what is means is while strength increases by the power of 2 weight increases by the power of 3, so as things get bigger they get exponentially heavier.
Put some expo around mid stick on cyclic on the 330. It looks like too much correction and that can be expo'd out. I used to make my 600s soft around the middle of the cyclic and then accelerate control at the extremes. That made for soft flying mid stick but easy to reach full cyclic. Do the same with collective.
Collective pitch refers to the swash acting on all the blades "collectively", i.e. whatever the cyclic (right stick) is doing to the swash, the collective (left stick) will add or remove pitch to all the blades by the same percentage to each at the same time!
In drones the gyroscopic forces are balanced by counter-rotating pairs of blades which isn't the case with a helicopter. Which is essentially why choppers are so much more hectic, and difficult and fun, to fly. Plus they look cooler ;)
The heli's you can buy now are not the same as when i treid it. All the electronics that help stabilize it makes it a lot easier. I learned flying on colective pitch with only a gyro on the tail rotor control. A 700 size powered by a 10cc 2-stroke engine. And that is hard. Real hard. No ready to fly kits in those days. The setup with mixing in the right amount of throttle and pitch and tail rotor pitch took some time, had to learn a lot to be able to do that. And if you want to fly outdoors, the bigger the better imho. Bigger is much more stable, less sensitive for wind, and easier to see the orientation if you want to fly higher or farther away. Downside of bigger is the price and the increased damage when crashing. And many countries have extra rules if rc aircraft are above a certain weight.
I think an RC Heli is the best way to learn to fly. It really teaches you to maintain orientation, fine control, managing power, etc. Drones were a breeze compared to an CP Heli and the hardest part I had with planes was learning to land. Not to mention there's just something fun about doing flips and piro's and what not.
That's a "small part" of flying an RC heli. Don't forget the hours of SIM training. Don't forget the building from a kit or repairing a crash from scratch. Don't forget the programming of the tx and servos. The newer 3 axis gyro's are "hell" to program, and typically a few early crashes can be attributed to programming mistakes. Of course, there's always the "genius" at the field, but he's on vacation so you'll have to wait a month. I know, right. Also, I forgot about this. For a pure beginner the first few months, half a year, or maybe the whole year is dedicated to just learning to hover. Hover nose-in. Hover right side. Hover left side. Hover nose-in. Having the "panic switch" is useless unless it is high above your head and you're fingers are ready to flip it. Also, it can become an easy crutch to quit a maneuver too soon. Of course, you can just short circuit learning all the skills needed, and just "airplane it". That is just go into a right turn pattern, or back/forth up then stall into a skateboard turn. Yes, this is why rc heli has become a lost art. If you enjoy the "building part", "control systems tinkering" and "dead serious" about sim training. This hobby is for you. If not, enjoy a drone.
Hi, i flow for few years now, your FBL 6250hx need to turn on stability. here how to do that: On your ix12: Model Adjust > Forward Programming > Setup > Fm Channel: Aux 2 > SAFE > Stability Hold: Off Normal: On Stunt 1: Off Stunt 2: Off Notice in normal mode it is on and Stunt1,2 is off. good luck
Before i got into quads, i flew those toy twin prop sets coaxial helicopters which were simple to fly. Thought I could handle a bigger heli so stupidly jumped straight up to a 6 channel Walkera 🤣. What was i thinking? First flight it disintegrated in 3 seconds flat! Lesson learnt and respect to helicopter pilots
Wait until you get a 600 or 700 :) They come unbuilt so you learn how to fix them before even flying, just by assembling them. Been flying RC helis for 10 years, it's good fun. When drones started to pop up, I had zero issues flying them, but got bored quite quick - they are great for filming though.
Idle 1 or 2 aka stunt 1 or 2 basically heli pilots will engage for 3D, F3C and etc. If the throttle/collective pitch is abit too sensitive. You can reduce the collective pitch and throttle curve on your spectrum remote control. Awesome video bro... 😀
Hey that's a great video. I'm originally a heli pilot before all the auto levelling came into helicopters. You're right if you can fly a drone like a racing drone you can pretty much fly a helicopter. Delvaux throttle-control. Eventually if you get into it you'll have to get a pitch gauge for your blades. Then you can think about throttle curves pitch curves. Usually at half you have zero pitch so basically the motor is ramping up from 0 to about 50% and then your blade will be at zero pitch so perfectly flat at 0 at 50% throttle.
Great video, I have a blade SR and spectrum i6. I need to practice more lol. I found out, they don’t like ground effect, get them up out of ground effect as soon as possible. I recommend a flight sim, helps with the coordination.
Man brings back memories. Used to start by flying blade CP 450 back then. its a wild stalion. Bucks here and there like crazy. Then changed to an Align TRex 450 clone and that flew wayyy easier.
Interesting that you found the 330 difficult to fly. Usually the bigger the heli is, the sedate it flies. It is also more stable. I was surprised to see you go through the nano and the 150 so smoothly. Kudos. 😀
@@CAPTAINDRONE798 I can imagine. A decade ago, I went from a 4ch heli - a small one - to a 450 sized one. The first time I spooled it up was quite the scare. :-) Just the power of the machine was intimidating. But then, it flew like a dream. Thanks for an entertaining video.
The nano cp helis are pretty hard to fly. Very twitchy and they don't have enough power to quickly recover from sticky situations. The upside is they don't break as easily or catastrophically as the bigger helis. I think for a beginner, the 230s is a good compromise. It's basically like a bigger, more powerful nano.
