Heavy Lifting

[BubbaJoeLouis]

Greetings,

I have just gotten into flying helicopters in the past few weeks. I bought a Blade CP at the hobby shop. I enjoy the challenge of learning to fly and the surprise of learning you've improved.

But I think this Blade CP might be harder to fly than something bigger. I would like to get a full size nitro but I am nowhere near getting into 3D stuff. One thing I usually do is attach cameras and video cameras to things (such as rockets) and I would like to do the same with a nitro helicopter.

Can you recommend what I could get that would have the lifting power, and hovering stability I would need? I think a 30 size might be too small, and a 90 size might be too expensive (unless I am wrong here ;). Most of the kits I see are "Outrageous 3d Performance!!" which sounds to me like its harder to fly. Please bear in mind I only know what the 3rd issue of rchelimag has taught me.

I have been working with my Blade CP in the living room (very hard!) and I just got RealFlight 3 and have been flying the Impala .30. I can hover like crazy as long as the tail faces me. I am working on hovering at different angles.

[tdswan]

First off, Welcome to the hobby!
Second: You don't need to be a 3D guru to justify flying a nitro heli. I learned on a Raptor 50V2. It's a LOT easier than flying the Blade CP. The big issue is the commitment you want to make to the hobby. I jumped in both feet first. Some guys like to dabble to get their feet wet and then decide to go on to a bigger bird from there. It's all fine and well whichever way you want to go, but the small birds are MUCH harder to fly than their bigger brothers. This now brings me to the camera part. If you've just got a little 2.4Ghz mini cam, the Blade will probably lift it. Some other, higher performance birds like the T-Rex and Shogun will definately lift it easier. Even a 50 size nitro will surprise you on how much it will lift. You can strap a camera mount and a good sized camera or even a Hi 8 palm camera on it and it shouldn't groan too much, I haven't tried it yet, but I'm currently building a mount. I have read out there of a lot of guys who do. You won't even know that the little mini 2.4 Ghz cam is there on a 30 if that's as far as you want to take it.

Good luck on your choice. If you're going into nitro, try to find someone close-by to help you with the setup. A good teacher is worth his weight in gold.

[cyclic fever]

My caliber 30 can handle 3.3lbs I would think a 50 to take 4 or 5lbs comfortably and my Bergen Observer gasser can handle 10lbs or more but would be hairy to have to auto down if the engine quit with more than a 10lb payload. Mike

[BubbaJoeLouis]

Wouldnt the excessive smoke from a nitro engine fog up your video?? It is making me consider going with a gasser. Are there any exhaust extentions to get the smoke away from the camera?

Thanks!
BJL
;)

[tdswan]

I once put some fuel line (automotive line) from my muffler and routed it down the tailboom. Only tested it once, but it seemed to work OK. Make sure you drain the muffler after every flight. That's the only fear I'd have with flying it that way. Oil pools up in the muffler and too much can feed back into the engine. I can only assume running the fuel line would probably hamper performance, too.

[Motoman8504]

Bubba, you hit a real interesting topic there with how much lifting power you can get out of different birds. But first of all, I have to definetly agree with tdswan on the whole blade CP thing. It is much harder to fly a blade cp than say a Raptor or something similar. About two weeks ago a friend of mine wanted to get into helis so he bought a blade cp and I've been teaching him how to fly some but he hasn't gotten much success. I flew it before he did to make sure everything was ok and even I think it is hard to fly and I'm doing 3D on my Raptor. There are many reasons why it's so much harder to fly but some are that it is so small and lightweight, the gyro isn't HH, and the when the battery is full the nose will tend to drift in one direction and when the battery gets low it will tend to drift in the opposite direction. I think the main reason they market them as beginner helis or for beginner pilots is because they are so inexpensive.

About the whole lifting subject, I think you'd be surprised at just how much a Raptor 30 can lift. Here is a link to website that documents Nigel Fraser's attempt at the record for longest flight. In order to do that he had to lift almost a full gallon of fuel!! :eek: Check it out.

http://fraserker.com/records/nigels_story/