On February 9 of this year, I bought a remote-controlled micro helicopter, the Syma 107G, for $17 at a discount store near our house in one of the cities comprising the East Bay of California.
I had so much fun flying this 7-1/4 inch long toy which I had mastered in just a few minutes. And this was when my obsession began. I ventured into aerodynamics, physics, chemistry, and microelectronics. And countless Google searches.
To start with, I had a brief fling with R/C back in 1982 when I was a contract worker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. To kill my boredom, I bought the glow-powered Cox Cessna Centurion set, the radio system (made by Sanwa of Japan for Cox), and the maintenance kit, all for about $300.
I had memorable days flying this molded-foam glider (powered by the Cox 0.049 ORC engine) in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, especially when the wind was almost at a stand-still during the hottest months.
Fast-forward to 2004. The guy I purchased an Apple PowerMac G4 from somewhere in Lodi, CA, just gave me all his truck R/C stuff, including all accessories & transmitters – – for free!
As a concession to his generous gesture, I bought his still-in-the-box HobbyZone Firebird Commander ready-to-fly (RTF) R/C plane for $30. He informed me that he only flew it once and crash-landed without damage. The set also included a brand-new, molded-foam wing – as spare – for this beginner’s R/C glider.
I played with the R/C truck – powered by a ROAR-approved, 4000Kv brushless motor that ran on Dyna-Sport 1700 mAh NiCd batteries – for a few days with my niece and just got bored with a land-based R/C afterward.
The beauty of R/C airplanes & helis – let alone flying a kite – as a hobby is that it seems you’re also trying to control your destiny. Nothing can compare to the feeling you get when you have that plane or heli up in the air and that you’re now using your skills to command it to the direction you want it to go. It’s simply exhilarating!
After getting my feet wet again in R/C with the Syma 107G heli, I bought E-Flite’s RTF Blade 450 3D. The set came with Spektrum’s DX6i transmitter – a popular 2.4GHz, 6-channel programmable radio. It is compatible with newer R/Cs using six (6) channels or less) – with the glorious thought that I could quickly fly it outside my backyard.
I was wrong; that was lesson #1: The Syma 107G is co-axial while the Blade 450 is a collective pitch helicopter.
A collective pitch heli has a single set (if you consider a pair of blades to make one straight helicopter blade) of non-curved rotor blades. Changing the blades’ angles by tilting them along the longitudinal axis lifts the heli. Hence, the altitude is governed by how much pitch you apply to the rotor blades while in flight.
A co-axial helicopter is the easiest to fly since it has two sets of rotor blades that spin in opposing directions. Hence, the torque generated by the spinning blades cancels each other out, resulting in a very stable helicopter.
But, all this type of heli can do is hover up & down, move forward & backward, and forward flight is generally on lower altitudes. You can’t bank the heli as it makes a turn.
My attempts – both inside & outside the house to hover my Blade 450 3D a few feet in the air resulted in costly trips to several hobby stores – to replace damaged rotor blades, main gear, and just about all the small parts above the swashplate.
Frustrated and humbled, I Googled to find out what would be the easiest way to fly a collective pitch heli without having to learn the technical details – I just wanted to get one up in the air & control it!
I was so wrong again, and this was my lesson #2: You can’t learn to fly a collective pitch R/C helis unless you’re willing to learn & understand the underlying science and art of the hobby.
During my continuing education, I also purchased John Salt’s e-book “Setup & Tips For Electric Collective Pitch RC Helicopters.” I tried as best I could to understand all the new terminologies and jargon in this now getting-to-be-complex-and-expensive hobby.
So on February 23, I purchased the E-Flite Blade SR (RTF) – there is no BNF (Bind and Fly) version – plus an assortment of extra parts at a HobbyTown branch in Vacaville.
Learning from my Blade 450-3D fiasco, I also ordered the Phoenix RC Flight Simulator V3 from Amazon to hone my flying skills on a computer screen before I even attempted to hover the new Blade SR.
Wrong again, and that was lesson #3: A simulator can help you learn how to control your transmitter and pilot your model heli. But, in the real world, no flight simulator can genuinely recreate the environment you’re flying your model R/C.
And so, just as I had with the Blade 450, my dream of simply hovering a collective pitch with my new Blade SR (which E-Flite touted as “the heli to make your transition to a collective pitch as smooth as possible“) ended with “shattered results” also.
I broke the wooden 325 mm rotor blades, bell mixer & pushrods and almost broke my right middle finger when I tried to stop the erratic heli while spooling it up.
Back to the drawing board, I assumed I was trying to fly a big-sized CP heli too fast.
So, why not try a small collective pitch heli – so I can even try practicing with it inside the comforts of the house?
And so, on March 3, I went to a discount hobby shop – Low Price Hobbies – in Newark, CA, and purchased the E-Flite Blade mCP X2 (BNF version), plus an assortment of spares for the Blade SR.
I also bought an aluminum case for my Blade 450 3D. I knew it would take some time to fly this bird, so I wanted it protected from the elements.
The Blade mCP X2 is a small collective pitch heli that measures about 9.5 inches in length. It is also flybarless, so it only weighs about 46 grams.
A typical collective pitch heli comes with a mix of the Bell & Hiller rotor heads, which has a flybar. It is oriented 90-degree to the main rotors. The flybar helps stabilize the heli by changing the pitch angles of the main rotors in gusty wind conditions.
By removing the flybar and placing all the servos in a single system board, E-Flite made the mCP X2 very light.
And so, was I successful in, at least, hovering this ultra-micro collective pitch heli?
Yes, I was, but the duration of all my attempts never even lasted a full minute.
It takes a finely tuned transmitter –pitch & throttle curve and all other crucial transmitter settings – plus a very steady hand to deftly guide a CP heli.
