Hey Charles and all. The helis designed for indoor flying are mostly pretty small. I have a couple of them here that I've bought over the last few years, my Bladerunner has a rotor diameter of about 11 inches if memory serves and weighs in at about 55 grams would have to look at the manual to get exact specs. Last year I picked up one of the little Sima s107 microcopters they're basically a cheapy version of the Eflight micros. These have a rotor diameter of about 7 inches and they weigh in at about 35 grams or so so they are very very small.
Yes you do need some space to fly these little things around, we have too much crap in our house and besides flying things tend to scare Xena our female green iguana so I tend to take my indoor craft either down to our rec room or over to a friend's place who has more room. The motors on these little things are easily audible so it is pretty easy to use the same type of hand-ear coordination that we develop in audio gaming to fly them, the difference is you definitely need to have good spatial concepts and be able to really understand what three dimensions means and be able to think quickly that way. Basically the first thing I try to work on if I haven't been flying for a while is to achieve a stable hover, you want to get the heli off the ground a bit so that your rotor wash does not cause too much turbulence and then try to hear if it is drifting, they do drift very easily despite the fact that most of them have an internal gyroscope and any air currents at all will cause this, then you have to apply a very slight amount with your directional stick to counter this movement. If you are a total which I am this is going to be challenging because you will not know which way to move your directional stick, e.g. you will not know if your heli is drifting forward, backward, or sideways. The best approach that I've found is to simply apply a bit of direction and see where it goes and be ready to correct quickly if you have guessed wrong. These little things are loads of fun if you have somewhere to fly them, so far as I'm concerned it's like gaming but even better in a way because you're actually controlling a real object instead of a virtual one. I've had a fascination with RC stuff most of my adult life but it's only since we are seeing the advent of digital radio control and these reasonably affordable products that I've been able to actually get into it. Having said that if you do decide to give this a go, I would recommend that you pick up one of the inexpensive ones to start with, something like the Sima helis are ok, they only run around 30 bucks or so on Amazon last time I checked. That way if you crack one up it isn't the end of the world. You can get better micros from companies like Eflight for instance, I am just about ready to upgrade to one of these, if you want strictly indoor flying then I am considering something like the MCX2. If you want something that you can fly outside too then maybe the CX2 would be worth looking at. There are of course way more expensive ones, you can spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on this hobby but since I don't have that kind of money to spend the ones I am talking about and the ones I buy are probably considered the less expensive ones, the bigger one, the CX is around 150 or so last time I checked. One nice thing about the better ones from Eflight, while the cheapy ones I have are really pretty much toys and if you break them that's it, the Eflight ones are really closer to an true RC model and you can get pretty much any spare parts you need if you do crash one. In short, RC stuff is loads of fun and there are definitely things that we can do in that hobby without sight. Besides my two helis I also have a bigger quadrocopter called an x-ufo and a couple of 1/24 scale rc tanks. RC hovercraft are something I'm really interested in but have not done much research on which ones are good to get so would be glad for any info on that. If anyone is interested in getting into this hobby I'd certainly be happy to talk about it further but we probably oughta do it off list since this isn't really gaming. Game on. Tom On Dec 22, 2011, at 9:07 AM, Charles Rivard wrote: > Just curious: Indoor helicopters? I would think that any flying craft needs > a lot of space. How big are these helicopters?, and how do you navigate > without smacking it into walls or ceiling without looking? It sounds like > interesting fun! > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second. > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trouble" <[email protected]> > To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 10:47 AM > Subject: Re: [Audyssey] a thought on the Shard Workshop project > > >> You got some of the principles, but way off on others. >> The ailerons on the ends of the wings are what lets the plane turn left or >> right. You get this motion by moving the yoke left or right. By pushing >> forward or pulling back on the yoke causes the Elevators on the tail wings >> to raise or lower the planes level of flight. By giving the plane more or >> less power. Gives more or less wind on the wings surface to assist in these >> movements. Speed only makes you go faster or slower. Depending on wait of >> plane determines how much speed it takes to keep it in the air. Not all >> planes have rudders, and those that do move along with the ailerons. >> Anyone that has flown and had time at the stick would of ben told this info >> after all its basic flying. You want hard flying try a helicopter. >> i have flown just about all types of RC models from airplanes to hover >> craft. Now working on helicopters indoor type and out. Ben playing with >> these big boy toys for past 30 years and most of it being blind. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. 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