Hi, you should try a flybarred heli with just a tail gyro, most of them are pretty much extinct, they're really hard BUT it gives you the best ability to fly anything
Cap I think we are both on the same wave length cuz i got myself a tiny helicopter on Friday and low and behold you surprise me with this video. Your small one is a giant to mine lol. You are the best. Keep them coming Cap.
From what I can recollect, I've seen a few people make setups just to practice keeping a helo in one spot. They'll take a small flat platform connected to servos that pitch it around, and then you place a marble on the board and try to keep it in one spot. I don't know how well it works, but I think that would be worth a try!
When I started flying heli's there were no such thing as beginner helicopters. I started on a GMP Cobra with a .50 glow engine. No gyro as I could not afford one. Took years before I was able to actually hover and then transition.. Then moved to .60 sized glow helis.. They would dwarf the helicopters you reviewed here. But they are heavier and handle the wind much better. They are also easier to see! The advancements over the years has been unbelievable as getting a heli in the air now is almost guaranteed.
You have no fear. Sim Sim SIm. Work your nose in. Nice job going for it. You picked good ones to start with, and you set them up correct. (3D pilot here).
Capt, if you want a cheap helicopter to fly, it’s called “F-45” MJX R/C. (I believe they have alternate models, but the F-45 is a nice medium sized, outdoor helicopter.) Cheap & Chinese - the collective just adds lift and rotor speed. It’s not a stunt bird, so it won’t power into the ground with negative rotor angle. I’ve used my F-45 to learn Rotary Wing RC and my mistakes aren’t carbon fiber expensive repairs. The only negative aspect is the shipping from China. 2-4 weeks, but tracking numbers and a translate button keep you informed regarding package expectations. Hit me up if you want pictures or video of mine for reference.
Flying unstabilized models isn't the same as flying stabilized GPS guided multis. Even with flybarless controllers you still have to fly them. These little machines don't fully represent the sport. Try your hand at a 91 size or 12S powered electric with 680mm blades and 10 pound all up weight. Then you'll get a feel for how helis are supposed to fly. Autorotations are massive fun.
As my story goes: this is what I flew before I got into drones. 3D heli (350) and the Phantom came out and I scoffed at it. Now you've got me itching to get another heli. ("much like a drone" no, no not at all)
Nice that you are into Heli flight as its quite rewarding. I too started with a Blade Heli about 8 yrs. ago. Yes it takes lots of practice and patience, and you will have crashes. The downside was having to get replacement parts from out of town Hobby store. I have had a Phantom and now enjoying the Mavic Mini with its great features. Enjoy your new adventure Steve......
Lots of sim time needed for the big one. Order lots of spare parts otherwise. Got to setup radio and heli servo and linkages for how you want to fly. Flew nitro helis long before drones and it was a blast.
Love your honest reviews . good video. I had a couple of SYMA 107 indoor ones I used to fly at work in the office LOL . never moved up to the real deal.
Excellent performance for the first two days flying RC Heli drones. I love all your reviews on drones. And this one top notch as well. BTW: I just purchased the 330 myself. You did just fine!
You need to go into forward programing and to SAFE and turn it on....make sure you have your flight mode switch on the mode you want it inhibited....you can have safe on all 3 modes but wont be able to flip or roll....but will have the high headspeeds....which will make the heli way jumppier....so SAFE ON normal mode off on stunt one and stunt 2. Stunt1 will be used for basic forward flight and loops and roll....stunt 2 for hard 3d so the blades wont slow down as much when you mash your collective up and down.
First check to see what flight mode are you in starting safe after safe fly it for a few minutes learn to hover after you learn to hover then learn to go left right forward and back once you get comfortable with that learn to do a circle take your time with it if you can fly a drone you can fly helicopter like you said keep up the good work keep the videos coming stay safe fly safe
The Blade Nano S2 and most likely the S3 both using a 1 cell lipo will need to really warm up the battery before flying in your cold temps. I usually leave mine on the dash of my car to get toasty before flying but I don't have snow in Australia so you will need a lipo warmer. If you are just hovering around then its not so bad.
I’ve had a couple of those micros like the first one, they are tremendous fun inside and outside with no wind. I have never went up in size though, they make some real screamers for electric helicopters!
I’m surprised you were brave enough to fly the 300 on the first day. Good job not crashing it. I started on a 400 3D many years ago and it didn’t have safe or anything. Lemme tell ya I almost took myself out a few times. Lots of crashes before I learned.
I flew the 330s on the Sim for a couple months before getting the real thing. I'm no expert but it wasn't super hard. I would argue this could be a good beginner heli with some Sim time
As a heli flyer I appreciate someone in the drone community trying to get more people familiar with the hobby!!! I would recommend probably looking more into the basics of heli flying and maybe trying out a simulator first. some of these machines, including that 300, can severely hurt yourself or someone else if not careful. Good luck!
100% this. I love my helis but the learning curve is steep. The simulator is your best friend when learning. The bigger ones like the 330 can really hurt you. Also, learn to love fixing them because you will be doing that a lot.
I concur. I never began with a quadrotor, only small co-axial rotor helis, then fixed pitch then CP and Nitro CP. Due to the cost and power of large electric helis I'm happy with 450 size electric - my Raptor 30 fulfils the need for a larger RC helicopter for me. Just need to find somewhere private to fly it here in the UK because I don't agree with all that CAA registration malarkey. We're not all terrorists who need to fly them straight into the compressor of a passing 777, nor do we want Amazoogle to have sole rights to sub 400 AGL airspace...
@@TachyonDriver Yep I started in 1978 pre gyro's and ended up with Align 700s and I love Steves drone videos but to be honest I was cringing a bit with him flying helicopters sooo close as even the very small ones can do a lot of damage, it might give people a false sense of safety flying them that close especially the 330 he was flying. These videos that Steve does are great ut remember the safety aspect.
