Love Electric Helicopters? Honey Bee Antique shows early difficulties + Daves Helicopters

When Alan from Canada sent me this Antique Honey Bee electric, I was anxious to play with it. Then, all the old frustrations came back, as I tried and tried to get it to fly. We are pretty spoiled with all the LiPos, Brushless Motors, Gyros, Spread Spectrum radios, and the light composites we have for today's helicopters. Remember, back only 35 years ago, this was real progress.

Many things went wrong. Stripped gears, both tail and main. Such small Allen screws, that I could not find an Allen wrench to fit them.
Parts kept flying off. There were no gyros in those days either and 2 minutes was tops on the battery.

In the last minute, the battery gets low and slow, so trying to make adjustments was futile.

It took a long time to charge the battery, just to try again.

Of course once it flew, you sensed a deep satisfaction of accomplishment.

But remember, these helicopters were new 35 years ago and most skeptics said we would never have electric helicopters.

I am glad we never gave up, for today's helicopters are truly electronic works of art.

Thanks for watching,

Dave

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Honey
• Bee
• RC
• heli
• helicopter
• antique
• gyro
• radio
• control
• blade
• rotor
• etrm
• fly
• Dave
• Herbert
• Nightflyyer

[HangarX1]

LOL "To the bench for adjustment"

[joouyang]

Learn some valuable lesson... true we taking things granted these days..

[flightdeckreviews]

Makes the havoc heli look good! haha!

[CRISPINSWEDEN]

Thank´´s for a verry entertaining clip!! I realy like you edeting style and the way you tell werry interesting and funny information! Best Regards Hans Crispin SWEDEN

[miracotech]

rc airpane pilot**

[miracotech]

cool vid i just started rc helis cause im an airplane pilot and can i ask were do u get the 1 main rotor helis like the blade 400?

[Buckyball1963]

Nice to see the Honey Bee flying. It was my first heli & I had the same problems getting it airborne.

Motors often burned out. Gear eccentricity made it hard to get good mesh.

Tiny screws were too easy to overtighten.

Radio gear/batteries were heavy, back then. No micro stuff.

My Honey Bee is in the garage, waiting for a day when I've got time to resurrect it with modern lightweight parts.

I raise my hat to you, for persevering. Modern designs owe a lot to pioneering models and modellers.

[pagani8]

Amazing video, I can't believe you got it to hover that well eventually after how unstable it looked. VERY nice job!

[wjforbes]

great job, i love it

[Afrocanuk]

Seriously, I would've gone to the hardware store and pick up the correct size allen-keys right at the beginning.

[MrSuperscaff]

I`m 34 and just got into rc heli`s. This guy is a perfect example of someone who tried tried and tried, often tairing his hair out ( i would immagine) to make things work. He has inspired me to try harder at everything in the end hopeing i`ll succeed in whatever i`m doing.

[adz360adz]

its really amazing how far the models have come