Dunno - I've not had it to bits yet. I looks like the bit that 'shifts' between first and second has worn out, as first gear just spins up. I may have been too heavy on the throttle on the high-grip grassy surface, but I suspect it was simply "its turn to break"

Re: Your plane - it's a prop? A 150mph prop?

I know what I've always meant to ask someone who knew - is this fake?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6F-0rIpLJE

Am eBaying for some additional Tamiya RC cars (want to get one each for the boys for in a year or two, and me and the father in law can play with them in the meantime) - some fairly dirt cheap things going on there, with full RC gear and hardly used.

No, I've watched people fly helicopters like that. Even though I can fly RC helicopters and do basic loops and rolls I still can't really begin to comprehend how anyone can do that. Basically though they learn on sims as kids and then they can just do that sort of thing.

It's launched it by holding that blade on the wing tip and throwing it into the air like a discus

Indoor Hand Glider.

Bloody hell mate, that's brilliant!
I had dreams of doing this sort of thing when I was a kid, I tried with a servo-operated 110 film camera sticking out of the side of my balsa-wood glider.. one shot, then you had to land it and wind the film on

I went up to the beach at lunchtime with this old glider (very, very low-tech this one, made out of nothing much except some foam and some packing tape, but really tough) and one of the excellent little key fob shape cameras you can get from ebay now:



It really does cause some bafflement amongst the passers by, especially if it's fairly high up. My favourite was two blokes stood there debating whether or not it must be carrying a person.

I want to try and get some close up air to air footage of the gulls (they use the same lift from the wall to travel around for free) who are usually pretty happy to fly alongside, but there were none around today.

And if you want something to practice on indoors that's more fun than a simulator then these are excellent little helis:

http://www.f1hobbies.com/shop.php?id=1944&level=

In fact I probably fly that more than any of my bigger machines.

Glad you posted that actually - I've been meaning to ask if any of the indoor RC helicopters were any good. Probably a bit pricey for something I'd get bored of sharpish though.

These are meant to be ok. Not as good as that other one but a quarter of the price:

http://www.stevewebb.co.uk/index.php?pi ... &area=HELI

As it was a remarkably still weekend, wind-wise, I took the Piper Cub out for a spin, and was pleasantly surprised that I haven't forgotten how to fly the thing, despite it being the best part of 9 months since the last trip out with it.

I may have to buy one of those indoor helis for the inbetween times. That or a tiny teeny indoor RC plane, like that one Mark posted way back in the thread.

Those planes need a lot of room, Chris. To be honest I've hardly flown mine, the little helis are brilliant fun indoors as you can fly them in pretty much any space, although outside on a flat calm day the mSR is also quite capable of going pretty quick.

I was hoping I'd get away with playing with an indoor plane in the garden... I've seen people have indoor slowflyers in sports halls, but they're quite big spaces, I guess.

A proper 4 channel heli, whatever the size, would be a bit beyond my abilities, tbh.

I don't actually have a Blade 400, I have one of these:

https://www.modelshopleeds.co.uk/catalo ... ts_id=1890

But it's pretty much the same thing. I get around eight to ten minutes I think and yeah the batteries are pretty quick to swap, just pop the canopy off and put a new one in.

I'd say the only drawback with these small helis is that they seem to get even smaller even more quickly than the bigger ones so you do need to be on top of it all the time. Just get plenty more sim practice and you should be ok, though.

Ta, sounds like a good running time (I used to get similar on my non-electric Baron 30).

Is there likely to be any kind of in-flight indicator to tell the operator when the battery level is getting low - some kind of indicator on the TX for example?

Cheers for that - just bought one on Ebay for £30.98 including delivery. At least if I get bored of it, it won't have cost me too much.