model airplanes – Stefanos's Blog

I’m going to talk about 2 Blade helicopters, one the Blade 150 FX, and the other the Blade 230 S Smart.

Both are said to be beginner helicopters. I started with the Blade 150 FX, mainly because of cost… Though it would be painful, it looked the least amount of money to spend that might just end up getting lost or completely broken… It is a very small helicopter, meant for indoor, and outdoor in very light winds.

So when I picked it up the clerk said… dont fly it outdoors if there is any wind at all. After weeks of experience with it I now understand what he meant. Fortunately we had a spell of almost windless days when I first got it. and It only took a few flights to get the hang of just hovering it. I found that it could handle winds up to 4mph. A very nice thing about it.. it is so light that even if it gets away and gets up too high to handle, being light, if it drops on grass it seems indestructible. Also since it is so light no FAA registration is required.

The are some drawback due to it’s small size and color scheme. It is 100% red. so unless you keep it close, you can easily lose the sense of which direction it is pointed. the other drawback.. if it falls into tall weeds (like we have at our flying field) forget about it, you wont see it unless you are standing right next to it. I almost lost it on the second flight because I lost orientation, and the wind took it to the weeds. 5 people searched for it, and it was only due to the keen eyes of my wife, she was able to direct one person to the exact spot it crashed.

Also a drawback… it has no landing skids. so the body just sets down on the ground to take off.. so it can not take off from a normal lawn.. I have to place down a piece of cardboard as a platform to fly it from my yard. At the flying field the grass is trimmed extremely low.. so it can take off, but even there if it is not perfectly level set on the ground, it will flop around as soon as you turn off the rotor kill switch.

Having said all that, I really enjoy flying it… it did’nt take too many sessions to learn to hover it in low winds. However, we’re getting on towards fall, and the winds have picked up considerably, so it’s typically 7 to 11 mph all day (unless you go near sunset). It absolutely can not be flown in those winds (no one should expect it to), I did try a few times, It just does not have the power to fight back against the wind pushing it in a direction… and the copter will seriously weather vane into the wind making leaning harder since it’s best to keep the tail rotor pointed toward you as you learn.

So then I moved on to the Blade 230 S Smart. This is a different animal. It’s meant for outdoor use. I’ve seen it being flown at the field in winds up to about 9mph. So that seems just right for me right now. And there are some nice things about it. It has an actual SAFE system.. meaning you get a real Beginner, Intermediate and Agile flying modes. I got mine today, charged up the (not included) battery and was off to the flying field for it’s maiden flight. Winds were 7mph… It’s RTF and it’s a true RTF, you can take it out of the box, and in the time it takes to put the battery in, you are flying. Same for the 150.

And the first flight was a dream… the wind was a cross wind to the direction I had it pointed, so I made sure it was in beginner mode, flipped the throttle switch, and let the rotor stabilize, then very cautiously added power until lift off. It was a very simple matter to give it just enough power to achieve a hover at about 10 feet off the ground. And I have to say that hover was extremely stable. I had to only use small inputs to account for some side to side motion and I was able at one point to just take my hands off the sticks. A gust of wind did come, and I over compensated on the power so it went up higher than I like, but it was very easy to ease it down for a soft landing. Oh.. at one point I did give it some yaw and I have to say it was very responsive to yaw input… so go lightly. (I had the rate switch set to high).

I know I’m going to enjoy learning on that helicopter. And I plan to bring along the 150 in the event the winds are nice and light, so I can fly that while charging the 230’s battery.

I’ve always had an interest in aviation. From childhood, I’d build plastic airplane models, graduating to balsa wood models… Had several U-Control planes that fortunately I was able to use at the local playground– this was before the days where now everything is highly regulated and you really can no longer do fun things in parks, but that’s another story.

I built many model rockets… never to fly them because I lived in the city… no where to fly them, no way to get somewhere to fly them. When I became an Adult and had a car, I did fly one once in a huge field in a park… got chased away, because even as early as the 80’s they started not allowing fun stuff. Parks in my county are strictly for nature, and people to sit and do nothing but enjoy being outdoors. Sure there are trails and walks, for bikes and walkers, nothing at all for model rockets or airplanes, you can metal detect to your heart’s content, but you are not allowed to dig, you can go rock hunting, but you can’t take a rock home with you… The county parks department said, absolutely nothing found in a park can be removed from a park.

Well that did not deter me from building a model glider plane in around 1995, my first radio controlled airplane. Got it all done, went out to a park, launched it with a surgical tubing launcher and promptly crashed it straight down into the ground….. Turns out you really need an instructor to learn how to fly a model airplane.

