Starting out on a CP bird

[jmtyndall]

Seems like everyone around me is recommending a coax-FP-CP progression. The justification is that you progress slowly, parts are cheaper, and you can feel out the hobby. My eventual goal is to fly a 450CP heli, and it seems like the other heli's will just teach bad habits, such as dumping the left stick in case of a crash. On a CP bird that will just cause more damage. My question is, is it reasonable to start out with a micro sized CP? The Nano CPX and mCPX are regarded as being very durable, and with a DX6i, can be tamed down a bit, and paired with a sim.

A little more about me. I flew a coax for a couple months a year ago, and liked it, which is why I'm still wanting to fly. I'll be self taught, there isn't a club nearby, or any heli pilots that I know of to teach me. I'm mechanical, and methodical, so I don't mind going through the setup for a CP heli. I live in the Sacramento Valley, so there is almost always wind, which leaves outdoor flying a FP or Coax out of the picture. I do have a small indoor space I could use for hovers, but any sort of forward flight etc is out of the picture.

[Sky Blue Lou]

You can learn on an MCPX - skip the FP. Buy some spares - feather shafts, main shafts and gears, skids and tail booms. Have at it. You'll wreck a lot but that's part of the game. Having been there, done that (still doing it) I would recommend going outdoors or in a two-bay garage at least where you can just launch the thing and catch it once airborne. Trying to hover up slow in the living room just don't woik.

[Imzzaudae]

Going the Coaxial fixed pitch, flight simulator and collective pitch rout gives newcomers to the hobby time to acquire the hand eye coordination required to fly faster more agile helicopters in a step buy step fashion.

That being said. If you where to pick up a good quality simulator like Real Flight and practice takeoffs landings hovering forward flight and turns these skills are directly transferable! But it is important that you take your time and give yourself lots of time!

Stick to the larger helicopters in the simulator so you can see them. And zoom in so you can see the helicopter! Nothing worse than trying to fly a spot.

Then once you can handle the simulator consider an MCPX.
Nano is ok but it's pretty much an indoor helicopter!

MCPX is a small very capable outdoor helicopter you can take to the school yard power up and fly. You will love it.

Please take some time to read,
MCPX setup service and flying links for newbies
https://www.helifreak.com/showthread.php?t=506789

Hope this helps you.
Ron

[jmtyndall]

I do plan on getting a sim, and also doing the RADD flight school path. Maybe mixing in the mikeysrc videos on YouTube. Definitely intend on getting a dx6i, especially if I jump straight to a CCPM heli. Thanks for the link, I'll start there.

More opinions welcome too

[ACITceva]

I'm currently learning to fly collective pitch on an mCPx V2 so I just wanted to add my experience in case it would be useful.

I started with a toy 3-channel Coaxial. It wasn't really helpful for much other than for getting the "feel" of how much pressure to apply to an RC stick such that you don't bounce it off the ceiling and walls etc. Once I had that down rather quickly it became boring but it sort of sparked the interest in the hobby for me.

I bought a fixed pitch Blade mSR which was a ton of fun. It felt far more serious than a coaxial which helped add to my confidence and I got some exposure to the mechanical workings of RC helicopters. It helped with orientation and because it was so safe indoors I could fly it a LOT conveniently.

I purchased Clearview simulator and started to fly some of the various collective pitch helicopters in it including the mCPx. I fully recognize that this software maybe isn't as good as the full blown commercial sims out there but it was fun and it gave me my first real exposure to collective pitch flight.

I bought an mCPx and a Dx6i. I've been flying it for about 3 weeks now and it's certainly not easy but every flight I get a little bit better and gain a little more confidence. Some crashes at first but this heli is durable and it tends to come out fighting and I think that's a key point. I've not had to deal with the frustration of early, expensive repairs and that helps dial down some of the stress involved.

One thing I will say though - I may or may not have been able to skip the fixed pitch mSR but what I could never have skipped was the simulator time. Without that I would never have developed the understandings of CP flight that allowed me to make even basic decisions about control inputs once the helicopter got into the air. It happens so fast that the academic concepts you learn quickly go out the window and you kinda just have to "know" what to do. Without the sim I would have crashed over and over and over and broken something and got frustrated and quit.

Now.. as for bad habits. The 3-channel coaxial definitely formed bad habits and I had to stop flying it as soon as I bought the mSR because it was messing me up. I've never flown a 4-channel coaxial so I can't speak for that. The mSR didn't really form bad habits other than the throttle down/hold issue but you can make yourself sort that out without too much effort. I still fly it whenever I get a chance because its fun and stress free in the living room. Personally, I'm glad I didn't skip the mSR,

[jmtyndall]

I went to the local hobby store today, and talked to one of the sales people. He flew around an MSR and a Nano for me so I could see the difference. Those things are TINY in person, look like fun to work on. He recommended the Nano for durability over the MCPX, and said there would be little to no difference in feel, or wind handling by the two. Found out they carry Blade and Align, so I'll be sticking to those helis. He was pushing towards the MSR and let me try out the helis on the sim. I crashed...a lot, but was able to hover, not very stable, for about 45 seconds at a time. Ironically, I found the MCPx and the Align 450 easier to hover in the sim than the MSRx. The, "self-stabilization" that the guy said was good for beginners only seemed to be fighting me. Also, tried out the MCX2, and while I could see why people like it for orientations, I found myself having to bang the sticks around to get the heli to do anything.

With all that said, I have a used DX6i on the way, and I think that my reward for being able to hover in all orientations on the sim, will be an MCPx

[ACITceva]

Originally Posted by jmtyndall

With all that said, I have a used DX6i on the way, and I think that my reward for being able to hover in all orientations on the sim, will be an MCPx

From my limited experience that's probably a good choice. If you can hover an mCPx in all orientations in the sim than you're probably not really going to learn anything useful at this point from the mSR. But again - the mSR is a ton of fun for flying in the house/apartment and it won't break stuff or injure people (or make girlfriends angry).

[Stubbz]

mcpx is better in wind than nano and do not use any of the micros in the sim they feel nothing like the real helis, fly only larger helis in the sim, do not use those to judge what model to buy.

[jmtyndall]

Got myself a used mcpx before my dx6i even showed up! Still going to get hovering down before I fly it. Cant get a sim right now, so I'll be trying out helisim when my transmitter shows up

[Bubbasanjohn]

How far are you from woodland/Davis? There is a strong club there the woodland/Davis aeromodelers. Nice field too. Might be worth the drive there to meet some people and find out about thoer heli scene.

I went straight into trex 450s with no other stepping stone. With a sim and some training gear I am now flying around my field in about a month.

Best of luck on your heli journey.

[Bubbasanjohn]

How far are you from woodland/Davis? There is a strong club there the woodland/Davis aeromodelers. Nice field too. Might be worth the drive there to meet some people and find out about thoer heli scene.

I went straight into trex 450s with no other stepping stone. With a sim and some training gear I am now flying around my field after about a month.

Best of luck on your heli journey.

[jmtyndall]

30 mins roughly from Woodland. Rumors are that there's a club flying at a field out by Rancho Cordova golf course too, but haven't met anyone with any details.

[Bubbasanjohn]

Really should look up the club I mentioned. Field is on rt 29 iirc. You will progress so much with some experienced help on set ups etc.