Mini helicopters

I have bought several tiny helis over the years, but finally achieved success with an Air Hogs model. It has just one rotor and the tail rotor is in the "correct" orientation i.e. doesn't "lift" the tail to acheive forward motion.
It is 3 channel meaning that it can go up, down forwards or backwards, but must be turning about the rotor axis to change direction. This was the first model I have been able to fly until the battery went dead without crashing and I would highly recommend it. Retails for about $45 in Canada; probably cheaper in the US.

Manufactures have been using gyros in a lot of these cheap helicopters lately and it makes a world of difference. My dad bought a Syma S107G (The "G" is for gyro) and it was totally different. The gyros kept it locked in position, and flew as if it were riding on rails. It charges in two ways, from the controller or via the USB cable, so you don't drain six AA batteries. The best part is you can purchase replacements for every part on it. It's a great value for a sub - $20 heli.

http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S107-S107G-Helicopter-Colors/dp/8499000606

I have a few co-workers who have the Syma helicopters. They know I fly RC helis, and ask me what I think of them. I usually tell them that they're okay for toys, but they should go ahead and get a Blade MCX for $79.00 at the local hobby shop. Yeah, it's two or three times as expensive as the 3 channel micros, but everyone I know who flies the 3 channel jobs always ends up going through three or four helis. And the batteries don't last that long, either in flight duration or battery longevity. With the Blade helis, you get four axis control, longer flight times, and replaceable batteries. The batteries can be bought online for a couple of bucks each, and you can have one on charge while you're flying the heli on another. So you get more flights in a session as well. And you don't replace the heli with new ones as often as my co-workers seem to. The $79.00 is a better deal in the long run, to me. I have about twenty hours of flight time on my first eFlight micro heli, a Blade MCX-300. I don't fly it as much these days, as I have so many other little helis when I want to take a few minutes to fly, but it's still going strong when I want to fly it. Of the 10 model memory available on my Spektrum DX-6i, six are for eFlight Blade helis.

The Blade Fanboy Mark

How hard is it to fly the Blade MCX? Does it basically work like one of these mini 3 channels?

Not hard at all - you can be flying comfortably in an evening's time. Like yours, they are coaxial and utilize gyros. The main difference is they are four channels rather than three - the MCX is equipped with a swash plate that gives you full cyclic control. Yaw will be removed from your right stick and controlled horizontally by the left stick, and cyclic sideward flight will be added to you right stick.

The change in control layout can throw you off if you've been flying that way for a while, but it shouldn't be a big issue. If you've flown RC, you know that three channel radios work the same way.

I find it much easier. To go left or right, you give it left or right cyclic and it goes left, rather than having to turn left and fly that way, then turn back to the original heading. It flies more like a real helicopter than the 3 channels do. I can't fly helicopters like I'm flying an R/C car.

Oh, and add a half hour to my MCX-S300 flight time. This thread motivated me to fly another half hour on my micro.

The Motivated Mark

Here's jr.'s latest project, he had a friend "print" the "chassis" and he plans on using a Mobius camera, sold his GoPro.

The MCX is one easy flying heli and durable too a great learning tool for helis it is also a cat magnet as well lol. I haven't done much with the micro's since I fly the larger variety, Align T-Rex 600N which is a .50 size heli. and have had a couple of 90 size birds too in the past (Hirobo Freya X-spec and bergen
Intrepid) If you ever want to try a larger one a sim is a good investment and will pay for its self in saved broken heli parts. Anyway I have never been able to fly the 3 channel micro's. Throws me off big time since i'm used to the more advanced setups lol here's a pic of my Trex;

Sorry for the pic quality was taken with my Sony handicams still setting (Bandit)

That's a (big) cool piece of machinery!