Successful technologies often begin as hobbies. Jacques Cousteau invented scuba diving because he enjoyed exploring caves. The Wright brothers invented flying as a relief from the monotony of their normal business of selling and repairing bicycles.
– Freeman Dyson, theoretical physicist and mathematician
Make a commitment to having fun. See your best friends and make time for your hobbies and passions.
– Robert Holden, British psychologist, PhD in the Psychology of Happiness
Rotorcraft Background
Background information on the Rotorcraft RC helicopter club Nottingham – Rotorcraft is a Nottingham based RC helicopter start-up club and community.
We are currently looking for potential members to join us and help build an indoor flying club meeting weekly in the Nottingham area. We have several venues in the cross hair that offer large indoor sports halls with high ceilings.
The main emphasis of the club is to introduce new people into a hobby which can often be immensely complex and not to mention expensive to navigate without help and guidance. Existing RC helicopter enthusiasts are not only more than welcome, but also much needed to help train the new.
With the main objective being to attract new people to the hobby, we have the basis for an in-door as opposed to outdoor club. The associated costs for the budding helicopter hobbyist are massively reduced pursuing the types of helicopters used for indoor flight as opposed to outdoor flight.
Indoor helicopters are much lighter than outdoor helicopters as they do not have to contend with wind, they are also generally much smaller for the same reason. The combination of smaller and lighter results in not only much lower overall costs, but arguably also reduces risk of injury and harm to the novice rc helicopter pilot. Hopefully this will help to address one of the main barriers of entry for new pilots, the costs.
Do not make the mistake of thinking smaller and lighter must mean slower and less agile or performant, oh no, not the case at all. The smaller indoor helicopters can do absolutely everything that their much larger cousins can do, the key difference is a really bad crash with a small indoor helicopter might cost you £20 to put right. A serious crash with a large outdoor helicopter might result in you having to postpone the next family holiday for budgetary purposes.
Please check out the the OMP M1 and OMP M2 helicopter demo videos on our Art of the Possible page. Both the OMP M1 & M2 are small indoor helicopters that are being flown outside (as it’s a calm day) by James Platts, Midland Helicopters team pilot. The videos speak for themselves but hopefully after watching them all will agree, if there are any limitations to small helicopters aside from wind and calm conditions, it’s not the helicopters themselves that’s the limiting factor.
There are of course other benefits to an indoor RC helicopter flying club over an outdoor club, weather, and day light.
It is not a good idea to fly RC helicopters in the rain, and it’s an even worse idea to try and fly an RC helicopter in poor or fading day light. Night flying is entirely possible and a marvel to watch (often done to music) but requires night flying rigs fitting to your helicopter consisting of lots of high-powered LED’s and main rotor blades with built in lighting (night blades). Night flying is defiantly not a pursuit for the novice pilot.
Indoor clubs are not weather or day light hours dependent which is a major advantage over outdoor clubs. We would recommend joining both types of clubs, with the indoor being a good starting point and incubator for the outdoor.
If you live nowhere near Nottingham but would like to find an RC helicopter club near you, please visit the BMFA (British Model Flying Assocaition) for a list of RC helicopter clubs in the UK.
If you are interested in learning to fly RC helicopters, please visit our learn to fly page.
Hamish Morley – Night Flying World Champion flying Global 3D Helicopter Event 2022