Shoe String Budget R/c: What I am flying now on a regular basis.

UPDATED DEC 2008...STILL A LITTLE OUTDATED THOUGH...

The raptor 50

I fly a raptor 50 every weekend. Why a raptor? Because its cheap, simple and have pretty much nothing that can ever go wrong in flight-reliable. The design is limiting my flying a bit, but I still have got tonnes of stuff that I can't do and the heli can. Through my years of flying, I have found the raptor to be pretty tough, especially the milk bottle canopy. The old v1 that I had was problematic, it had wobbly and loose blade grips, eats clutch for breakfast and so very occasionally throw a tail blade at you. The v2 got all the issues with the v1 sorted out and this is the very reason why I am still flying the raptor today. There is still room for improvement though, I feel.

What I have in the raptor(click here)

The Honey Bee King v2

I had spare servos, I had a spare gyro, I had extra 3s batteries, a esc and motor laying around. Just so unforunately, I chanced upon the honey bee king 2 at that moment and it was less than USD60 at the LHS. So of course I had to have 1. Its sloppy, unstable and the pinion wears fast, but it works and it flies. Although I crash it often, its cheap to crash because parts are dirt cheap.

My king V2 Setup(click here)

Phoenix Funstar(still have everything, but no longer flying it because I can't keep the throttle stick up when inverted...a habit from heli...wonder how the pros do it...)

I was trying to learn to hover a plane and other cool plane tricks, but my old low wing trainer was limiting me badly. I wanted something that was more 3d capable, more agile and lighter. Since I didn't have time to build one, I bought this, a arf that comes even with all the flight controls hinged and pinned. Real cool to see a arf so complete. Its a very nice flying plane and it can be switched between gentle and aggressive at the flip of the dual rate switch. Easier to land than a low wing but requires a bit of power for landing because the thick wing produces quite a bit of drag and its light with little momenturn. Again, its cheap to buy, cheap to setup, cheap to run.

T-REX 700

Was really happy with it, but after a while, minor issues started coming up one after another. No heli is perfect, but some heli designs and flaws just go to show the stupidity, lack of common sense and of course, how cheap, a heli manufacturer can go. Not like I can afford to get a new heli now...oh well.