If you’re looking to get into a great performing battery without blowing the month’s helcopter budget, check out this review of the PowerEdge RC 3s 2200 mAh LiPo pack. You’d be hard pressed to get this kind of performance out of a Zippy, and although it’s not as inexpensive, you get what you pay for. To top it off, their warranty is outstanding! Click HERE or find it on the REVIEWS page at right or up top.

The HeliGeek’s Blog now has a Facebook Group! Anyone with a Facebook account who cares to can join up and post question or comments, and read those of others. Just log into your Facebook account and search for ‘The HeliGeek’s Blog”. We can’t wait to see you there!

You know you want one of these mugs...

We’ll be the first to admit that it seems a bit odd to do a review of coffee here on HeliGeek. Nevertheless, the staff here (pretty much me) consumes its fair share of java on a daily basis, and when a coffee came on the scene with a connection to the RC Helicopter hobby, we jumped at the chance to try some out. We were very surprised by what we found. In a good way.

Checkout the review HERE or click the link at right or from the Reviews page at top.

Yep... It's on the rear window of my car.

Hey folks, we’ve designed a new logo for HeliGeek.com and we’re kicking it off in style! What better way to show your support than by decking out your ride, your laptop, or your flight box with a cool HeliGeek decal? This is the first design available, and there will be another coming soon, so be sure to check back. All proceeds (if there are any) will go towards supporting the HeliGeek’s Blog. Click the link in the sentence above, or click on “Goodies” at the top of the page.

I’ve also got a few more ideas brewing for more cool schwag, so again, stay tuned.

Also, for any of you that wish to donate to help support The HeliGeek’s Blog, we’ve set up a Donations page as well. Click HERE or on “DONATE” at the top of the page. We leave the amount up to you and we thank you wholeheartedly for your support.

Okay, so I should have been better with getting flight videos up. I admit it. It just seems like I can never get anyone to record any of my flights. I could have gone the hat-cam route, but I think having one person fly while another shoots video is a much better idea. In the future, I’ll try to coerce my girlfriend into doing the videography, since she’s already said she would, but I’m worried about what it’ll end up costing me (just kidding, baby). Actually, I enjoyed the editing process, though I’m still getting used to my software of choice (Adobe Premeire Elements 2). Additionally, this is the most I’ve used my camcorder since I bought it 3 years ago, so I’m sure the image quality can be improved.

In any case, here’s a short video (NOT….ten minutes, sorry) of me casually tossing my 600 NSP around this past Sunday. I’m not very happy with the flight as it’s pretty sloppy. It was my first flight in a couple of weeks outside of the sim, it was a bit gusty, and something just felt not quite right with the helicopter. It was falling out of tailslides where it never did before, and I had to keep fighting it to get maneuvers to be recognizable. After the flight, I went over the heli and found out that my flybar was not centered as it should have been. [Read more →]

The third time (and second unit) were indeed the charm! Yesterday the flybarless T-Rex 600e took to the air without incident and flew beautifully! With James Kovach (sparx) at the controls, she lifted off and was summarily wrung out to make sure everything was working as designed. The previous two crashes had me a bit frazzled, admittedly and I wanted someone more experienced to take the helm on the latest attempt, just in case I was doing something wrong. The flight proved to be an uneventful one, which is a good thing. All evidence from the two previous, unsuccessful flights point to my original SK360 being faulty. I’m still waiting to hear back from Art at Skookum Robotics to verify this, as he is checking out my original controller. I can’t really fault Skookum for this, since it’s an electronic device. Anyone in the industry will tell you that there will always be the faulty device that slips though. It’s my luck that I seem to attract them quite a bit. Besides, Art has bent over backwards to ensure that I was not only back in the air quickly, but safely as well. Back on topic… [Read more →]

Its been a while in the making, but I finally managed to browbeat the hosts of the InsideHeli Podcast, Chris Boultinghouse and James Kovach, into answering some questions for the HeliGeek’s Blog. These questions were some that I thought would be of interest to all my readers. Something that you might ask them yourselves, if given the chance. (Actually, you do have the chance, all you have to do is drop them an email….but I digress).

Along with a mini-review of the InsideHeli Podcast, you’ll find the “interview” with the hosts that I conducted via email (ain’t the ‘tubes great?) by clicking the link at right, by clicking through to the review on the “Reviews” page, or by Clicking HERE (See all the options we give you???).

Just a little something to tide you over while you’re waiting for the Knight 3D build log, I hope you enjoy!

I would argue that I don’t just have issues, I have a subscription!  In any case, If the number of helicopters that one owns is an indication of mental health (or lack thereof), I may indeed be a bit touched. However, I choose to view this as a good thing. Sort of a show of dedication to my hobby. At least, that’s what I tell the girlfriend. She’s falling for it so far, so I think I’ll keep going with that.

Many of my readers have asked what helis my “Fleet” consists of, and others of you have suggested that I put a page up to keep track of them and what components are installed. I believe that’s a pretty good idea, so I tossed a quick oage together to do just that. Check out the link to “My Fleet” at right, or CLICK HERE if you’re the least bit interested in what’s flying around here at HeliGeek World HQ.

As always, feel free to comment and tell me just how sick YOU think I am.

The Compass Knight 3D

As some of you may have noticed, we’ve picked up a couple of sponsors here at HeliGeek. Our latest sponsor is Common Sense RC, who have relatively recently begun distribution of the Compass Model RC helicopter line which includes the Atom 500, the Knight series, and the Odin .90.

With the assistance of the great folks over at Common Sense RC, I’m pleased to announce that I will be writing a build log / review for the excellent Knight 3D CF .50 size RC helicopter. Additionally, Common Sense RC has picked up the new Torsion brand blades, designed by Czech heli pro Petr Novotný and I will be reviewing the 600CF mains, the 600 paddles and the Torsion tail blades.

To round everything out, I’ll be using [Read more →]

Just a quick post to let anyone following the saga of me and my flybarless-converted Trex 600E in on the progress. If you’ll recall, the heli bit the dust rather spectacularly a few weeks ago during the second attempt at flybarless flight. I’m not quite sure what the issue was, but Art from Skookum Robotics contacted me shortly thereafter and sent me a brand new SK-360 so I could rule that out as a possibility.

I’m happy to report that [Read more →]