The Trex was all set up in accordance with the DVD, She had run on the ground with and without the blades attached. I had set up the tail rotor and Gyro using the turn table from my microwave. I have done loads of simulator flying. I thought it was time to get airbourne. I was wrong!
 My problem is a lack of patience to wait for the right conditions or venue to try a new model. It has cost me several nice gliders in the past. Unfortunately I hadnt learnt my lesson.
The venue I chose for my test flight was my pokey back garden, not my best decision!  It was going OK hovering a few inches up until a bit of a breeze caused my heli to make light contact with my shed. Luckily the damage was limited to the rotor head which seemed to completely disintegrate. The blades are somehow fine.
I have found a complete replacement rotor head localy and now plan to try indoors for my second attempt.
Please learn from my mistake. I was even warned by a friend to wait until somebody in the know was there to help, but I was too excited and keen as usual. Now I have the “I told you so’s” to look forward to , eh Gaz!
Thanks to an excelent response to my questions on the forum I have got my Gyro working well now. The instructions wrongly show the gyro mounted flat whrn it actually has to stand on end. If you have any Gyro related problems take a look at this thread on the forum. It will probably help. http://www.heliguy.com/Forum/how-do-i-set-up-my-gyro-t3933.html
The setup was not to hard initially although I later encountered some problems which I am still dealing with.
 If you have had radio controlled models before then zeroing the servos and setting the linkage position to give the correct travels will be a familliar process. I had no trouble in getting the servos centrally positioned and giving nice full throws on all the mechanisms. The transmitter I am using is the Futaba FF( and it was quite an easy set up on this Tx. The mode I chose was the First Helicopter Mode (Heli SWH1) and this seems to work fine with the HDE. The throttle and pitch curves are set up seperately for 3 different switch positions Normal, Idle 1 and Idle 2. There is a nice visual graph of the curves for each position with 5 point adjustment. I went with the curve settings from the setup DVD. I set the throttle hold at the maximum negative throttle value to kill the throttle whjenever I need to. The DVD also recomends reducing aileron and elevator throw down to 70% on the End Point Adjustment and I have done this as I am only learning.
My problems came when I tried to run up the motor. It would not spin up (No blades attached) I later found this to be because the throttle channel needs to be reversed and this was stopping the ESC arming.
 My only other problem was setting up the Gyro. I still dont understand this and it does not apear to be working correctly straight out of the box. I have started a thread about this on the Heliguy forum so hopefully somebody will help me. Then it will be time for test flights.
Well my two parcels arrived and I was amazed at how tiny theyu were, there surely wasnt a helicopter in there! But there was, in about a million pieces! this was going to be a fiddly build.
 And it was, innitially I was a bit baffled, but once I had got my head around the rotor head, the build was not too difficult. It is more fiddly especially as I have huge hands and fingers. But I managed to build the Heli in a couple of days doing a few hours here and there. I made a few mistakes like having the belt turning the tail rotor the wrong way and putting the blades on before balencing them, but these were easily rectified. I also had the Setup DVD which I put on after I finished the model, only to realise that the DVD covers the whole build not just the setup. This cleared up a lot of issues I had and really is a very worthwhile purchase for anyone new to the Hobby like me. My only worry was the ammount of bits I had left at the end, Nuts, Bolts, Washers and Ball Joints were all still in the box. I hope these are just spares and not required!!!!
Well I have ordered my first helicopter, a Trex 450 XL HDE. I didnt so much choose to go down the HDE route, (this means that a lot of the mixing for direction control is done via mechanical links on the Heli rather than by computer in the Tx) that was the only model of this helicopter available from the Heliguy at the time, and everywhere else was charging a lot more for the same deal. I wanted a Trex 450XL as I had been told good things about them on the forums and they were slightly bigger than other similarly priced Helis. Also there is lots of potential to grow into being very capable of all the 3D manouvres as well as being OK to learn with. It is a Kit helicopter which I also wanted. I like to understand how my models work, I think it helps when you fly
HI,
My Name is Will, I have just decided to take up RC Helicopters alongside my current hobbies of Windsurfing and RC Slope Soaring. I am going to use Helis as a light wind alternative to the other wind reliant hobbies! Heliguy has already been of great help to me with my initial inquiries so when I saw these Bloggs I thought I would start one to record my progress and the trials and tribulations of learning to fly. I hope it will be helpful to somebody, or if not then you might at least get a laugh when I have written of my model for the 16th time!