I am by no means an expert modeller or for that matter am I an expert in R/C Helicopters having only flown for the past six months. I was intrigued and very impressed by some of the 'scratch built' scale model helicopters shown on various web sites on the net, but as far as I am concerned the chances of making something like that is a case of 'in your dreams'.

I happened across a web site showing the conversion of large scale plastic helicopter kits, eg Revell etc into fully functional R/C models. I was totally gobsmacked with the idea having spent many happy hours in the past building model kits this was something I had a chance of doing.

Before starting to research and plan which model and how etc I decided to rationalise what I wanted from the project overall and came up with the following parameters -

1. I wasn't after a beautifully crafted minutely detailed prize winning flying model, just something that looked great in the air.
2. As far as flying was concerned due to my limited flying skills (I can hover!) I only intended to do light circuits, no fancy stuff!
3. I intended to use 'simple' mechanicals from a donor R/C Helicopter I was familiar with, in my case a Hummingbird Fixed Pitched Heli, with this in mind I had to find a model whose size would accept these.
4. Originally I wanted to complete the project on a budget not exceeding £210 (not including transmitter) but found that I had to go to a brushless setup and therefore found this was not possible having to spend in total £150 on parts for this element alone.
5. Most of all I intended to have FUN!!!