Walkera HM-060

January 17th, 2007
Intimidating would be a good word for someone new to copters with barely 20 flights on a Century Hummingbird v4. The collective pitch makes for a much higher head speed with over half throttle needed to get enough pitch into the blades for it to start a lift off. The increase in speed makes for quite a bit more noise and faster battery drain, too. Still it has survived 5 trim flights in the warehouse where I work so far. 3 yesterday and now 2 today. So far it is unhurt and that's a wonderful thing. Actually it was much closer to being properly trimmed "out of the box" than the Hummingbird was. Still not exactly right but getting closer.

The main rotor span is only about 4" larger than the hummingbird, but overall size and weight is considerably more. That extra weight probably has something to do with the battery drain too. Actual flight time is not all that great on the stock battery. I'd guess about 2 or 3 minutes max with the remainder of the "6 minute" pack being bled off at a fast idle with the copter sitting on the floor. I can already see an upgrade to brushless motor, speed control and lipo battery in the not too distant future. Still it's what I'd consider a great buy considering that it's fully 3D capable (in the right hands) and comes complete with radio for the same price as the Hummingbird. Check it out if you want. Careful though, their website is a bit addictive for the fresh (or born again) flyer. I bought mine with the metal tail upgrade (thought it might come in handy for spare parts a little later). I'm planning on going back a little later for the metal head upgrade and some other spare parts once the commonly broken ones are back in stock.

Anyways, the replacement tail motors (ordered 2) for the Hummingbird arrived today. Already have it replaced and will probably go back to flying it for a little while longer before getting into the Walkera again. The Hummingbird might not be as precise or responsive, but it does have lots fewer breakable and complicated looking parts. I'd much rather try to hone my "skills" on the one that's easy to fix and has enough battery to actually get to play with it for a few minutes.

January 22nd, 2007
Even though I was planning on setting this one aside 'til getting a little more stick time on the Hummingbird I wound up playing with it some more this weekend. The breeze picked up here early Saturday morning which made flying the Humminbird outdoors impossible so I broke out the pitch guage and made some minor adjustments on the rotor incidence of the Walkera.

Out of the box the rotor baldes were set at 0 degrees at 0 throttle in normal mode. I changed mine to around 3 degrees positive at 0 throttle and found it made a remarkable difference in flying for the beginner like myself. It actually begins to lift at about half throttle and once up will hover about waist high at half throttle. I'm not sure if it's the reduction in head speed that makes it seem so much more docile, or that now both blades are set indentical. One of them was best I could tell a degree ahead of the other one since it took 1 turn on one link and 1+1/2 on the other. It wasn't something that was really noticible when checking the blade tracking but did make a big difference in the "feel". Sort of hit the "sweet spot" on the trim I guess.

I flew it 3 times over the weekend and was comfortable with it even with the breezy conditions. Granted most of the time I keeping it about 6" off the ground and did have the trainer wheels on, but it is capable of handing a little bit of a breeze that the Hummingbird won't. Those three flights were short duration, too. In reality, there's about 2 minutes of actual flight time in the stock pack. I had my fiance shoot some video of me flying it yesterday and start to end is about 2 minutes. Definately gonna have to make that lipo battery and brushless motor upgrade. SOON!

February 3rd, 2007
Right now I find myself wishing I'd ordered the metal head upgrade at the same time as the tail upgrade. I had a little "mishap" with the 60 yesterday and it will be grounded until the one I ordered this morning arrives. Some work related clutter had been added in the area where I normally fly and as a result encountered a main blade strike on a cardboard box.

It cracked the main blades which wasn't a big deal (I had a spare set of those already) but it also bent the thru bolt assembly that holds the blade holders to the rotor head. New blade holders are availalble cheap enough but the product photo doesn't show the attaching hardware as being part of it and that's what is actually damaged.

February 6th, 2007
The brushless motor, speed controller, and lipo battery charger arrived today. (Too bad I got dumb thumbs and broke it before they arrived) And, after a little correspondence with Hobby-Estore's customer service have the needed parts for the rotor head repair on order. Not too bad. A new rotor main shaft, blade holders and a screw kit.

I'd find it really hard to say anything negative about Hobby-Estore unless that it's on the far side of the country instead of just around the corner from where I live. That, and it's very addictive. Their customer service is great as far as I'm concerned. I've contacted them on a number of occasions and have always received a reply back within about 48 hours with the answer I was looking for.

Although I should have the parts and have it ready to fly again in about a week, I think I'm going to park the 60 until my heli skills have improved a bit more. I plan to order the Walkera 22D fixed pitch and use it for a while. It looks similar in construction to the Hummingbird (easy to fix and hard to break) but with a gear driven tail at about half the Hummingbird's cost.
Look for a review on it after I've had it for a few days, and maybe a revisit to the 60 after I become 3D capable myself.