I second/third/fourth/whatever the simulator first thing also. The beginning of the video makes true helicopters sound like a single rotor quadrotor as far as skill required and it's just not true. With a gyro stabilized drone, you can literally turn your back on the machine for significant periods of time and it'll still be roughly in the same place as when you looked away for the most part. Even a minor mistrim of the main rotor in a heli during the hover, you look away and you just created a dirt torpedo. Helicopters are NOT trivial to fly and it's a near truism that people buy helicopters thinking "pffft, I have 20 years of fixed wing under my belt, I'll be fine" and end up coming back the next morning for a crash kit. Lol! I did the same thing. I still vividly remember thinking to myself "why does this thing seem so uncontrollable?". All it was, was my brain didn't understand the mechanics of the hover yet. A good sim is worth the price of a few crash kits and it allows you to learn the hover (And every non crash flight starts with a hover and ends with a hover... Unless you're doing max pitch explosive launches anyway. :P) with no risk at all. Once I realized how helpful they were, I started using mine even once I was a fairly decent pilot just because you can use it to perfect stuff and try new stuff without any real consequence. CRASH! Hit the spacebar and tada! New $5000 high end 3D heli! :)
Kann Ihnen nur zustimmen
I was told 25 or so years ago, to learn to fly a rc helicopter, it is a lifetime achievement! (He was right!). Only after I learned, I truly appreciate & admire ALL 3d heli pilots! 👋👋👋
Back then, it was a lil different..
@@daleyoung87 yes it was, you also needed deep pockets fullof cash
I learned planes, helis were on a whole different level lol
@@adrianharrison5208 Lol, you still need deep pockets full of cash.
Best one for me to learn with was the blade 230s .
Rc cars, drones, helicopters! This is by far my favorite RC channel!
Learning to fly drones after helicopters, easy. Learning to fly helicopters after drones... hard.
Start on 3 channels and its easy then go 4
AGREED!! I got my first FBL Heli and I kinda hate the lack of stability.
Glad I started on helicopters and line of sight drones thean 😅
If you can fly a helicopter you can fly anything.
@@jfivecoat This is absolutely true. A plane and a drone both want to fly and will do it without any input. A heli is afraid of heights and fights to get back to the ground the whole flight ;)
"Flying a helicopter" is a broad term. You flew in Safe mode which on a drone is Stabilized or Level horizon mode. Typically helicopter pilots fly what's Acro or race or unstabilized mode. Stabilized is good to get a feeling and learn orientations in yaw, maybe it's what you like to stay in. Acro is what allows you to do steep continuous turns, flips and what not but if you let go of the stick there's no guarantee it will be level so if you lose orientation you're crashing very quickly. All that considered I would call learning to fly a helicopter flying in Acro and I'd practise in a simulator such that you don't break hardware until your brain adapts. Cheers.
After 5 years flying drones, I tried to fly an helicopter a few months ago. Let me tell you, I have a lot of respect for helicopters and model plane pilots. When I am flying drones, I can relax. As a matter of fact, I started flying drones as therapy to deal with my PTS and anxiety. I can’t fly helicopters, I get really anxious 😂😂😂
I recently got into RC planes, and i got a carbon cub S2. Its a very nice beginner friendly plane, and after some practice and 5-6 fllights i got more confident and i find it very relaxing now.
Note: It also has stabilisation modes, making it easier to fly especially in wind.
With hundreds of hours in real helicopters....It took me a long time to learn to fly the RC version. Its not easy by any means. But ..once you do, its a blast .
@@TrooperTrading probably not.... and damn sure don't give a shit about you.
I wondered about similarities...I've flown RC helis for years, scale type flight, and considered taking lessons on the real thing. probably zero head start I'd guess.
@@TheBikersurgeon other than the expanse, it's the best flying ever I would suggest you get your fixed-wing license first and then get an helicopter add-on rating
@@914va man...if I had the money an ultralight would be heaven honestly. I love fpv cuz it gets me in the air, free, but to actually be up there must be
so much better.
In real helicopter, front is always the nose and back is always the tail. But on rc, it changes. Also I kinda wonder how would it be to fly 3D on real helicopter, It would be really disorienting and fun as long as G forces are comfortable I guess
With flybarless choppers it’s either the flybarless unit that you can adjust or possibly set the expo for a bit more mellow on the control inputs to outputs.
I was taught to take-off and land in normal mode. This way, in normal mode on the ground, you can let the main rotor build up speed more slowly. It won't wobble as much and the tail won't wag as much. Once the head speed stabilizes, lift off to clear ground effect. Climb to a hover at 5-6 feet. Your collective (also controls throttle (head speed)) left stick will be in the middle or slightly above. When you're in a stable hover, move to stunt 1 or 2. The transitions will be much smoother and it should feel more controlled. Transition back to normal mode a few feet above your landing site. Then you can slowly lower the left stick. It won't slam down like it does in stunt modes. Just MHO. :-)
I would never startmy heli idle up. This guys just learnin still lol. But he explained it perfect. Left out the fact that u domt start flying the heli in CP for most people
Any GPS-guided drone pilot will realise flying a RC Copter is a whole new game! Takes much more skill and focus.
It's actually piloting, not having a computer do all the work. Another reason why actual hobbyists kinda clown on "drone pilots" fpv guys even clown on them. If you have to use stabilization or gps, your not really the "pilot".
