Today I shot a bit of video of the Blade SR flying outside in 10mph or so winds. I have to say it handled the wind very well for a small model. Hovering was very easy with no jumping around in the wind or getting blown about too much. Circuits were a little more difficult, the Blade SR does loose a fair bit of lift on the downwind legs of the circuit which caught me out a little on the first couple, once you expect it and compensate it's no issue. It's no more than I would expect from a small machine but with a more responsive 3D helicopter the response is faster when you compensate where as the blade is very much designed to be a very soft heli to fly and hence it caught me out a little. I filmed about 4 minutes but the actual flight was over 6 minutes and the lipo was at about 45% charge at the end of the flight...... impressive.
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Due to the popularity of the Flight Training section of the site I have today re-cut all the phoenix videos with a mode 1 contoller on display. Over the coming week I'll be updating all the existing flight training articles with an extra video showing how to do the move with a mode 1 transmitter. All new flight training articles will now be released with both mode 2 and mode 1 versions of the video.

As an example the Loop Training Video has already been updated with it's mode 1 version.

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As announced on this blog some weeks back we have now updated all the build videos on the site to have download links, so you can download and watch them without needing an internet connection to our servers at all times.

Our latest videos are all MP4 format and can be played with Apple Quicktime or equivalent. Older videos are FLV format and will require VLC Media player or an equivalent flash player.

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Tareq's first video with the Velocity 50..........

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Mattie Lodge very kindly produced a nice detailed video on how to install and setup a CSM Revlock governor on a nitro helicopter.

Thanks Mattie.

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Today the E-Flite Blade SR arrived and I not only got opportunity to film a little intro to the model but also to give it a first few hovers and trim out.

First and foremost I have to say this is a really polished ready to fly model that E-Flite have produced, the kit presentation is superb and the fit and finish of the model is equally excellent. Everything works as you would expect and it took me all of 5 minutes to prep the model for flight after charging the battery.

Intial hovers proved that although the model is very docile and stable it does have very similar characteristics to a larger model and won't just sit in a hover like the Blade MSR, you have to stay on top of it all the time and correct it or it will just fly off. The tail holds pretty well and the whole thing feels very balanced and easy to fly, I can see this being a very popular model for people moving up from something like the MSR.

I'll get some flight videos and fly it both indoors and out before writing up the full review but so far very impressed with this little beginners heli.

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Arriving shortly for review is the Blade SR from Midland Helicopters.

We intend to review this model not just as a starter machine but also look at how capable it is of progressing to 3D flight. I'll also be checking out how it copes with various different lipo packs as well as experimenting with binding it to an ordinary tx as apparently much of it's stable flight manners are due to in transmitter mixing.

 

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Just a short outdoor flight on the Vortex 200 PRO. As you can see it's certainly not lacking in power. Just looking to get used to it some more before filming the flight to go in the final review of this model.

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Just added to Flight Training section - Pie Dish & Funnel and also the Funnel Eight
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Just added to Flight Training - Death Spiral and Snake

Have your say on what moves you would like to see next, click the comment button below and let us know!

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