Test It Up

I was pleasantly suprised this morning when a blade MCX landed on my desk for review . The blade MCX is a coaxial ultra micro helicopter from E-flite. The version that was supplied to me was a RTF (Ready to fly) MCX s300 this also comes in a BNF (Bind and Fly) version.

Something I did want to mention is that this really isn’t a toy and shouldn’t be confused with the many cheap toy helicopters you see on the market. So what do you get in the box of the RTF version? well everything you need to to make your first flight :

Blade MCX helicopter with a scale Schweizer body (s300 version)
2.4 Ghz DSM2 4 channel Transmitter
Charger
Extra Rotor blades and decals
A 1-cell 3.7v 110mAh Li-Po Battery
2 x 4 AA batteries for Transmitter and charger

The MCX comes fully assembled and I am told that each one fully flight checked before leaving the factory.
It’s overall length is just 150mm (6.0in) and it has a weight of just 28g (1oz) and that is with the battery fitted!
On first inspection this little helicopter really looks impressive and well thought out. I can’t belive how small it is for a fully functional 4 channel helicopter it is amazing! The designers have given this some real thought and it has some great little features like the tail rotor. Being a coaxial helicopter the tail rotor is a dummy and has no drive to it. really it is only on the helicopter to complete its scale looks.The designers however have cleverly made it spin by using the rotor wash from the main rotor. this helps make the MCX look even more realistic. They have also included two sets of white rotor blades. If you change the bottom set to the white set included it helps give that scale appearance of a single rotor helicopter, which again is a nice thought and shows how much effort eflite have put into this little helicopter.

So lets give this thing a fly. Once I had the flight battery charged I installed it into the MCX along with the 4 supplied batteries for the transmitter and I was away.

First thing I noticed is how amazingly stable this little helicopter is and how easy to control. It is very responsive to inputs on the sticks. Once I had it trimmed up I could take my hands of the sticks and it would more or less just sit there in a hover. Another thing that impressed me was how fast it would do Pirouettes.
Lithium Polymer batteries can be damaged if you run them down to low to combat this eflite have put a warning system built into the MCX. The solid red LED on the front of the heli will begin to flash when the volatge is reaching this point. My first flight lasted about 6 mins before I got the red flashing LED this improved over the next 3 or 4 flights to around 7 maybe 8 before it gave me the warning at which point you can safely land your helicopter.

I was soon flying figure of eights quite happily in my living room and hovering in front of the Tv. I think the thing I like the most about this Helicopter is its size. You can actually fly it around your living room and get decent forward flight unlike some of the other bigger indoor Helicopters that to be honest, are more suited to a sports hall and not a living room.

I did have a couple of crashes with this helicopter and I have to say it is really tough. I crashed it at full speed into the living room wall and didn’t brake a thing. I also had an altercation with a lampshade and again the MCX came out the winner! In the unlikely event you do brake something it does have full catalogue of spares available and at prices that wont brake the bank most parts are around £2-3.

I think as you can tell I love this little helicopter. It really is great fun and I dont think there is anything else that touches it for indoor flying in a normal size home. It is well designed, extremely stable and looks great. If you are after a indoor helicopter that isn’t a cheap toy with full 4 channel operation then look no further this is it.