Yeah, flying a racing quad line of site, acro, which is what he is referring to, is very similar to an rc helicopter. The only difference for me is on RC helicopters the yaw is more willing to turn the craft, whereas the quad is quick in pitch and roll. I switch between the two very easily. No one cares about Mavic “pilots”
@@10fantic I begged a differ! The whole point of any hobby is to have fun! Many people chuck the helicopter hobby because without stabilization, These things crash and cost shit loads of money to fix. And yes, they break far easier than quadcopters. Stabilization has made the hobby more accessible to many new pilots. Did you know that many if not all jet liners use stabilization. Its call auto pilot!
I tried RC helicopters before getting into drones. Shits hard to learn.
@@johnnytrongaming Buddy, it's almost impossible to master. Unless you want to focus exclusively on RC Helicopters (the ones with no GPS), it's no fun honestly for a hobbyist.
Nice job Steve, I have been flying helis for seven years and the key to not crashing as much is learning to maintain your orientation as you said. Flying a heli especially a 3D one is not like flying a quad. It is best to learn on a simulator first. I would recommend the FW Flywing 450 heli, it has GPS.
Forst Heli for lots of crashing I recommend the XK K110, then go up to the Omphobby M1 once you are more confident. 450 class is great and the Fly wing with GPS really good.
Gregory Hall, A GPS Heli... I will have to check that out.
@@chrisbee5481 I love my XK k110 I've tried breaking it doing 3D and it just won't die it's amazing
Its easy to lose orentation when heli gets far away.
On the 3rd Larger Heli, it was flying in what's called Acro mode on your quads.
For every action you'll need an equal and opposite reaction because it's not going to self level ever. If you pitch forward 20 degrees and release the stick it'll continue forward at 20 degrees until it crashes or the battery dies, whichever comes first. If you can fly your quad in acro mode line of sight you can handle this mode
I've converted from collective pitch helos to drones and haven't flown CP in a couple years. But one word of advice is to practice on computer sims as much as possible. Bigger helos are easier to fly but are a lot more expensive to fix.
Before all the 3axis gyro stuff when I was learning, when all you had was head hold gyro in the trail, I found the bigger the heli the more stable it was. 450 is a good size to learn on real flight skills (after flying simulator), big enough to be stable and visible, but not ridiculously expensive to repair. I started flying helis then moved to fixed wing which was a cake walk.
Same here, learned to fly R/C heli on a good old gas powered model with a mechanical (flywheel) gyro. Learning with only a tail gyro meant *days* of practising a careful hover above the ground trying to keep the thing stable and in one place, often using a training hoop to keep the craft from tipping over. Then you'd try careful turns in place. Finally taking the thing a little higher and going to forward flight was a major milestone.
Hey, I've been flying helis since I was a child and the easiest way to learn them it to stick with hovering them tail in as that's the easiest to orientate. You keep doing tail in until you can hold it dead still in the hover like it's painted in the sky. Once you do that you can rotate the Heli 45 degrees either to the right or left and then stick to that until it's dead still. You you keep repeating this process while rotating 45 degrees each time until you get to the Hardest orientation for most which is nose in hovering. I should also stress that if you want to learn helicopters properly safe mode is useless you need to learn with no stability to get the true feel of a Heli and how to react to it's movements. If you take your time and learn how to hover in all of those orientations then you're pretty much good to go with flying circuits. It does take a lot of time and patience especially without safe but it's better in the long run. I learned before flybarless was even a thing. Also I noticed you fly with your thumbs so I'd add some expo into your cyclic to tame down the stick at the centre to Help you. I hope that helps :)
Thats great advice. The expo thing especially, its always nice to set up a gentle curve. Hell, I use a curve on my drones too, set it soft near the neutral hover point and give it a nice sharp punch at the ends for stunting.
@@NeoIsrafil you've got it exactly. People also forget that a Heli should be setup for your flying style not everyone is the same. Though it is good to have a solid baseline and then you can tweak.
My favorite practice routine was always pirouetting hover and circuits. I've sit and burned 5 gallons of fuel just pirouetting in place and doing big pirouetting circles around the yard.
@@mckrackin5324 yep exactly I suppose everyone finds a way they find easiest to learn. I always tell new people to buy a Heli that has cheap parts and can handle a few crashes without breaking parts everytime then they don't have the money side of things coming into it.
Here is a tip for the blade 330 if you're a newbie. If you're raidio will let you program exponential into pitch roll and yaw it helps. Program in to where it feels comfortable to you, as you get better slowly program it out. Some people like to leave just a little expo in. It's all personal preference as to what feels good to you. If you're hard core you don't want any.
Couple of things. I've been flying R/C helis for 20 years. Collective pitch helis use throttle/pitch mixing. The more pitch you have the more throttle/RPM/Power needed to keep the blades spinning. When the blade RPM slows too much you lose cyclic control. When you fly in idle up or "stunt" mode you set your pitch mixing to have roughly 50% throttle in the center with a blade pitch of 0 degrees and +100 stick at a blade pitch of +9 and at -100 stick a blade pitch of -9. Doing this allows you to fly upside down, and do a stunt type of flying known as "3D". 0 blade pitch allows you to have cyclic control through maneuvers like rolls, piro flips, stall turns, etc.
I started with helis then moved on to drones once they hit the market. Helis got too expensive to crash and rebuilding was complicated. My biggest achievement was learning to auto rotate them down.
For beginners i recommend the XK Helikopters!! Before flight you should lower the values of the Servos in the transmitter. Then just choose a day with no wind and try! You can crash, its not that easy to break them!!
I have an xk 130 and if you crash, you just have to change the gear, sometimes spindle, and if you didn't press the hold, tail motor could be burned, so not a big deal in comparison with bigger models
Tip for practicing nose in hovering: follow the heli with cyclic. If heli moves to you, back stick. Etc. All movement of cyclic with nose in that follow the heli will stabilize it.
