1980s RC Helicopters - Vintage 1986 GMP RC Helicopter Promo
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Ah yes, the awesome 80's and 1980's RC helicopters. Remember what it was like, or wondering what it was like? If so, here's a 1986 promotional video by GMP showcasing their lineup of helicopters.
I recall this video playing on a looping VHS tape at our local hobby shop next to the GMP heli display. While I was only flying RC airplanes at the time and certainly couldn't afford an RC helicopter in my mid teens, I was always captivated watching that video. For better or worse, the seed was planted and the dark side was calling! I finally acquired my first RC helicopter as a young adult in 1989 - a Miniature Aircraft X-Cell 40 and have loved this hobby ever since.
Such great memories from a very fun and enjoyable time in RC aviation. Pure line of sight flying with no BS to distract. FM & PCM radios. The smells & sounds of nitro hanging in air. An equal mixture of frustration & fun. Just mastering the nose-in-hover for many of us was cause for celebration.
A time before easy to fly drones for the masses started polluting the skies; pigeonholing and forcing nonsensical restrictions & regulations on traditional line of sight RC aviation worldwide. This has taken so much fun out of the hobby as we continue to lose flying fields and permissions, while having to jump through a growing number of hoops to keep what few remaining privileges we have.
Rant aside, while we can't go back in time, we can at least appreciate the many fond memories from this much simpler time in RC aviation.
If you are interested in RC helicopter history, you may enjoy the Heli History page on my website: www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-he...
Time Chapters:
00:00 Intro & GMP Cricket
00:52 GMP Cobra
02:55 GMP Competitor
03:38 GMP Cobra Jet Ranger
05:21 Hirobo SST Jet Ranger
06:10 Hirobo Shuttle
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Great flashback / nostalgia
Shuttle was my first RC Helicopter, back in 92. It flew really nice and was great to learn on.
I gave up RC for a lot of years, other than racing offroad once in a while through the years. Flash forward to 2012 and when I bought an Align 400 type (generic brand) electric model...WOW what a difference. Had a lot of fun with that thing.
Thank you for posting this, and bring to life the magazine pages of my youth. Every month, there would be a photo of Robert Gorham flying his GMP. I went the Schluter route. Heli-Star and Champion.
I ran Dr. J's west coast hobbies in the 80' s .We were a GMP dealer and we flew the skids off all the GMP line. Great times for sure
Very cool 👍 🙂
The Cricket was a sales success beyond belief for John and Robert Gorham. However, at the flying fields it was a disaster. By far, most people who bought the kit, just gave up on it. My first heli was a Cricket (1981). I learned the basics on it, I will give it that much, with a lot of crashing and no gyro.
Other pilots who bought the Kalt Baron 20, progressed much faster. The Kalt Baron 20 with its collective pitch, was superior to the Cricket in every way. I even managed to fly mine inverted. That was a big deal at the time. JR radio with inverted switch, anyone remember? :-)
For people who stayed with it, and then bought a GMP Competitor, it was like going to heaven. The Competitor rotor head was head and shoulders above its contemporary, the Schluter Heli-Boy. Yes, I had one of them too. Still do. Fun times.
Thank you John, for posting this video. Greetings from Surrey, BC.
Love the vids man just mad I just now found your channel
I had a cricket!!! Never could keep the engine cool enough to fly very long but back then it was super cool!
Great flash back video. I started with a cobra than upgraded to a king cobra. I than went to a Kalt baron alfa 2 after they closed. My local hobby shop still has a GMP legend hanging up. I started flying helicopters in the early to mid 80's.
Thanks for sharing 👍
Had many Hirobo Shuttles, a Kyosho Concept 30, even a Nexxus in the ‘90s. Now have assorted glow, gas and electric machines. At one point I had fourteen flyable helis
That’s a lot of birds.
Thank you for this. Bought my GMP Cobra in 1985 and still have it and enough parts to build another:).
Bob Gorham made it look easy, I saw him fly in 1982 in Pasadena at a trade show. He flew the Cricket flawlessly. My skills with my Cricket were less than his, by a huge margin.
