Hi if your new to Radio Control Helicopters don’t worry.

I started flying radio control helicopters in 1990. The first few helicopters i owned where purchased due to the low price. This turned out to be a BIG mistake and costly. Most of the less expensive helicopters cant takes you through to the stages you really want to go. Buying a decent model helicopter from the onset that will go with you right through to 3D flying (if that’s your goal of course) is probably going to work out less expensive as the type of models that initially are bought by learners wont do this.

Now lets face it we are all going to crash from time to time and we want to be sure we can get the spare parts right!. Then chose a well-known model that is well supported, not a model that you can’t seem to find the spares for but is cheap to buy.

Why fly electrics? Well I prefer them due to the ease of use. Whenever I am out for the day i put my model helicopter and a couple of li poly batteries in the car and if I choose to park fly then it's out of the car quickly and within a few minutes i am flying and i must add QUIET flying. I have had Raptor's in the past and i found it restrictive to just park up and have a quick fly around, due to the starting of the heli and the NOISE that people don’t want to hear. Electric flight is just as enjoyable as gas-powered machines.  

Top Tips ?

The general rule of thumb is this using a pinion with fewer teeth will allow the motor to spin bigger rotor dia's or apply more collective pitch without bogging down the motor and keeps it running cooler, this usually leads to longer flight times longer motor life and lower rotor speed.

Using a pinion with more teeth will spin the main rotor faster but the motor can easily bog down and lose rpm when collective pitch is prescribed and the motor will usually run hotter, this can lead to high performance and shorter flight times and potentially shorter motor life if the motor is pushed to it's limits. This is equivalent to driving a car in high gears all of the time.

For beginners and average pilots if you are suing a 3400kv motor then an 11T pinion is ideal with a 2,200 rotor speed is perfect for the 3dx 450 and t rex models. If you have a 3400 to 3600Kv motor and try a 15T pinion your helicopter will feel like it's on steroids at 2900 rpm and should only be flown by experienced pilots only!!

110 to 120'c is considered normal after 3D flights and if your getting up to 140'c Plus for your brush less motor your pushing it too hard.

You should consider buying an infrared temperature gun (maplins) to measure after flight motor and battery temps.

Also do not repeatedly fly again and again battery after battery on your heli motor without a full cool down period as this will lead to failure of the motor even fire!

Why CNC . Well i personally like the engineering that goers in to the CNC manufactured helicopters. Some people prefer the plastic models but for me it's the metal and carbon fibre that floats my boat. Just look at the engineering here.  

Finally I fly full size machines Enstrom Shark for my other hobby. I am fascinated by all that is Helicopter and have the flying bug 150%. I hope you choose to fly model helicopters as well and gain the great satisfaction that hovering and flying your model around the skies has given me. It certainly made me want to try the real thing many years back.

Flying your Helicopter

DO GET SOME SIMULATION EXPERIANCE FIRST IF YOUR TOTALLY NEW TO MODEL HELICOPTERS.

Sportsmoto suggest that you should wait to fly the model for real until  you can confidently fly around in the simulator, land safely. This will help in the event of an emergency!