Helis are far more satisfying to fly than quads .
Yes and requires far greater skill. Heli's now that is an RC Pilot with skills. In the 70's you had to fly the tail yourself with the left stick and no gyros.
I don't agree there's no better feeling than FPV on a quad. But helicopters are hella fun though
Without a doubt
yes! Quads are very Boring for me. no Offence to folks that Like them.. lol btw I had a Blade Ncpx back in 2012 before Safe mode. it was fun for back yard flying. then Last Year got a Mcp s seen Safe mode on the Box was like wtf! Drone mentality is Taking over! ok I will Just avoid that mode. well I had an Old Dx6 with only 0 and 1 switch so I was stuck with what I call Drone Mode on 0 and the Old Normal on 1 no. I Had to Buy a New Radio was a bit Pissed lol. I Just Missed the Hobby and wanted one Cheap Heli to fly. and Because people are getting more Lazy I had to fork out $ for a new remote..
I have an Align Trex 500 and a Blade 450X. Both are fitted with a Revolectrix CoPilot II stabilizer system. Primitive by todays standards but this bit of kit really works. I'm not sure if the company still makes the CoPilot II or even still exists. If you want to fly helis with 'training wheels', this is what you need. Be warned it only works in daylight, even then it needs cloudless skies to 'read' the ground and sky to get its stability.
I was more of a heli repairman than a heli pilot for my first few weeks. Of course they have come along way since the esky honeybee king days. LoL. Dual rates were my best friend and dialed down the collective throw too.
Reminds me of the first time I tried a helicopter. It is (still have it) the Blade that has the two counter rotating blades and balance bar. The owner of the hobby shop put the trainer ping pong ball landing gear on it and flew it inside the hobby shop with customers and all kinds of models hanging from the ceiling. It flew beautifully for him. I brought it home and put it on the dining room table took off and flew straight across the room into a bead chain on the over head light. Learned how to change blades and adjust linkage to blades in first day.
Awesome Helicopter Video Steve!! I really enjoyed it!! Thank you so much for sharing your flights with each Helicopter!!
4:50 it is actually for 3D mode so you can hower upside down and stay in the inverting position as you fly.
Enjoyed that video, thank you! I'm just starting in drones, I did become an expert at fixing helicopters, I crashed alot!. "Idle up" is the way to go, faster the head speed the more stable I found. Thanks again .
For me the faster head speed means faster movements which can certainly wake you up quickly
You can do 2 things to calm a helicopter down for learning.
1. Decrease the head speed by lowering the throttle curve. This will slow down the cyclic speed and make it calmer. Don't go to far or the load will overheat the motor.
2. Use the radio dual rates and exponential to calm it down.
Using a collective pitch curve from -5 to positive 11to 12 degrees is good for normal mode learning. This will keep you from slamming it into the ground when landing.
Nice to see you're trying new things, will be watching these as I'm interested as well.
those are really good choices, 330 is easiest to fly, bigger rc heli easier to fly, your buying at a good time, lots of gyro assist and panic recovery, go back just 5 years it was a little diff, go back 10 years and they offered only tail gyros even harder to fly. nice video
Going back ten wars even tiny ones where lethal.
@@Jayhhardy I had a 250, moved very fast and was difficult to see ;)
I’d like to get back into flying them. I first learnt in 1987 so over 30 years ago. I figure they will be easier now with all gyro advances
Appropriate Shirt for the task. Military taught me that Jeep is an acronym for Just Enough Education to Pass. I had helicopters 14-16 years ago and had moderate success. The technology has caught up to the hobby. It is "easy-to-use" compared to the basic gyros that were add-ons in those days. I build a fly Freestyle and Cinematic as a hobby now. It's day and night. I have owned RC pretty much everything. Boats, trucks, gas and electric cars, planes, and some other weird things. I gave never lost my love for RC anything.
As Connor Cain said, master the tail-in orientation first.
There's a saying in heli-land; don't know if it's also in plane- or drone-land: "Always fly at least 3 mistakes high".
Make it an autonomic reflex to get to tail- in QUICKLY at the first sign of trouble. And always fly through gnat swarms.
Bug-streaked blades are a like trophies.
Ha ha, thanks :-)
Try it totally manual. That means no gyro on the tail, too..like we had to.🙂
I flew helis for years. When drones came out, I dropped the helicopters like a bad habit. So glad I did. Helicopters are the #1 biggest pain in the ass in the RC world. So finicky. I have had two 450's that literally self destructed during flight, no pilot error those times either. That was when I quit, for the last time. Drones are so easy and fun to fly, I enjoy them so much more.
You are doing very very well. Normally a first-timer would not be flying back and forth before learning hovering in all directions. The joy one feel the first couple of times buzzing around and landing without crashing.
Great that you could share your experience of flying a Hleli from a Drone pilot point of view. As an RC heli pilot for several years now I notice the turns you made on the smaller machines were about 99% Rudder (Yaw) Helicopters turn better if you use some Aileron (Bank) , some Elevator (pitch) and co-ordinate your rudder to keep the tail in line your turns will be easier and unsettle the heli less. When I fly drones I have to concously NOT use aileron and elevator lol. Watch how your heli pilot friend turned your 330 size. Also, the 300 size machine is about the smallest you would want to be flying outside on a regular basis, the smaller ones are more affected by wind and they get MUCH smaller much quicker and in fact at the club I attend, we usually suggest a 500+ size machine to learn on.
That feeling you got when your 300 size lifted is what we like to call the "intimidation factor". It really does mess with your head when you have a model spinning blades 300 mm blades at 2000 rpm at eye level. Well done with your first go, keep at it and you will be rewarded :).
