I recorded another video from my heli today, and here it is! I threw a couple new twists to the video editing process to keep it real.

I'm getting better flying my new helicopter. Learning how to fly is definitely not an easy thing. The problem is that making a mistake leads to disaster. The rotor spins so fast that even though it's only 20" long and made of plastic, it can do a lot of damage. I have a bruise on my calf to prove it. Hit a hard edge of something, and you just bought yourself a new rotor blade . The first few times I flew, I couldn't even hold steady on the ground, but I've definitely gotten a lot better. Today I was able to hover for a few minutes without crashing. I can even sort of control moving around forward, backward, and to the sides. Unfortunately, the crash today was a bad one, as somehow the rotor speed got stuck in the on position, but the rotor itself got tweaked so it couldn't move. That led to the main motor getting really hot, and one of the components on the circuit board getting so hot that it desoldered a couple components and released its smoke.

If you don't know how those little black square electronic components work, here's how: every one of them is jam packed with smoke. (I don't know how they get the smoke in there, don't ask.) The component works fine unless you let the smoke out. Once you let the smoke out, the component won't work anymore.

So that's what happened. I released the smoke from the receiver board, which is the most expensive part of the heli. The guy at the hobby shop told me it would probably be more worth it to get a brand new helicopter, because while it costs a little more to get the whole thing, it's not that much more, and then you have all those spare parts.

So my learning experience is: r/c helicopters are an expensive hobby. I've only had the thing for less than a week, and already I've incurred $70 of damage. Hopefully as I get better, that cost per week will go down significantly, or I may have to get a 2nd job.