• Attach training gear on your heli
• Get someone to test fly the Helicopter first to check controls etc
• Practice doing small hops up to 5 inches, trim the helicopter if you can .don't adjust your trim in the air unless you are very confident. Drifting to the left (in USA helicopters) is normal and results from the tail rotor thrust which you can compensate for by putting a very-very slight right-bank in just after takeoff, but this is different than pitching. If your helicopter banks, yaws or pitches by itself you need to compensate with trim.
• Practice hovering from 5 inches to 1 foot. Be prepared for gusts of wind will increase the effectiveness of your rotorblades and make your helicopter climb fast. Don't overreact and slam it into the ground. Slowly lower the collective and gradually bring it back down. Be prepared for the wind to stop and the helicopter to descend more quickly. Again, don't over-react and send it launching into the sky. Just take it easy and if it gets "on top of you" don't touch anything but a little forward cyclic for 1 or 2 seconds. Eventually it will fly out in front of you, level off and use back cyclic as needed to stop, and then level off again.
• Adjust gyro as needed to stop wagging or tail swaying when you adjust power.
• Practice hovering out of ground effect. At least 3 feet up, and hold it steady, the wind will really affect the height at this level.
• Get used to how responsive the collective is. Give it a few SMALL taps. You want to get used to NOT over-correcting with the left stick. This is hard, most people want to move the stick all the way down when they get in trouble, this is bad, and this s lams the heli into the ground. Get used to merely lowering the collective 1/4 way down or so.
• Practice walking the heli around. Follow at a safe distance behind it and make it go places slowly. Be careful not to step in any holes.
• Practice turning the heli a little bit to the right and left. Get used to the perspective in real life. The sim experience only helps.
• Practice flying the heli out and back (tail in both ways)
• Practice a little side to side slow-flying
• Practice doing left / right turns in front of you while flying back and forth. Almost like a figure-8, but always keeping the tail in a little. Basically, just fly the helicopter sideways to the left and right, in front of you, then start adding rudder so instead of flying sideways back and forth, the nose leads the turn a little. The helicopter will never turn with JUST the rudder or JUST the cyclic. You need to use both the same time.
• Practice turning the heli towards you a little more
• Practice doing small, very slow, circles. This is difficult
• Flying left to right is easier than flying in and out. Start doing this
• Don't fly with the sun near the horizon. It gets hard to see the attitude
• Practice hovering a little bit higher, say 9 - 20 feet. Don't force it back down, lower the collective a little bit at a time. If it starts to sink rapidly, raise the collective slow at first and slowly raise it faster until it stops falling. Star t lowering it again and do a slow, controlled descent. If you descend to quickly you will enter your own down wash and the helicopter will pull itself into the ground and need considerable collective to compensate. This is a bad condition.
• Practice doing a little bigger circuits but keep the speed down.
• Now Your ready to take the training gear off. They're slowing you down and you're probably developing bad habits by using them for visual cues
• After you take the training gear off, start all over again, because it's much more responsive now and much more difficult to see, however, it will fly much better.
• Practice subtle 180 stalls and figure-8's
• Practice going faster and slowing down
• Practice transitioning from fast forward flight to landing. We all had a lot of trouble getting the helicopter anywhere near me by the time it was hovering
• Practice in a little more wind... wind really makes a 30 size jump around, be on top of it!
• Practice controlled flight. Try to make the helicopter go exactly where you want it to. Take more control of the sticks
• Practice "mini-autos" where you hit the throttle hold at 3 or 4 feet to send the engine to idle. The helicopter will drop suddenly, but don't over react and pop it up into the sky or you'll use up all your momentum and it will really drop like a rock. It would be better just to let it land itself if you're unsure about how much collective. Start with a little and work your way up and try to use up all the blade speed touching down at the last second.
• Practice doing nose-in landing approaches and hovering at many different aspects
• Practice "fake-autos" where you don't use the throttle hold at all, just bring it in as fast and hot as possible with the collective as low as you can, to simulate a emergency decent. Stop the helicopter at 8 feet up in a hover and do it some more.
• Practice the "mini-autos" from 6 feet, no lower than that. You should have enough rpm in a hover to softly touch down from a 6ft power loss.
• Practice aborting autos, where you hit the throttle hold up high and "glide" on in, but abort at about 10 feet by unflicking the throttle hold.

You're ready to try a whole auto. Autorotating in 10 to 20 mph wind is the easiest because forward speed makes the blades lift better. Start your auto with power and get 15mph of forward speed, hit the hold switch and keep the nose down 15 degrees and the collective so the blades have -2 or -3 degrees in them. If you have too much negative you'll actually loose rotor speed. Bring it in with as little cyclic and collective change as possible. As you get to 15 feet, gradually pull back on the elevator to slow down your forward speed. As you start to drop from your decrease in forward speed gradually feed in collective like you did from your 6ft baby-auto and you know the rest. Note: It's better to land with too much forward speed than to land on the tail, the helicopter will harmlessly slide like an airplane on skies with extra forward speed.  

One last point these helicopters are dangerous and can hurt you unless you take great care.

Keep away from the rotating blades at all times.
Dont fly the Heli close to you (bits can fly off!)
Dont fly near people or animals as they can distract you!

You are responsible for your's and other peoples safety always be risk assesing!