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 Eflite Blade 400
Collective pitch training helicopter
The Eflite Blade 400 is another well known radio controlled
helicopter that is available today for new potential pilots who want
to learn to fly an RC helicopter.
You can buy a Blade 400 in ARTF form (Almost Ready To Fly)
without any radio equipment for around £200, and this includes
everything you need to be able to fly it except the radio equipment,
or for £300 you can have what is a very good Spektrum DX6i radio
included.
Therefore, you can see that at the price, it is not
necessarily a particularly low cost helicopter, as the Belt CP comes
in with a (not very good) radio at £140, but nevertheless the Blade
400 is still a good choice for potential helicopter pilots.
It does have both its good and it's down sides however :
THE GOOD POINTS
Spare parts are relatively cheap and easily obtained via
the Internet, and it it is not beyond the ability of most people to
be able repair them when they (inevitably) crash. There is a
huge amount of information and help available via helicopter forums
on the Internet where you can ask questions and get good answers
almost immediately.
This helicopter is not built **down** to a price in the
same way that the Belt CP is. As a result, the quality in most
areas is reasonably good, and without any fear of contradiction, if
you choose to go with the optional Spektrum DX6i radio then you will
have a high quality radio system that is well known to be probably
one of the most popular radios in use to day for RC helicopters.
Another plus point is that this radio can be used to fly more than
one helicopter, and in fact, it can store the setups for up to 10
different helicopters.
You will need other stuff as well. The main things will be
a Pitch gauge (~£10), a set of hex keys of hex drivers (~£6), a
pair of 5.5mm box spanners to allow you to replace the feathering
shaft when necessary (~£7), and of course, some spare parts such as
rotor blades, main shafts and feathering shafts, and potentially
many other small parts.
THE BAD POINTS
Although it is supplied and labelled as ARTF, this is a
total misnomer. All that ARTF means is that all the parts
necessary to make the helicopter fly are provided in the box.
IT DEFINITELY DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SIMPLY TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX,
charge the power cell battery, AND TRY TO FLY IT IMMEDIATELY.
THAT WILL END IN DISASTER ALMOST
CERTAINLY
What it means is that the very first thing you need to do
is to go through a complete check of all screws and nuts and bolts,
then you will need to perform what is called the mechanical setup,
where al the complex levers and linkages between the servos and the
rotor head and tail are orientated correctly, and that the pitch
range is correctly set. If you do not do this it is quite
likely that the helicopter will not try to leave the ground. (IF YOU
ARE LUCKY THAT IS)
The problem with all this is that quite naturally, new
potential pilots almost certainly have no understanding of any of
this, and probably do not have the tools either (eg Pitch gauge), so
they are almost in a CATCH22 situation.
The optional Spektrum radio system has fully configurable
settings for almost anything you might ever want to change,
including Exponential control that allows you to easily and quickly
"dumb" the controls down to make learning to hover easier.
The DOWN side of this is that it is a complex piece of equipment,
and it is not the easiest thing in the world to understand and to
configure correctly. That however would not put me off going
for the DX6i as a helicopter radio system
FLYING THE BLADE 400
The Blade 400 is generally accepted to be a very nice
platform for new pilots to learn to fly with. It has some slightly
odd quirks, such as the swash plate going downwards when pitch is
increased (most helicopters have a raising swash plate), but that is
done for good reasons, and the Blade 400 can fly very nicely once
the mechanical setup has been done and the radio setup correctly.
All RC helicopters, and indeed full size helicopters, do
some strange things just after lift off, and the Belt CP is no
exception, as it will always A) try to spin to the left due to
the force of the rotors spinning clockwise. B) Once off the
ground it will try to go left quite rapidly, and C) it will come
back towards you, which can be very disconcerting.
Experienced pilots know about these effect (Caused by a
thing called ground effect) and automatically apply cyclic and
rudder inputs on the transmitter to counter these movements, but a
new pilot will not do so.
Once the helicopter is flying out of ground effect (>=
4feet) the leftward and backward movements tend to lessen quite a
bit, so flying it when above ground effect is a little easier.
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