Boy oh boy have these come a long way or what ?
Very nice video, a good snaphot of simpler and calmer times
These RC helicopters of the 80's seem to fly flawlessly (in this video). But I have heard that they were everything but easy to fly compared to todays flybarless helis. In 1986 I was 26 years old and was dreaming of flying RC helis but it took me almost 40 years until I finally started flying collective pitch helis in 2021 with 61 years! I can't turn the clock back but I am happy that I finally started - with your help and advise @John Salt. It's the best hobby ever!!
@RCCopterLove-helis4ever - I find flybared helicopters not much more difficult to fly than flybarless. The biggest game changer help back in 1989 when I got into the hobby, was putting in a mechanical tail gyro which did make them much more manageable.
I tried without a tail gyro at first (being young & stupid and trying to save money), and found it impossible to even hover as the tail was whipping all over the place and thus constantly changing orientations. Pretty much ready to give up at that stage and almost sold the heli.
Only after I fit a mechanical tail gryo (the Futaba FP-G154 to be exact), did the learning curve become enjoyable.
No idea if these GMP examples shown in this promo video were running mechanical tail gyros or not, but I suspect they had to be as I didn't see much tail movement which would certainly be the case without one, even for a pro-pilot of the day.
I actually still have that flybared Miniature Aircraft X-Cell 40 from 1989 that I started with, and fly it on occasion. My observation is a well setup flybared machined is just as stable in a hover as any FBL unit I currently fly. The caveat there is they (the helicopters) have to be fairly large for that good flybared hover stability (especially if windy) and no question flybared machines don't track on rails or respond as crisply as the flybarless ones.
If you ever get a chance to fly an older flybared machine, I would take advantage of the opportunity so you can feel the differences first hand. It's not as dramatic of a difference as many make it out to be, especially at lower flying speeds and while hovering, but no question - the feel when flying at speed and during aerobatics is substantially different and way more locked in. Yep, it's a great hobby isn't it! 👍
Pretty cool how they did that without modern electronics. Would quite like something like that just for retro value. I would probably smash it so will leave them for collectors, but who knows, sometimes people find forgotten things in sheds.
I still have my GMP Competitor....
Nice! As a kid, I used to go to my uncle's "landing" sites, picking up the parts. As an early FPV pilot, I like the crash resistance of my quads, and mourn the loss of skill due to flying camera platforms available to the consumer crowd..
This is like it’s been put on the showcase on the price is right
So John how tempted are you to find one of these vintage kits for a build?
I still have my Miniature Aircraft X-Cell 40 that I got in 1989. That is enough vintage for me :) Still flies great and admit, I miss the simplicity of the hobby from those days.
Classic style, I have a question for all comers; I am flying a14-year-old KDS 450 Heli, no flight controller just a basic Gyro, still flies great, however, I can't bind the KDS K-8X receiver to My TX16s mk1 running OpenTX 4n1, Suggestions on a good easy to bind receiver Please. Cheers Simon New Zealand
Any 6ch or higher RX with a protocol you like. Be that Spektrum DSM, FrSky, Futaba etc. A few I would gravitate toward (if I didn't want telemetry) would be:
- Lemon DSMP 7-Ch (DSMX DSM2 protocol).
- RadioMaster R86 6ch (FrSky D8 protocol).
- RadioMaster R86V2 6ch (FrSky D8 & Futaba S-FHSS protocol).
- Orange R615X (DSMX DSM2 protocol).
That of course just scratches the surface; with over a 100 protocols to choose from, you have an endless choice of small 6 to 7 channel RX's to choose from. For most making this decision, it comes down to what protocol/s you already use & trust and then stick with that/them.
@@Rchelicopterfun thank you very much such great advice, I'll get shopping. Thanks again for provoding such great content. 👍🏻
Id like to know what the competitions consisted of back then. Was smack 3d even a thing in the 80s?
Not a thing back then. Wooden blades with low power to weight ratios didn't allow it.
keeping it in the air was the competition. Mechanical stability, no FBL