Opinions on various RC disciplines, car vs heli vs fixed.

[WrightCyclone]

Hi,

 

I'm wondering what people who have tried Car, Heli and Aeroplane's opinions are on all of them? I'm having some thoughts that I'm not sure if they are sensible or not!

 

I've been flying helis for two years, and got annoyed with the time required for 'wrenching', tracing vibrations, crashes being quite severe and expensive and generally pretty anxiety inducing as flying a heli, is hard. Probably the hardest of them all.

So I started flying planes as well, and joined a club, and do enjoy it, most of the time. However, as this is the UK, it feels like it's always bloody windy! I only have limited time to fly and it certainly feels like every time I want to fly, it's 30mph+ winds which makes flying fixed wing  not that enjoyable for me. You're limited on where you can fly too, as you need a runway of sorts and enough open space to fly properly which is really, quite limited. 

 

So, I'm thinking, would cars actually be more practical, and crucially just as much, if not more fun? Has anyone else done all 3 and made the switch to a single one? I think something that might be underestimated that's good about cars over flying machines is that you can use them in pretty much any weather!

 

I used to race 1/10 Touring Cars, 1/12 Mardave and 2WD buggies years ago, back when NiMh was 'new', so I'm aware things have changed but I'm used to most of the new brushless tech with helis.

I see there is this new thing that wasn't a term when I was racing, of bashing. I've looked into that, and although I don't quite understand it (is it like offroad freestyle?) it looks fun.. so I've been looking at the Arrma stuff which looks really cool, but I have no idea what would be best to get to get back into it. I always wanted a 1/8th nitro buggy when I was a teenager, but aware they might not be that versatile as some of the new trucks and monster trucks etc. I don't have time to race anymore either, so just want something to use to 'get away from it all' of a Sunday afternoon.

 

Anyone else gone through this thought process?!

[lorrylemming]

So I've tried cars; on road bashing, off road bashing and off road racing. During lockdown I also got into fixed wing planes, never tried helis.

 

Car pros:

• IMHO car racing is the highest form of RC, you don't have to be the fastest or race the most expensive class but nothing beats the thrill of driving on a track with other people.
• Cars are flexible and can be driven in lots of places.
• Can be driven in the wet and mud if you don't mind cleaning them.
• Although they should be maintained it doesn't matter if you forget, they won't fall out of the sky if a servo comes loose.
• Friends can try it out

Car cons:

• Performance is very directly related to cost, more expensive cars are more capable and faster.
• Unless you buy a crawler they don't suit doing custom mods very well.
• Some cars can be too capable for the space you have to drive them, big cars need more space to be fun.
• The wear items on cars are more expensive than planes; tyres, shocks, diffs and drive train parts do need replacing occasionally.

 

Plane pros:

• You can do more with less, for less money you can build or buy a plane that has more performance than your own ability (unless you're a really good pilot).
• Higher skill ceiling than bashing, similar to car racing.
• Fun to modify or build your own plane.

 

Plane cons:

• Weather dependent
• Crashes are more expensive
• Legal and regulation issues
• The need to have "beginner", "intermediate" and "expert" models. I sort of disagree with this but most say you should start with a trainer type plane.
• Can't hand the Tx to a first timer

 

 

Bashing is a catch-all for any medium-high speed RC that isn't for racing, it can be onroad, offroad, big or small. A tamiya lunchbox and a Traxxas Xmaxx are both bashing RC cars. Crawlers and drifters are their own classes with different ideas. Depending on the space you have and budget I'd look at an electric 1/10th or 1/8th basher. There's loads of good choices, just need to pick a style of vehicle you want.

[Glenn75]

I've gone the other way started with cars then bought a helicopter, I enjoy both but find the helicopter more challenging to control and as you say the weather plays a big part in how often you fly.

I've gotten into the cars big style mainly arrma started with a 3s typhon  great starter car and very tough and hpi all brushless there is 5 of us that meet up to "bash" for me 50% of the hobby is upgrading/repairing.

The Sunday morning bashing is my escape from "real life" just as a side note I would enjoy a nitro but you are very limited In where you can use them with the noise we couldn't use nitro at 8 on a Sunday morning were we drive

We go out in all weather I quite enjoy the mud and the cleaning after!!!

