Which helicopter?

Globally, there are lots of good helicopters to choose from. It all depends on mainly how much you want to spend and how easy it is to get support

When you're looking to buy a helicopter, you've got to take into account a number of things. Some of these are:

How much it costs.
Obviously important in any purchasing decision.

What support exists for it.
Who is the dealer for this particular model? What's their reputation like?

How much do the parts cost?
Eventually you're going crash. How much is it going to cost to put the machine together again? How quickly are the parts available?

Local knowledge.
It's always a good idea to get a helicopter that others at your field are familiar with. That way when you have problems, they'll be able to assist you.

Build quality.
What's this helicopter's reputation? Does it fit with the kind of flying style you see yourself doing in the future?

There are different sizes of helicopter too. The size relates to the size of the engine in the helicopter. We'll discuss these now:

Small Electrics (T-Rex, Honeybee, Hornet etc)
Everyone who is new to helicopters thinks these would be a great thing to get started on because they’re ‘cheap’ and small and you can buy them in toy stores. They’re in actual fact, a terrible way to get started in helicopters!

The problem is they’re too small and generally the larger the helicopter, the easier they are to fly. Also, the cheaper ones are generally not put together very well which means they’ll fail a lot or do unpredictable things which when you’re learning you just don’t need. Plus for the more expensive ones like T-Rexes, you can spend as much getting a T-Rex going as you would a Raptor 50.

Don’t get me wrong, little electrics can be awesome fun once you’ve learned how to fly, but don’t try and get started on one.

30 Size (Raptor 30, JR Venture 30, Hirobo Sceadu 30 etc)
Back in the old days of 2001 when I started flying, 30’s were relatively common place.  A 30 is about as small a nitro powered helicopter as you can get.

30’s are usually powered by OS 32’s and 37’s or Thunder Tiger engines.  Usually they run about 550mm blades. They’re usually pretty cheap to repair depending on the model.

But, I still wouldn’t recommend you buy one for your first model.

The reasons are:

- You can grow out of a 30 very quickly once you move into forward flight.

- The costs of repairing a 50 are not much more (often the same) as a 30.

- It can be expensive to upgrade a 30 to a 50.

50 Size (Raptor 50, JR Airskipper 50, Hirobo Sceadu 50 etc) Now these machines are where it’s at.  Everyone needs a 50 in their hangar because they’re so much fun to fly!  Basically they’re not much bigger than a 30 but with a LOT more power and they don’t cost much more to setup and fix.

A 50 can be setup to be a docile learning machine and then later on turn into a radical 3D beast.

The great thing about 50’s is you don’t grow out of them, I still love flying them and sometimes I even prefer playing with 50’s to 90’s because there’s less stress and mental effort involved with a 50.

I absolutely recommend getting a 50 to get started on.

50’s are most commonly powered by OS 50’s and Thunder Tiger 50’s.

90 Size (Raptor 90, JR Vibe, MA Stratus, Hirobo Freya, Synergy N9 etc)
The 90’s are the big boys on campus.  Much bigger than a 50, they’re significantly more expensive to setup and fix.  However, you get a lot of grunt!  A 90 uses up a lot of sky as they climb harder, go faster and accelerate very quickly.

You’ll notice straight away how much ground 90’s will cover in a short space of time and in most cases, how much easier they are to fly than smaller helis because they’re much bigger.

Generally people buy 90’s once they’ve come to grips with flying a smaller helicopter, however if you’re not worried about spending money it’s not unheard of (but it’s still pretty rare) for some people to learn to fly on 90’s.

Petrol (Gassers) powered (MA Spectra, JR Voyager etc)
These are 90 sized machines with petrol engines in them (nomally Zenoah G23 variants). 

Gassers are great because they are just SO cheap to run.  You would be lucky to use $5 of petrol during a whole day of flying, whereas you’ll burn through $5 worth of nitro fuel each flight on a 90.

The other cool party trick of a gasser is the flight time they get on each tank of gas.  A nitro powered 90 will generally burn 500mls in 10 minutes, 500mls in a gasser can last you 30 minutes or more!

The downside to gassers is that they are heavy and generally underpowered, however if all you’re doing is generally flying with smooth aerobatics then you’ll have no problems.

Gassers however make brilliant scale machines because they make no smoke, have and have a tonne of torque.  If you think you’re going to get into large scale models, then a gasser could be for you.

Gassers are also the helicopter of choice for those who are doing aerial photography, once again because they emit no smoke, very cheap to run, and they’ll run for a lot longer than 10 minutes on a tank of gas.

Turbines
Turbine power plants have really come along in the last few years, now you can get much more power with must less fuel consumption from an engine that is much smaller than the equivalent power plant from three years ago.

However they’re still very expensive to purchase, but they have great cool factor.  They’re the ultimate platform for scale, nothing beats the sound and smell of a turbine howling away.

For aerobatics, there’s a couple of machines around that will do proper aerobatics.  I’ve flown the Jetcopter which is a helicopter I’d never recommend to anyone and I’ve also flown the Robbe Cuatro turbine conversion marketed by Turbine Technics which is a great machine, if I were to ever own a turbine, it’d be one of these.

Summary
Make your first helicopter a Raptor 50.  You’ll be able to learn to hover on it as well as do severe 3D when it comes time to.  You can find parts for these all over the world and they’re the best value for money heli around.

Buy a Raptor 50 and move on from there if you want to.  Do not buy a small electric like a Honeybee etc thinking you'll be able to learn well on one of those, it will just frustrate you.  Buy the Raptor.