Getting Started with the eSky Honey Bee RC Helicopter (From Beginner to Beginner)
Flying your first R/C model helicopter is risky business. From the very first launch you might just be feeling a bit of anxiety and fear, hoping that your new toy doesn't go careening into the dirt and shatter into a billion plastic pieces.
My maiden voyage of my beginner's helicopter, the eSky Honey Bee, was fraught with about 20 crashes. The next, about 12. The third, about 5 - and my last, only 1. With practice I have markedly improved, but have a long, long way to travel before I'm ready to upgrade.
I'm hoping I can pass along a few words of wisdom to anyone looking for their first R/C heli - from beginner to beginner, without making you wade through a bunch of crap to get to what you need. These guidelines are specifically for the eSky Honey Bee model but could likely be applied to similar models - YMMV.
Step 1: Trim the Cabin
You'll see that the cabin is simply a molded piece of plastic housing the complicated bits of the heli. Remove it, and trim the top. What you see above is an already-trimmed cabin.
See the servo and attached arm I have circled above? The objective of trimming the cabin is so this doesn't catch on the plastic. If it does this during flight, you're boned. Thanks to nuttcaze for this tip!!
Step 2: Balance the Heli
Hold the helicopter from the swashplate (the center part) of the rotor and make sure the heli has proper front to rear balance when you hold it in the air from this part. It will most likely be extremely tail heavy. To counteract this, weigh down the front any way you see fit. It would be a good idea to do this with the battery in.
I chose to wrap ball bearings in electrical tape and stick them in the neatly provided groove in the bottom of the cabin. Add them small amounts at a time to get the right balance. If you don't do this, your heli will either pull to the front or to the back, most likely so much that you will crash.
Step 3: Loosen the Blades a Bit
The blades of the heli do not need to be firmly attached to operate - in fact, this would be a bad thing. See, when you crash, the blades will fold under the pressure of hitting the ground if you forget to cut throttle. If they didn't fold, you would have major breakage in the swashplate assembly or even short out the motor.
The screws are accessed from underneath the assembly. Loosen them just a bit so the blades aren't extremely firm but not too loose either. You'll get a feel for it.
Step 4: Glue the Frame
This is optional, but trust me, you're going to crash this bird. A lot. "Whatever," I can hear you sneering. You think that your years of rigorous video game training has honed your reflexes to a razor sharp ninja-edge and that you could fly 3D right now if you wanted. You can dance circle around those guys on YouTube doing crazy stunts (see video below.) Reality check - you can't. Neither can I. They're 1,000 times better than us, and have practiced for hours and hours and hours. "Real" R/C choppers (i.e., 6 channel, non-tandem or co-axial) will put you to shame quickly if you aren't careful. This is nothing like a video game or even an R/C simulator - there's wind, and physics, and a real investment at stake. I only say this because I probably jumped in a little quickly and confidently, risking my chopper in the process, and wouldn't want you to do the same.
Enough babbling... you want to fly this, don't you? My advice is to glue certain parts of the frame, since you'll be putting it back together A LOT. I would glue the bottom joints as shown, but not the top ones. Having the top ones "loose" helps to diffuse the energy when crashing rather than jarring the frame too heavily, and besides, you can remove the whole bottom frame if needed (for battery insertion, etc.)
Step 5: Other Stuff
You should also do these things before flying:
- BUY A TRAINER KIT. That's the big ugly metal thing attached to the skids with the orange balls on the end. This prevents you from really screwing up the heli when you crash, but remember, you can definitely still bork it. This just lowers the chance of borking. Best $6 bucks I ever spent.
- Check all the various screws on the heli to make sure they're all snug and tight, with the exception of the blades (you have been reading the previous steps, right?)
Step 6: Getting Ready to Fly
Now that you've completed the previous steps, you can get ready to go airborne. Here's some steps you can follow to get ready:
1. Turn on the radio... FIRST. Otherwise, when you connect the battery, your heli will go on autopilot and prang itself.
2. For the first battery connection, hold the blades away from you and have someone else holding the receiver with the throttle down all the way. When you plug the battery in, if the blades engage, get the hell away and cut throttle immediately. You can adjust the "direction" of the controls on the receiver - if the throttle is in the wrong place, switch it to reverse (or vice versa.) Wouldn't it suck to plug in the battery for the first time and have the blades chop you in the face? Well, mine came with the wrong setting enabled. I caught it before my first flight, but you never know.
3. Once you know your throttle is set correctly, disconnect the battery than reconnect, again remembering to put throttle down all the way. Do not move the heli and ensure that it is on level ground, as the gyro needs to position itself.
4. Test rudder, throttle, pitch, etc. to make sure the directions are correct. If not, change them.
5. Set the trim for the heli using the remote. Accelerate just enough so that it is post-liftoff and see which way it wants to move. In this way, you can get preliminary settings, and once airborne, you can gradually trim to perfection.
Step 7: Beg for Mercy
Seriously, here are some additional flight tips.
- Watch for wind. Your maiden voyage should be in a virtually no wind scenario. The wind will take this puppy and lift her right up, swing her around in the opposite direction, you panic and its Black Hawk Down.
- Work both sticks. If you aren't correcting on both sticks in all directions constantly, you're either on the ground or soon to be. Remember, helicopters aren't supposed to actually fly. They're like a dinner plate pimp-slapping the air into submission. Do birds and bugs have rotors and swashplates? Didn't think so.
- Stay low. Wind is worse at altitude, so stay about 5" in the air or less and practice hovering and keeping the heli faced forward. There is a linear relationship between your distance to the ground and the devastation experienced in a crash.
- If you're in trouble, attempt to get as low to the ground as possible before you crash.
- Never cut throttle when at a high altitude. "No cut stick, no bang boom," as they say.
- The time to cut throttle is right before you crash. If you keep the throttle engaged when you crash, major bonage will ensue, like the frame bursting apart, shorting out the motor, busting the rotor assembly in some way. Angels will cry if you do this.
- Keep it facing forward. When you turn, all your controls change. If the helicopter is pointed at you, your controls are all backwards. This is overwhelming at first, well, it still is!
I hope these tips help at least one person out there get started quickly and easily, without having to dig on too many different forums or videos to get started!