I’ll back up a bit… in 1988 I did become a student pilot and flew honest to goodness Cessna 150s/152s… Got to the point of being able to solo practice, and did a solo cross country… I didn’t finish.

In 2004 I met my future wife, at that time I had been a boater for the prior years, and just getting out of that hobby… I had sold my boat, and began my life with her, the topic of aviation never came up.

Now we’re both retired, and I have hobbies to keep from being bored, but my wife really only has reading as a hobby. One day recently (summer 2024) there was an ad on TV for an air show coming up at our county airport. She seemed mildly interested, not enough to go to it, and I– even though I like airplanes, would not likely go to an air show…. been there done that, camped out once at EAA Oshkosh. been to a few other local airshows… You get to stand in hot blazing sun, or in rain… There’s a huge crowd. and parking is always a problem.

But even so… One day when we were both bored, and looking to just go out for a drive, I said, hey… do you want to go out to the airport to see the planes take off and land? Answer: YES…

So now I haven’t done that since I was a child… My father would drive us out to a spot at the far end of the longest runway (The one the airliners use).. Theres’ a spot next to the fence where years of plane watchers have essentially created a nice parking spot.. in fact the county puts gravel there, so it’s semi-official. Well we drove out there and I found the spot. Parked there and, well we saw one plane… See it was a Saturday.. we’re not such a major airport… My wife said.. lets’ go… I said, hey… it’s Saturday… lets check out the local model airplane flying field… “Sure!” I remembered from years ago that there was a field in one park about a half hour away that a local club maintains… we drove out there

And we had great fun watching them fly the model airplanes… Now I’m still surprised, my wife was so interested in model airplanes — we never talked about it, she never expressed an interest.. but here we are now with a great common interest.

On the way home she said “So are you going to buy a model airplane?”, “You want to?”,, “Yes”… and that was it… I bought a trainer, joined the AMA (required to use the field), signed up with the FAA, required for the size plane I bought… Passed a test… Required to fly said plane.

Since then we’ve been doing daily visits to check out the airport, I now know where on the web to get flight schedules, I have an app that gives me tower radio to listen to… And now daily visits to the model field to fly — something.

Now during the week, we’v never seen another person flying a model out there, seems like for most people it’s a weekend thing, even for the retired guys… Have no idea why… once my trainer came in, we put it together… charged up the batteries and went out to the field… I did a decent takeoff… made a turn, another turn… then on the turn (Base) to bring it back to the runway… dive and crash into a bush on the far edge of the field. Broke one wing….(It’s a foam plane so was easy to fix)… Still we had great fun.. and I went home and got a model airplane flight simulator (RealFlight Trainer edition)… and decided, I’ve got to get real good in the simulator before I try that again….

On weekends we would go see the experienced pilots flying their planes, got to talking to them… They are the nicest people. So I decided to join their club… On Tuesdays they have open training, and so one Tuesday I got my first real lesson just making turns, with an instructor on a buddy box. It was at that point I realized… model airplanes don’t quite fly the same as full size airplanes… I might write a post explaining that… So I have to set aside anything I remember about my full size flight training, and pick up model airplane flight training.

Well One week day I was like… I know I should not fly my airplane till I’ve learned how to do it, but we wanted to fly … something… So we went to a local hobby store and bought a beginner helicopter.

Now you’re going to say –woah! helicopters are even harder to fly than airplanes… and yes that’s true for a “real” model helicopter.. they are expensive, big , and frankly they look pretty dangerous… The beginner helicopter, Blade 150 FX, is designed to make it a lot simpler to fly… a lot like a drone.. It has built in stability, so it’s doing a lot of correcting for you to keep it from just crashing.. and it’s quite small, light enough that you don’t need to register it with the FAA.. and I found, if I fly it over grass, It can sustain falling from a pretty great height without damage — it’s so light.

So now almost every day we take a trip out to the model field, and I practice… just hovering… and wow.. after a few sessions I’m getting the hang of it… basically one problem with it is since it is so light you can’t fly it in much wind… in wind up to about 4mph.. it’s not a problem,, I’m learning how to use the controls to keep it under control and roughly hovering (well over about a 10 foot diameter)… today in a 6mph wind… I learned that it will weather vane into the wind… so now I have to use both sticks simultaneously… to keep it oriented the way I want it with the equivalent of the rudder control, and in a hover with the throttle, and the equivalent of ailerons and elevator.

So expect more about airplanes here!

Category: model airplanes

My small experience with Blade helicopters

Now we add Aviation as a topic!