You did great in my opinion.
I did it the other way around.
I started with helicopters waaaaay back then.
Haven't bought a new heli in a while, my latest one is a Protech 450 EP. It has a fly bar and tail gyro and that's it.
Build three quadcopters so far, quite easy to fly compared to older helicopters with only a tail gyro, ESC and receiver for electronics.
Blade 120 Sr was my favourite begginer Heli. Moved to a 450 3d, 130x, then a 450x.
Steve, now you need to change your name to “CAPTAIN HELI DRONE” ;-)
Captain Versadrone!
Captain tech
The first thing I would to do is learn to hover the helicopter with the tail facing you so, left is left and, right is right, because when those larger helicopters are facing you everything is the opposite and it can be quite intimidating practice the tail in hover till your bored then do it a little more. When you master that try a nose in hover, and once you master a nose in hover things will start to click when sport flying, after you master sport flying, then your ready to try 3D.
The little Blade Nano is the best rc helicopter to learn to fly and learn 3D on because it is a full collective pitch helicopter that can do most everything a larger more expensive heli can do. Because it’s so small and light weight in crashes it doesn’t do much damage and when there is damage repair parts rarely cost more than $10 US. You crash a Blade 230S, 330S (450 size)or larger it will be far more expensive to make repairs to get your bird back in the air.
In the 330 it has a one way bearing so when landing get around 6” off the ground and kill the power. Leave the pitch where it is and as the blades lose momentum it’ll come form real soft and safe.👍 this won’t work to well on the other two
Flew my first RC heli 44 years ago. 1.6 meter rotor dia powered by a 10cc nitro engine. Controls were the hardest thing to set up. Only analog 5 channel radio in those days.
I flew RC helis with 'gas' motors. Now I fly drones. I know the bigger helis were more stable for me. I consider the 330s a small heli. The others were micro and minis. The rotating mass of larger blades helps on autorotations. Blade speed doesn't drop off as fast. (Can the electrics autorotate?) And you might want to look into how to check your blade tracking. Nice to see you give it a go!
I've been flying Rc Helis for about 13 years now, nitro and petrol and it took me a gazillion number of hours on the simulator and on the real ones to be kind of good at it and by no means do I consider myself a master pilot but I have and always will have a blast flying an rc heli. On the other hand, I tried a drone once....got bored to death after barely 5 minutes. Once you fly an heli switching to a drone is like going from a fully manual old racing car on a race track to a self driving Tesla on the highway. That is for the sport aspect of flying but for shooting videos, drones win hands down.
Headless mode is good to use also, esp in the beginning when learning to fly.. THis allows you to move forward & backwards with the joystick regardless of orientation of the heli
I can fly helis relatively well (8 years)and I'm oriented in every attitude. I really struggle to fly drones fpv! Line of sight is way easier than fpv for me. The 230s is perfect for inverted flight training and funnels & it's Very robust!
I am exactly the same way. I find line of sight much easier. FPV feels so disorienting. I believe this is pretty normal.
Been flying rc helis for 18 years and people always ask just how hard is it really? And the only way to describe it is take a bb and put a bowling ball on top that bb,now keep it balanced!!! Good job my man, don't say you haven't the skill,just work on your stick inputs rc helicopter's are crazy sensitive! You did a heck of a job for 1st time,just have work on them landings lol,,,keep up the awesome videos
had one still got it ran out of forward trim no probs blue tact lug nut on front keep adding till correct idk sometimes the best solution is simple i guess on bigger hellis the hobby gets dearer and noticed flyers going to fixed wing but its drones for me now im hooked
Nice to see a drone pilot encouraging people to get into helis, looks like you popped a link on the Nano ;) Little helis like the Nano are fun for a while but they don't pirouette well, and slow pirouettes are the best way to learn orientations. I'd suggest an OMP M1/M2, but the Blade 330 is a cracking heli too the larger size feels more floaty and they ironed out all the bugs in previous generations, just when people started to lose interest... so some newer parts are tricky to get hold of (e.g. helical main gear). I have a 400 (Trigger's Broom edition) and 450X, and an OMP M2, and love flying them all, I don't think there's any skill more difficult to learn but it's so rewarding.
RC Helis today are so much easier than just a few years ago.
From mechanical gyros to 6 axis solidstate gyros with auto leveling.
The advent of PC flightsims also made it very easy.
PS The smaller the heli the harder to fly. Bigger helis are a larger outlay but sit in the air far more stable
flew heli's for a few years and moved to flying quads about 6+ years ago. just got an omp m1 for Christmas as i fancied getting back into heli's, going to take me while to get to grips with it again lol this little thing is quick and very slippery, reminds me of ma old fbl trex 250.
I would refer you to John Salt, and his books and videos. He explains how to set up a helicopter with “tame” settings for beginners and then other settings as a pilot progresses. I had great difficulty flying helicopters until I followed John’s advice.
I'll check it out, thanks.
with the drones your throttle is your lift, with the copter the throttle may be static and you're working with rotor pitch depending on the mode you're in. Generally in normal mode your lift comes from throttle, in the stunt modes throttle actually becomes static and the direction of lift depends on what you're doing with rotor pitch... So when you put it to 30% throttle that may be lift, but pushing the copter down, which is a good time to go inverted
The reason the bigger helicopters are easier to break is because of what is called the square cube law. Basically what is means is while strength increases by the power of 2 weight increases by the power of 3, so as things get bigger they get exponentially heavier.
I have the blade Nano, and have been flying it since January with my Radiomaster TX16S. I actually think its a better radio for the price.
