Thread: I'm a lounge room pilot .

G'day Hiline, Mick, all,
If you've never flown before, get a contra-rotating blade chopper, 3 channel. Should be $200 max. I sell the E-Sky brand but have carried others.
2 channel are really boring, 4 channel not needed till you move to the $400 mark-these ones will have carbon fibre everywhere and proper tail-boom/tail rotor and cost more to fix.
If you intend taking the hobby seriously, its important you get one from a hobby shop rather than ebay, online bargain houses, Dick Smiths, toyshops etc, because you WILL crash it and you WILL need parts for it and guess who carries the parts for the brands they sell? Hobby shops.
Having said that, the ~$200 choppers mostly come from the same factory and a lot of parts are interchangeable or can be modded to fit.

For you first outdoor flights, i suggest taking off from a picnic table or similar, as ground level for some reason makes a good take-off more difficult to achieve.

Finally, if you chopper looks like its getting low on power, land it and switch it off, DO NOT try and discharge the battery further you will ruin the battery, and charging a ruined LiPo battery is very hazardous (explosive..)

Hope that helps,
Mark