Anyone fly RC Helocopters?

[DF400ex]

So I wanted to learn to fly these things but I leave for Iraq in less than a week so I do not have time to buy a trainer model. Instead I went and bought the E-Flite Blade CP Pro. It's electric and is fully 3D so it can do all the aerobatics.

Here's the problem though, I cannot even get it to hover. It says that it's all set up from the factory. I have gone through 2 wood blade sets in 2 days. The shop said to use flat bottom plastic blades to learn so I tried them. They were working alright until one struck my tail boom and broke it in half.

I have the "training wheels" on it so I do not crash as much.

My buddy bought the trainer model yesterday and I can fly that like a pro. I'm frustrated at this thing. I'm just going to buy a crap load of parts and learn in my off time overseas.

Any tips? What do you guys fly and how long did it take you to learn?

[F-16Guy]

It's not the cheapest option, but you may want to invest in a flight simulator like Real Flight G3. It is very realistic and you use an actual controller, so you can learn the proper stick inputs. You can crash over and over and it won't cost you an extra dime. A helicopter is by far the hardest R/C vehicle to learn to operate. I don't have a heli, but a lot of people have told me that it's much easier to learn on a larger, nitro powered heli. Electrics are much more twitchy and unstable. If you wanted something fun and easy that you could work on your control skills with, I would get a Blade CX or similar co-axial rotor heli. The co-axial rotors cancel each other's torque, eliminating the tourque induced yaw that makes a regular heli so hard to fly. You can literally be an expert with a co-axial heli in about a day. Are you Army, Marine, AF? Be safe over in the desert!!

[DF400ex]

Thanks for the input. I am seriously thinking about the flight simulator. I'm sick of replacing parts, lol. They are not to expensive, it only cost me 15 to replace my whole tail when my rotor hit it.

My buddy bought a CX yesterday and in one battery's worth of flying I was a pro. They are mad easy and I've flown them before. This CP Pro is a pain to learn on. I've heard that you can adjust so it reacts slower and is easier to hover.

A friend of mine in my unit has one and he's going to teach me how to fly it properly when we are deployed. I'm in The Army and my unit is a Civil Affairs Battalion. This is some of our 4th time getting deployed since OEF 1, lol. This will make my 2nd time which will bring me to 2 years deployed in the last 3.

[mephyst]

I have the CX and the CP Pro.

I started off with the flight simulator and also mastered the CX in a couple days. I even learned to fly it outside.

The CP Pro is A LOT harder to fly. What I found easier was to just get it off of the ground (at least 3 feet). Bring it up to your eye level and it makes it a lot easier to fly. I have still by no means mastered it, but I can finally get it to at least hover for a little bit. Flying it around is the easy part, but keeping it stable is hard. Good luck.