Indoor mini electric R/C helicopters

[shooter521]

Who's got one? UPS dropped off my Syma mini-Chinook this afternoon, and I've spent the better part of this evening getting it trimmed up and flying.

For having a plastic body and weighing next to nothing, it really seems to tolerate bumps and hard landings well (the fold-down blades are a great idea). I practiced takeoffs and landings shuttling between the kitchen table and the coffee table in the living room, and did a few laps around the downstairs. It's a silly amount of fun for less than $30. My boy will be getting the mini-Apache for Christmas.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S026G-Channel-Helicopter-Army-green/dp/B005HN70GM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355196751&sr=8-1&keywords=Syma+mini+chinook]Amazon.com: Syma 16.5CM S026G 3.5Ch 3 Channel Mini Chinook RC Helicopter Gyro Small Toy Gift Army-green: Toys & Games[/ame]

[ame]http://youtu.be/lUH808HgsmM[/ame]

 

[michaelw2608]

I have two, a blade mcx and a walkera mini cp. The mini cp is pretty mean little machine. I love it. My dog on the otherhand hates it. He thinks its the devil.

The mini cp wasn't cheap, and is pretty much not flyable indoors.. aside from hovering. that thing is wild. youtube mini cp and you will see what I mean!

 

[techres]

Shooter521 would be the first of us with a drone...

 

[shooter521]

Shooter521 would be the first of us with a drone...

No, that honor would probably go to akaindy.

I'd love to hang a little key-fob USB video camera on this thing for recon purposes, but I doubt it could carry even that little weight (for a Chinook, its payload capacity sucks!).

Tomorrow night's lesson, flying up and down the stairs!

 

[Fenway]

Got the Apache here.

 

[Brandon]

I got a "cheapo" and am disapointed, if you try to hover it wants to either fall out of the sky because you aren't giving it enough power or it takes off in some direction other then what way you want it to go.

A friend told me a good one has a back rotor, mine does not. How true this is I do not know.

 

[AuntieBellum]

Tagged so Bubba can jump in later. He's more than a little into RC helicopters. My garage is littered with helicopter and plane pieces right now.

 

[Bubba]

Not exactly the mini ones, though I don't have any of the big toys either. I've had a Blade CX2 for years and it will fly inside if you're careful. I just recently purchased a Blade 300x and I'm getting pretty good at [strike]flying[/strike] repairing it. The 300 is way too big for indoor, as it will just barely hover in a 1.5 car garage, and would be more likely to decapitate the cat instead of annoying it if flown in the house proper. I'm kinda jonseing for a mCPx or nanoCPx to play with inside. Some of the guys over at Helifreak are doing some incredible scale models on the mCPx mechanics.

Post a pic of your Scale MCPX here - HeliFreak

 

[74J10]

My dad got the guys of a family an RC helicopter last year for Christmas so we had something to play with while all the grandkids played with their new toys (all the guys in my family are just grown up kids.) Ours had just the 2 counter rotating central blades. It was still a blast to fly in the house. It had a trim you had to adjust to get it to actually hover, and it was the slowest reacting thing ever. Really had to plan out what you were going to do. It was only like $20 though. Got me really wanting one with the tail rotor. The Chinook style would be good too as it should react a little better.

Sounds like I'm knocking the simple one, I'm not! Even the basic one we had was a blast, and you could control it pretty well after you got the hang of it.

 

[shooter521]

I got a "cheapo" and am disapointed, if you try to hover it wants to either fall out of the sky because you aren't giving it enough power or it takes off in some direction other then what way you want it to go.

I got a "cheapo" indoor heli from a department store as a gift a couple years ago, and it was so squirrelly as to be uncontrollable. The Syma "G" series have a built-in gyro; once you get it trimmed it's fairly stable. The one thing I don't like is the spring-loaded throttle stick; it defaults to the down/off position, which makes flying the thing more work than it needs to be. I've heard of guys taking the controller apart and removing the spring, thereby allowing the throttle to stay where it is set, but I don't know if I want to try that... yet.

I seem to be getting about 10 minutes of flight time on a ~1-hour charge. Once the battery gets low, the helicopter will lose the ability to gain lift and will start to just scoot along a few inches off the ground. When it starts to do that, it's time to recharge. Nice to have a warning, instead of the thing just dropping out of the sky.

A friend told me a good one has a back rotor, mine does not. How true this is I do not know.

The Chinook obviously has a back rotor. The other Syma helis have contra-rotating main blades, and a small horizontal rotor at the tail that takes the place of the collective (allows the tail to move up or down) for forward/backward flight.

 

[chezuki]

Havoc Micro. Super fun once you get the hang of it, and only $30.

 

[hoosierdoc]

I've had two $30 cheapos and love them. My kids adore them and want to fly them all the time. I like to land it on my fireplace mantel in front of the TV, on ceiling fan blades, do touch and go drops from 10' up, etc.

There was an amazing race episode where landing one on someone's helmet with a landing strip got you to skip to the end of the course. I would have been set!

 

[chezuki]

They're great for tormenting the cats.

 

[swanny]

I've played with several of them in my life ( well broke ) I've always found them hit or miss for stability no matter the price range. They all seem to end up dying due to crashes though.

 

[lovemachine]

Who's got one? UPS dropped off my Syma mini-Chinook this afternoon, and I've spent the better part of this evening getting it trimmed up and flying.

What do you mean by "trimmed up?"

These mini helicopters are on my Christmas list, and I didn't know you had to trim them?

 

[CTC B4Z]

I had the much bigger version of the chinook.... I took it about 75 feet in the air when it got sucked into a wind swirl... It went above some high tension towers and finally I shut it down... it landed 1/4 mile away from where we started.... it didnt make it...

 

[CTC B4Z]

What do you mean by "trimmed up?"

These mini helicopters are on my Christmas list, and I didn't know you had to trim them?

lol... not with scissors... like a boat motor, set the trim, angle...

 

[Delmar]

Indoor? Is that to say even a gentle breeze makes it too hard to control outside?

 

[iChokePeople]

Indoor? Is that to say even a gentle breeze makes it too hard to control outside?

For these little ones, pretty much.

 

[Delmar]

A lady at work told me she got one for her husband with a camera on it! The first thing I thought of was using it to check out targets from a distance. That would be more fun than a scope, I think.