For the sake of the helicopter I wanted to wait for a nice day to start flying it. However the weather has been crap and I decided to fly it in the wind anyway.
Here are some clips fronts first proper flight. It was a losing battle against the wind but fun none the less.
At this year’s tankfest I picked up a new rc tank from the market.
It’s a Heng Long Panzer IV with metal gearbox and tracks.
The metal upgrades are what attracted me to the model. I have an all plastic Heng Long Pershing but it would cost more to upgrade it than the asking price of the Panzer.
I haggled the price down further so it was a real bargain. Unfortunately when I tried to get it going it was dead.
It started working intermittently when playing about with the channel select switch so it seemed like there was a loose connection somewhere. After some googling I found Heng Long’s soldering skills were not highly rated. Eventually I found out that the component next to the switch was causing the problem. The component was re-soldered and the tanks now working fine.
Below is a video of the repaired tank in action.
If there is one thing I have learned when it comes to R/C, its to give spares a thought before you purchase your new vehicle.
I know look at the avaliability of spares before making a purchase and pick up a few of the most common bits to break while I can get hold of them.
Its very easy to fall into the trap of buying a (often discontinued) model that is reduced in a store, only to find you break it in 5 minutes and can not get hold of the parts.
The first thing I did after picking up my Blade 120 SR from model zone is buy a load of spares from rsbspares.com
If you are wondering what the blade 120 SR is then watch this.
My first experience in nitro R/C come in the shape of a Panda Stadium truck that was a pretty cheap buy being a discontinued model. I soon found out the downside of purchasing a discontinued model is the difficulty of getting spares. I will not make that mistake again.
The truck is a good entry into nitro rc not too fast and pretty reliable, just don’t crash it! You will be searching online for hours to get parts.
Here is a video of me running the truck around a scrapyard.
Shane's Shed 