This last weekend I finally said “uncle” and took my T-Rex to Hobby Warehouse in Richfield to get some help from the experts there and get my helicopter flying. There was a guy there, Rudy, who was awesome. He’s been flying RC helicopters for 12 years and has a T-Rex as well. He spent about 2 hours on my machine and got it working great!

The picture above is the helicopter I have. The picture doesn’t have the electronics on it, just the base frame and mechanical parts. After two hours with the pros it was going and I headed home to try on my own. The first encounter was not very successful – I never got off the ground but also didn’t have any major crashes.

The next day, Sunday, I took it to my father-in-laws for Easter. He’s been obsessed with heli’s as well. He emptied the garage so I we could play without the wind. After about a minute I took a hard landing and broke the base plate where the battery was connected. After we rigged a clothes hangar so I could strap the battery on we were flying again. After a while I got to the point where I could fly outside with a decent amount of wind. Until I had a decent crash at the end.

I ended up with a hard crash and a slew of parts needed. I broke the gears in two of my servos (Hitec HS-65HB), bent the tail, cracked the bottom plate, shredded the canopy. I got parts and spent last night fixing.

Tonight I went out and I was flying great! Hovering like a pro, things were really in control, until the very end. I was running low on battery and I came down too hard. The blades came down too far and one of the blades sheared right through my new carbon tail! Ouch!

The damage looks worse than from the weekend, but it’s all in the tail. I’m still in the phase where every trip off the ground with the heli is followed by a trip to the hobby shop. I’ll have to replace the tail, stabilizer bars and a couple other things. I should be flying again this weekend.