it's been a long absence

[808terry]

Hi All,

Some time ago, I crashed my heli and lost interest in the Belt CP. The main frame (carbon plates) and tail boom broke. I'm thinking about trying to fly again. Just wondering if its worth staying with the Belt CP? Or should I move on to another heli? Wife wanted to throw my broken heli away, but, I could not do it. So, it's hiding in the garage. Thanks in advance for your advice.

[copterboy]

Well I suppose it depends on how much you want to spend? I would also add about the increasing difficulty of finding e-sky spares, incase you do have any more bumps along the learning curve which is almost inevitable!!

To get a whole new platform is going to be a big investment,naturally. But when you think you will have to order e-sky spares here there and everywhere, and maybe doing a few mods along the way it will probably cost you the same as a new clone, and will waste time in the long term.

So if you can afford it, a new heli will cut alot of the cr&p out of re-building the belt. Otherwise, just take re-build slow and enjoy the learning curve.

[hellyflyer1]

I would recommend rebuild the Belt the spares are easily available on sites and ebay sellers. I am not sure why people moved on from a belt As it's the same deisgn as a the famous TT Raptor. I realy find it easy to repair and due to the extra linkages it keeps the servos safe. check out my belt videos on youtube search for "avohrarocks"

take care

[jperkosk]

I also don't know why we all moved away from Belt CP but it might have had to do with a fact that it was a relatively poor and sloppy design, fitted with piss poor electronics topped with rather expensive and hard to get spares. Other than that we all rather loved it

[CyprusDave]

Despite that, we all rather loved it. And we all get quite upset and protective when someone who never owned one starts to badmouth it!

[Highspeed1964]

I only recently (about 7 months ago) purchased my first collective pitch heli. It was this inexpensive model that already had newer versions released and was no longer in production but I thought, "eh, what the heck. It's cheaper and if I crash it no biggie."

You guessed it, I bought a Belt CP! A version 1 at that. Now my first couple of attempts at flying it nearly scared me away from the hobby altogether. I'm still hesitant to fly it but I love tinkering with it anyway. I guess I'm a mechanic at heart more so than a pilot.

But I've been flying the smaller stuff (mostly Blade MCPx and 130x) and have gotten fairly comfortable with that and am itching to get back to trying the Belt again. I admit, I'm taking it slow and am somewhat of a scaredy-cat when it comes to these things. But I digress....

Recently, I've been noticing that most of the usual sites are going out of stock on parts so I started searching on e-bay. I found a couple of sources that have most of the parts available and one of them (global.hobby by e-bay name) has BULK pricing. For example, one servo would cost $15 - 16 elsewhere but this place has 'em four for $14! Feathering shafts, main shafts, main gear (with or without one-way bearing), just about everything for the Belt CP. Just be careful to check that it's for your particular model (v1, v2, CPX, etc.) as some of the parts are not interchangeable between the models.

Soooooo.... silly tinkerer that I am, I got to looking at what I had on hand and after ordering all the spares I might need for the usual post crash repairs, I got to thinking that I might just about have enough parts to build a whole other helicopter. So I DID! Just needed a few parts more, including the main frame which I found on e-bay also and it had the bearings and tail drive gear already installed.

And I have also gone to using the Spekrum radios on my birds as all my Blade stuff already comes BNF for that radio. So I now have TWO Belt CPs, both flyable with my DX6i radio. I used the AR6210 (DSMX) for one and a cheaper AR6200 (DSM2) for my newly built bird. I love the AR6200 series radios as they have a second satellite receiver that runs the antennas at a 90 degree to the main ones for polarization purposes. (It also looks cool with the extra lights this puts on the heli to boot!)

Bottom line is that the ESKY birds are still a viable inexpensive starter, especially if you upgrade the radio system to a more reliable system. And the parts are still out there and available - especially the commonly replaced ones and these are available in bulk quantities for around the same price as a quantity of one would have cost in the past.

Hope this helps to encourage someone out there anyway.

[808terry]

Hi all,

Following your recommendation, I bought a used plastic frame and reassembled my Belt CP. I had to get a new lipo too. I am happy to report after a many hours of rebuilding the heli, that it's flying again. It has the stock plastic head and tail units and motor. Used frame also had the DTS modification. This time, I'll keep the training gear on for good.

So, if anyone wants the carbon frame pieces that are still good and metal purple colored parts and screws & blue spacers, PM me. You can have them att no charge.

Thanks again for your input. It's good to be in the air once again.