Wher did you get the radiomaster transmitter
Put some expo around mid stick on cyclic on the 330. It looks like too much correction and that can be expo'd out. I used to make my 600s soft around the middle of the cyclic and then accelerate control at the extremes. That made for soft flying mid stick but easy to reach full cyclic. Do the same with collective.
Collective pitch refers to the swash acting on all the blades "collectively", i.e. whatever the cyclic (right stick) is doing to the swash, the collective (left stick) will add or remove pitch to all the blades by the same percentage to each at the same time!
Sounds better than my simple explanation.
In drones the gyroscopic forces are balanced by counter-rotating pairs of blades which isn't the case with a helicopter. Which is essentially why choppers are so much more hectic, and difficult and fun, to fly. Plus they look cooler ;)
The heli's you can buy now are not the same as when i treid it.
All the electronics that help stabilize it makes it a lot easier.
I learned flying on colective pitch with only a gyro on the tail rotor control.
A 700 size powered by a 10cc 2-stroke engine.
And that is hard. Real hard.
No ready to fly kits in those days.
The setup with mixing in the right amount of throttle and pitch and tail rotor pitch took some time, had to learn a lot to be able to do that.
And if you want to fly outdoors, the bigger the better imho.
Bigger is much more stable, less sensitive for wind, and easier to see the orientation if you want to fly higher or farther away.
Downside of bigger is the price and the increased damage when crashing.
And many countries have extra rules if rc aircraft are above a certain weight.
I think an RC Heli is the best way to learn to fly. It really teaches you to maintain orientation, fine control, managing power, etc. Drones were a breeze compared to an CP Heli and the hardest part I had with planes was learning to land. Not to mention there's just something fun about doing flips and piro's and what not.
That's a "small part" of flying an RC heli. Don't forget the hours of SIM training. Don't forget the building from a kit or repairing a crash from scratch. Don't forget the programming of the tx and servos. The newer 3 axis gyro's are "hell" to program, and typically a few early crashes can be attributed to programming mistakes. Of course, there's always the "genius" at the field, but he's on vacation so you'll have to wait a month. I know, right.
Also, I forgot about this. For a pure beginner the first few months, half a year, or maybe the whole year is dedicated to just learning to hover. Hover nose-in. Hover right side. Hover left side. Hover nose-in. Having the "panic switch" is useless unless it is high above your head and you're fingers are ready to flip it. Also, it can become an easy crutch to quit a maneuver too soon. Of course, you can just short circuit learning all the skills needed, and just "airplane it". That is just go into a right turn pattern, or back/forth up then stall into a skateboard turn.
Yes, this is why rc heli has become a lost art. If you enjoy the "building part", "control systems tinkering" and "dead serious" about sim training. This hobby is for you.
If not, enjoy a drone.
Hi, i flow for few years now, your FBL 6250hx need to turn on stability. here how to do that:
On your ix12: Model Adjust > Forward Programming > Setup
> Fm Channel: Aux 2
> SAFE > Stability
Hold: Off
Normal: On
Stunt 1: Off
Stunt 2: Off
Notice in normal mode it is on and Stunt1,2 is off.
good luck
I'll check that out, thank you.
Before i got into quads, i flew those toy twin prop sets coaxial helicopters which were simple to fly. Thought I could handle a bigger heli so stupidly jumped straight up to a 6 channel Walkera 🤣. What was i thinking? First flight it disintegrated in 3 seconds flat! Lesson learnt and respect to helicopter pilots
Wait until you get a 600 or 700 :) They come unbuilt so you learn how to fix them before even flying, just by assembling them. Been flying RC helis for 10 years, it's good fun. When drones started to pop up, I had zero issues flying them, but got bored quite quick - they are great for filming though.
You don’t wanna mess with hell is Steve totally different beast and need really quick reflexes
Idle 1 or 2 aka stunt 1 or 2 basically heli pilots will engage for 3D, F3C and etc. If the throttle/collective pitch is abit too sensitive. You can reduce the collective pitch and throttle curve on your spectrum remote control. Awesome video bro... 😀
Awesome video Steve, Remember practise makes perfect, Great job for someone who has not flown helicopters before
Hey that's a great video. I'm originally a heli pilot before all the auto levelling came into helicopters. You're right if you can fly a drone like a racing drone you can pretty much fly a helicopter. Delvaux throttle-control. Eventually if you get into it you'll have to get a pitch gauge for your blades. Then you can think about throttle curves pitch curves. Usually at half you have zero pitch so basically the motor is ramping up from 0 to about 50% and then your blade will be at zero pitch so perfectly flat at 0 at 50% throttle.
Great video, I have a blade SR and spectrum i6. I need to practice more lol. I found out, they don’t like ground effect, get them up out of ground effect as soon as possible. I recommend a flight sim, helps with the coordination.
Man brings back memories. Used to start by flying blade CP 450 back then. its a wild stalion. Bucks here and there like crazy. Then changed to an Align TRex 450 clone and that flew wayyy easier.
I have 2 Nitro Helis, A SAB Goblin Kraken 580, and a 20 year old Vintage Kyosho Concept 30 SR-X with a mechanical Gyro!
Interesting that you found the 330 difficult to fly. Usually the bigger the heli is, the sedate it flies. It is also more stable. I was surprised to see you go through the nano and the 150 so smoothly. Kudos. 😀
It scared the hell out of me!
@@CAPTAINDRONE798 I can imagine. A decade ago, I went from a 4ch heli - a small one - to a 450 sized one. The first time I spooled it up was quite the scare. :-) Just the power of the machine was intimidating. But then, it flew like a dream.
Thanks for an entertaining video.