I

Edited March 16, 2022 by Glenn75

[Mack1]

I started on small fixed pitch helis and over the years progressed to having and still fly a T-rex 250 and a 2 T-rex 700 nitros. The 250 is admittedly more butt clenching than the 700's.

 

I have several planes all of which require generally calm days. So not much flying of late. 

 

Built a scale boat once. Enjoyed the build but having somewhere to sail was not too problematic but got bored quickly. 

 

Bought a mini z overland years back which I just started to use again mainly indoors or outside on very fairly flat surfaces.

Got given a 1/10 nitro buggy, had a lot of fun with that, but over time wear and tear on the car and engine showed. Have now got a new engine for it so will run it in during the better weather. 

Bought a losi 5t petrol which is now my number 1 go to car. Just love it and it also takes a beating.

Luckily for me the flying club I'm with don't mind me taking my cars as well.

Generally I think I use the 5T more than anything I have now.

[WrightCyclone]

Some great responses so far, thank you! Pros and cons list is useful, and I certainly agree. Is it a bit weird that the materials to build fixed wing annoys me a bit? Foam and balsa, nowhere near as 'cool' as the materials in cars of helis, carbon fibre, titanium, aluminium etc! 

Glen75, that's interesting, so you go 'bashing' more than fly the heli? I certainly wouldnt say helis are 'relaxing', but fun, but from an adrenaline sort of thing and every time you lose orientation you clench up, maybe when I was 20 that was 'fun' but not so much 20 years on from then! 

I guess that's what I want at the moment, just the escape when I get a few hours off from the kids, work and the never ending list of house stuff to do. 

[Mack1]

There is new tech for helicopters now that is aimed at the beginer. I have seen them fly upside down hands free and also fly in the wind. Not cheap but still affordable.

 

 

[WrightCyclone]

Ha, that is pretty cool but probably not my sort of thing. I have a TRex 470LM, OMP M2 and a Blade 230S and never fly anything in self levelling. If I'm going to fly my heli's, I want to fly them properly but when it's windy, it takes a lot of confidence away and one big gust when in a low manoeuvre and it's slamming the ground if you don't react quick enough with the collective. I don't tend to do many manoeuvres if it's windy other than circuits, lazy 8s and if I'm feeling brave, a stall turn which gets boring . But if it's not windy, I'll give inverted a go, rolls, flips, tail slides, overspeeds etc but that's the problem.. all too often it's windy! I know 700/800s aren't affected anywhere near as much, maybe I should go out and buy a Kraken 700 for that reason 😛

Heli's are fantastic practically,  but that's why I'm considering a car, just something to have fun with, throw up some dirt and really all the 'pro's' that lorrylemming mentioned. 

Of course with fixed and heli's, we use either telemetry or timers to tell us when our 4 mins of 'sending it' is over, how does that work with cars now? NiMh would just die, but I know you need to be very careful about not over-discharging LiPo. Do you just set the LVC higher on cars and let them stop? I've also seen some surprisingly long run-times with cars, of like 15 - 20 mins on a 4000mah LiPo. Is that right? Heli on 12S would eat that in 5 mins. 

Really liking the look of the Arrma 6S Typhon, do they eat batteries much faster than 3S? Or pretty much the same run times?

I've got a 1000W ISDT charging rig, so not too much problem with that. 

[Glenn75]

Yes 15 mins of runtime from a 5000mah pack  3s or a 6sx2 car, standard arrma Esc has the lvc pre set just run them until it kicks in, haven't got a 6s typhon but I've got the 6s kraton great fun for jumping and bashing but I also enjoy the 3s arrma's just as much it all depends on how much space you have to drive. We find around our track 6s is no faster than 3s.

[WrightCyclone]

If anyone is following this post, I bought an Arrma Vorteks 3S. It's a lot of fun!! What a beast.. really enjoying hooning about with it, and shockingly fast.

Just a shame there isn't a club locally or anyone to go bashing with around here. Flying fixed wing, we've got a pretty good local club just 10 mins from where I live. 

[Glenn75]

Happy you took the plunge the 3s arrma's are great fun. One of the lads we go out with has a vorteks just highly modified.