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On the way home from work I stopped at Larry’s Performance RCs in their new location just off of M-59. I’ve been wanting a radio-controlled helicopter for a while and I wanted to see what they had. After talking to one of the sales guys for a while I picked up a Blade Tandem Rescue RTF for $64.95, which is quite a bit cheaper than the normal $90 to $200-ish that they sell for online.
Being an RC design this helicopter has considerably more range than the IR designs, and one doesn’t have to keep the controller pointed at the unit. It’s also possible to use this controller with a number of other models of RC helicopter and basic airplane, which means that if I ever want a more complicated model I can simply buy one without controller and and reuse this one.
So far I really enjoy flying it. It’s challenging and will take some learning, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’ve crashed it enough that two of the plastic pins which hold the shell in place have broken and thus the housing doesn’t sit quite right any more. One of the broken pins can be seen on the front above. It’s not interfering with the flight, but it’s not as perfect as it could be. I may take the housing off as a whole, as this should lighten it up and allow me to get more flight time. The only downside to this is that the LEDs on the body are affixed to the plastic shell, so removing it will require disconnecting the shiny blinky lights.
While flying it around the house I failed to notice that a metal tray full of greasy water had been left sitting in the sink. When the helicopter crashed in the kitchen, into the greasy water it went. I tried to clean it off, but now there’s a thin layer of some random fat all over it. While I wiped off as much as I could from the exterior plastics some water definitely got inside. Hopefully it hasn’t damaged it.