Esky Honeybee 4ch Rc Helicopter Review
Properly, exactly where to begin with this one particular… This has got to be one of the coolest yet aggravating factors anyone has ever before bought me. Allow me reveal… My girlfriend bought me this for Christmas from Buzzflyer.co.uk for about £110, as quickly as I opened it I was like a kid at 10 decades old again. On the box it stated for indoor/out of doors flight so normally the box was flung open and the battery was directly on cost prepared for a bout of flying round the dwelling place.
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What’s in the box?

1 x Assembled Esky Honeybee Helicopter
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one x 4CH Radio Handset and aerial

1 x AC adapter

1 x 12V Battery lead (to charge the helicopter battery from a 12V car battery and so on)
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one x Transformer
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1 x Lithium Polymer (LiPo) Battery
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one x Plastic bag of bits and bobs

1 x Directions
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The Esky Honeybee is billed as an RTF helicopter (Ready To Fly, for individuals not in the know) which indicates that in theory all it ought to demand is a speedy charge and off you go.
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By natural means getting a bloke there was no want to examine the guidelines so I just plugged the battery into the beast and off I went. It really speedily grew to become apparent that this is undoubtedly NOT an indoor toy, in reality it is not even a toy at all come to point out it.

Naturally what’s the very first thing you do when you get a toy helicopter? You acquired it, stick on maximum revs and see what occurs! That is wherever this issue went from to lethal in much less than a second. It looked so innocent sat on the floor till I whacked the throttle up then I seriously commenced to concern for my safety. The downdraft from this thing was remarkable thinking about the size, what looked really small in the beginning now appeared relatively big as soon as the blades ended up spun up, and what a noise! To place it into context have you ever before noticed hypnodisc on robot wars? Now imagine that but flying uncontrollably about your living place at head height, brown pants instant I assume you’ll agree! I ducked for cover as the beast ploughed directly into the wall, slid down, and proceeded to have what looked like an epileptic match on the floor. My very first venture and by now a damaged component (albeit slight and not detrimental to operation). “Ah” I thought, “probably better off outside”.
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So out I went, only a slight breeze so I imagined to myself “perfect” – mistake number 2.

Complete throttle once yet again (this time from a secure distance). The helicopter took straight off and was instantaneously carried by the slight breeze at a charge of knots till it was out of sight. I ran about to it only to uncover it seeking like a wet dog on a cold day, all bunched up and twitching.

This time I had broken numerous significant parts so I packed up my helicopter and walked house in shame to figure out what I was performing improper and purchase some spare bits (which weren’t low cost). “Suppose I greatest study the manual” I imagined.

Ah… Apparently you have to set the helicopter up first as regards to the balancing of the main rotor, paddles, and the fat distribution so that the centre of gravity is directly beneath the rotor shaft. This is Incredibly critical if you want any sort of stable flight. Instructions for this can be downloaded here.
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The following point you have to do is set up the acquire and trim of the tail rotor this is so that although throttling up the primary rotor the helicopter will stay secure and pointing in the same course.
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With these jobs comprehensive I then took the helicopter to an empty squash court with a buddy who had also purchased a honeybee helicopter (despite the fact that he opted for the six channel collective pitch model, boy did he regret that later).
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This time I was dead watchful, I gradually increased the throttle until finally it was really light on the ground then applied a brief burst just to get it in the air and out of the ground impact (this is one more thing I realized, after experimenting trying to get the honeybee to hover in my kitchen area it would continually drift to the left no issue what controls were applied. Right after a bit of study I found that it is a thing to do with the way the air flows when the rotor is so shut to the ground that can make it act in this way. Consequently the phrase ‘ground effect’. The only way you can get the helicopter into a stable hover is to swiftly utilize the throttle in a brief burst so that it rises out of the ground result to about knee degree where it will turn into much more stable.)

It then grew to become apparent that I was out of my depth, I imagined currently being only a 4 channel helicopter it couldn’t be that difficult and I would have become a master of flight just before the day was out. That day turned into about a month of practice, several pricey crashes, and two system injuries from the main rotor and I’m even now not great though I’ve turn into very excellent at a secure hover. Flying a RC helicopter is a good deal a lot more hard than it appears!

On the same day of the very first proper maiden flight in the squash court, my good friend opted for the exact same first response as I had when very first getting the heli out of the box (it was the very first time he had at any time turned it on) only this time he didn’t get away with a small breakage as with mine. He pushed the throttle to maximum and with the six channel Honeybee having more electrical power it took off like a trident missile directly into the squash court wall and folded up like a spring loaded deckchair. It was a create-off. Much less than 1 second total flight time and it price him a lot of money (not to point out hours of build time and bleeding thumbs) just to get it back to a reasonable flying issue only to have a comparable incident the 2nd time round! He was nearly in tears and I attempted to be sympathetic but I couldn’t support crying with laughter, negative I know but the comedy of the scenario was challenging to dismiss!

My advice would be really do not acquire this specific RC helicopter if you have in no way flown one particular before. The damage caused by finding out to fly it will drive you insane not to mention the price and time to rebuild it. If your severe about it get some suggestions prior to you acquire one and try to get some proper instruction from a person who previously is aware how to fly RC helicopters. Trust me it will preserve you a great deal of headaches not to point out a hefty restore bill. 1 plus side of the honeybee FP (fixed pitch blades) is that the battery lasts ages. On a full cost the Lithium Polymer (LiPo) battery presents a good thirty minutes of constant ‘attempted’ flight.

The principle behind an electrical helicopter is a great one particular and I admire what Esky have tried to do by developing a low-cost supplying but to me the create high quality was a bit lacking, only extremely slight knocks would cause one thing to break which indicates the novelty wears off extremely rapidly.

If I had to acquire 1 yet again I would go for the Micron V2 which is a little indoor helicopter the advantages of this is that the construct quality seems substantially greater than the honeybee, and the size is these that you can actually fly it in your residing space which implies that any key crashes and knocks are probably to be absorbed by soft factors these as sofas and carpets.

Conclusion

Excellent notion in principle, but the create top quality is a bit missing.
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John’s Opinions rating

four/ten

For much more opinions and how to’s go John’s Critiques
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