larrytoelle
Full Time Senior Member
Posts: 3735
Loc: Fort Jones, California .....
Reg: 01-20-03
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08-26-06 01:11 PM - Post#77111
In response to brett
Howdy Brett,
Welcome to Rotory ...
Interesting posts ... I too came into this hobby from a perspective of wanting to build the ultimate helicopter ... that was aout 5-6 years ago.
This can be a life-long hobby, or I certainly hope so. It seems nearly endless ... many different aspects of the hobby to explore ... skills to be acquired ... interests to be pursued.
Where do you start? That's a 64K question ... sounds like you've already started with your R/C cars ... BK also started there, as I recall.
From my perspective, you'll need a decent simulator to develop your flying "instinct." These birds are quick ... there's really no time to think about what to do ... you just have to learn to do it, without much fore thought. A decent computer and a decent simulator will give you the flying skills you'll need before attempting your first hover.
Personally, I started with inexpensive plastic 30 birds. The Raptor or Century Hawk are good training birds. They fly well, don't cost a lot, have reasonably priced replacement parts, and the flight characteristics are similar to the larger birds. I've gone through several of them. You can expect to wreck them regularly in the beginning.
Depending upon the time and money you have to devote to the hobby, you can expect at least 2 years before becoming reasonably proficient. That is, it'll take a while to learn the maneuvers, avoid regular crashes, pick up the building skills, etc.
After that, it will depend entirely upon what trips your trigger. 3D, FAI, scale, turbine, large electric, AP, etc.
It's a great hobby, with great and not so great people pursuing it. The internet provides and over-abundance of information ... some good, some bad. All-in-all ... a wonderful hobby and a wonderful escape from the ordinary.
LT
BTW ... the little electric birds ... like the TREX ... are a kick in the head ... but don't expect too much from them. The TREX ... IMHO ... is the first little electric to actually fly with characteristics beginning to approach those of the larger birds ... but even the TREX has a long way to go before it will fly like a decent 30 bird. Also, by the time you spend the bucks to get a decent TREX bird, you've spent more than you would on a good 30. That's my opinion only.
Edited by larrytoelle on 08-26-06 01:18 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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