The nano cp helis are pretty hard to fly. Very twitchy and they don't have enough power to quickly recover from sticky situations. The upside is they don't break as easily or catastrophically as the bigger helis. I think for a beginner, the 230s is a good compromise. It's basically like a bigger, more powerful nano.
Hi, you should try a flybarred heli with just a tail gyro, most of them are pretty much extinct, they're really hard BUT it gives you the best ability to fly anything
Cap I think we are both on the same wave length cuz i got myself a tiny helicopter on Friday and low and behold you surprise me with this video. Your small one is a giant to mine lol. You are the best. Keep them coming Cap.
From what I can recollect, I've seen a few people make setups just to practice keeping a helo in one spot. They'll take a small flat platform connected to servos that pitch it around, and then you place a marble on the board and try to keep it in one spot. I don't know how well it works, but I think that would be worth a try!
When I started flying heli's there were no such thing as beginner helicopters. I started on a GMP Cobra with a .50 glow engine. No gyro as I could not afford one. Took years before I was able to actually hover and then transition.. Then moved to .60 sized glow helis.. They would dwarf the helicopters you reviewed here. But they are heavier and handle the wind much better. They are also easier to see! The advancements over the years has been unbelievable as getting a heli in the air now is almost guaranteed.
steve you did good most take weeks if they dont have a bad crash i flown rc heli when they were the hot
You have no fear. Sim Sim SIm. Work your nose in. Nice job going for it. You picked good ones to start with, and you set them up correct. (3D pilot here).
You always lift my spirits Captain
Blade CP was the first heli I ever flew, heli's are definately a whole different animal.
Capt, if you want a cheap helicopter to fly, it’s called “F-45” MJX R/C. (I believe they have alternate models, but the F-45 is a nice medium sized, outdoor helicopter.) Cheap & Chinese - the collective just adds lift and rotor speed. It’s not a stunt bird, so it won’t power into the ground with negative rotor angle.
I’ve used my F-45 to learn Rotary Wing RC and my mistakes aren’t carbon fiber expensive repairs. The only negative aspect is the shipping from China. 2-4 weeks, but tracking numbers and a translate button keep you informed regarding package expectations. Hit me up if you want pictures or video of mine for reference.
Flying unstabilized models isn't the same as flying stabilized GPS guided multis. Even with flybarless controllers you still have to fly them. These little machines don't fully represent the sport. Try your hand at a 91 size or 12S powered electric with 680mm blades and 10 pound all up weight. Then you'll get a feel for how helis are supposed to fly. Autorotations are massive fun.
As my story goes: this is what I flew before I got into drones. 3D heli (350) and the Phantom came out and I scoffed at it. Now you've got me itching to get another heli. ("much like a drone" no, no not at all)
Nice that you are into Heli flight as its quite rewarding. I too started with a Blade Heli about 8 yrs. ago. Yes it takes lots of practice and patience, and you will have crashes. The downside was having to get replacement parts from out of town Hobby store. I have had a Phantom and now enjoying the Mavic Mini with its great features. Enjoy your new adventure Steve......
Lots of sim time needed for the big one. Order lots of spare parts otherwise. Got to setup radio and heli servo and linkages for how you want to fly.
Flew nitro helis long before drones and it was a blast.
The Nano s3 is okay. I would recommend a brushless XK k110 tough. Then maybe go up to the Omphobby m1 or even M2
Love your honest reviews . good video. I had a couple of SYMA 107 indoor ones I used to fly at work in the office LOL . never moved up to the real deal.
For a first timer, you actually have good control. Good show. Try a 450, just for size.
Thank you!
Excellent performance for the first two days flying RC Heli drones. I love all your reviews on drones. And this one top notch as well. BTW: I just purchased the 330 myself. You did just fine!
Thanks 👍
This was awesome ...I enjoy the omp hobby m1 with the t6 radio
You need to go into forward programing and to SAFE and turn it on....make sure you have your flight mode switch on the mode you want it inhibited....you can have safe on all 3 modes but wont be able to flip or roll....but will have the high headspeeds....which will make the heli way jumppier....so SAFE ON normal mode off on stunt one and stunt 2. Stunt1 will be used for basic forward flight and loops and roll....stunt 2 for hard 3d so the blades wont slow down as much when you mash your collective up and down.
First check to see what flight mode are you in starting safe after safe fly it for a few minutes learn to hover after you learn to hover then learn to go left right forward and back once you get comfortable with that learn to do a circle take your time with it if you can fly a drone you can fly helicopter like you said keep up the good work keep the videos coming stay safe fly safe
The best beginner heli is the Eflite Mcp XBL2. This heli is also great for 3D and aerobatics. I have been flying helis for 30 years :)
The Blade Nano S2 and most likely the S3 both using a 1 cell lipo will need to really warm up the battery before flying in your cold temps. I usually leave mine on the dash of my car to get toasty before flying but I don't have snow in Australia so you will need a lipo warmer. If you are just hovering around then its not so bad.
I’ve had a couple of those micros like the first one, they are tremendous fun inside and outside with no wind. I have never went up in size though, they make some real screamers for electric helicopters!
It was fun to watch you learn the basics.
I’m surprised you were brave enough to fly the 300 on the first day. Good job not crashing it. I started on a 400 3D many years ago and it didn’t have safe or anything. Lemme tell ya I almost took myself out a few times. Lots of crashes before I learned.
You have to go into forward programming and activate stability. The manual will not show u how to do that. This will activate safe mode
I flew the 330s on the Sim for a couple months before getting the real thing. I'm no expert but it wasn't super hard. I would argue this could be a good beginner heli with some Sim time