Customer Reviews

Blade mSR RTF

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

E-flite markets the mSR as the "next step ultra-micro heli for coaxial pilots" (taken from the mSR's box). While this is true in most ways, if you are new to this hobby or have only flown Syma s107s, AirHogs, etc. you should read on because as good as the mSR is, and it is great, there's some information you should have before investing the time and money necessary to make this bird fun. For reference I had very little experience with helicopters beyond 3ch/gyro helis like the syma s107.

First, I should clear up the concept of indoor. This heli is indoor in the sense that it can't fly well in any sort of wind. Sure, proficient pilots can fly it outside, and people modify the mSR for outdoor flight but if your proficient/modder you're not reading this review. The mSR isn't much bigger than a syma s107 and weighs about the same amount. But unlike any coaxial heli the mSR is INSANELY FAST. You almost can't appreciate how fast this thing is until you experience it. People routinely fly helis like this in gyms because you need that much room to really take advantage of the heli's capabilities. After the first few weeks of frustrating crashes I really thought I had made a mistake and was wishing I had bought the mCX2 instead. And if you are a prospective buyer you should take a minute to consider this alternate possibility. The mCX2 is much faster than a Syma 107, is four channel, etc. and it is controllable for a novice. If you aren't going to progress to the money pit known as collective pitch helicopters, or CP, this is likely what you want. This bears repeating. The mSR is incredibly fast and capable. Sure you can slow it down to the point that it can buzz around from room to room but if that's your goal, why suffer through the learning process of a single rotor heli?

This doesn't mean the mSR is totally unsuited for indoor flying. On the contrary, if you are a very good pilot and you have a programmable radio, you can tame the mSR down to the point that it is very fun to fly indoors while retaining the capability to fly like a bat out of hell when you happen upon a place with enough room to let loose. Maybe that's the value proposition of the mSR? It will take you from beginner to experienced pilot all with the same heli and a big bag of spare parts.

But what if you are just a novice with the radio that came with the RTF kit? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the radio that comes with the kit is pretty limited. It only adds $20 to the price over the BNF so this shouldn't come as a total surprise. With a programmable radio like the Spektrum DX6i, as a beginner the mSR is much easier to learn how to fly. As an experienced pilot, the DX6i allows you to really tap the mSR's potential. A programmable radio like the DX6i allows you to slow down the mSR's flying to almost that of a coaxial and you can gradually bring up the speed as your ability develops. It allows for things like mixing and dual rates, exponential, etc. If all of these things are foreign to you, don't worry. They are not as complex as they sound. And to fly the mSR well you will eventually learn them. There's a lot of help available online, from horizon hobby, etc. Again, if all of this is unappealing consider the mCX2 who's included radio is totally suited that heli's capabilities.

I don't want to totally dissuade you from buying the mSR without a programmable radio, especially if you might invest in one down the road. Just know it is going to be frustrating and to give yourself some time to learn how to fly, it isn't easy for anybody their first time.

So now you have the mSR and a programmable radio (or not). What next? There's a help guide in pdf available from rchelicopterfun dot com for $8. You can find everything in its 77 pages by combing tens of thousands of pages of rc helicopter forums or you can make the best $8 investment in your new hobby. I have no affiliation with the site, its operator etc. I just found his guide extremely helpful. It saved me countless hours and dollars in setup and repairs. For instance, before I knew what any of the radio settings did, I just copied his easy to follow settings and went from there. It was a good basic setup for a beginner.

Tips for Beginners.
1. buy some spare parts. Specifically landing gear, tail rotors, fly bars.
2. buy a few e-flite 150mAH batteries. the included charger can charge 4 batteries. If you have 4 batteries you will always have one ready to go. it makes learning go faster if you don't have to wait for batteries to charge.
3. the 150mAH batteries come with some shrink wrap. Don't throw this away! it goes around the battery to correctly position it for center-of-gravity.
4. trimming the heli is the first thing you have to do. if it isn't trimmed you can't fly it for more than a few seconds without crashing. Unfortunately, trimming requires good technique which as a beginner you don't have. Watch some of the videos on the blade website. One in particular shows the following: spin up the rotor slowly. You'll notice the heli start to skid to the left-- this is normal. As it skids, don't lift off, pay attention to see if the nose swings left of right or stays straight. If the nose moves, trim it out, retest. Get the nose trimmed before you even take off.
5. Taking off and crashing left. As noted above the heli will skid left on take off, this is normal. if fact it will always behave cooky when it is very close to the ground because of the interaction of prop wash and the ground. I wish someone told me this simple thing when I was learning. When you take off you have to give a little right cyclic to counteract the left skid. Also, you should spin up slowly to reduce wear on the system but once you are up to speed don't be afraid to pull it off the ground with a smooth advancement of the stick. this will minimize the amount of right stick you need to counteract the ground effect.
6. More on trimming. I've read some people's heli was trimmed out of the box. They turned it on, took off and it hovered hands off from the start. Mine didn't. Not even close. I had maxed out the trim adjustment on mine and it still would drift backwards and left. If this is happening to you, to may need to adjust the ball link arms. A little bit at a time. I wasn't sure what controlled what so I just moved the stick and looked at the heli's head. I saw which arm moved when I pulled back on the stick. I popped it off and twisted to the linkage two turns to lengthen the arm. I then popped it back on tested. I wound up having to to lengthen it by three turns and now it flies perfect. if you can get an experienced pilot or a local hobby shop to help, that is preferred. Just know, barring some huge defect, if your bird doesn't fly right it is only a matter of adjustment. if you can't figure it out, find someone who can help.

hope this helps any prospective purchasers.

Perfect if you're just starting out.

This thing is small: slightly bigger than a man's hand. This is a big advantage, since if you're just learning how to fly these things (heck even if you've been flying them for a while), you're gonna crash it often. But since there's not much heft to this thing, it's actually hard to damage.

A lot of folks when they get into this hobby buy a much bigger and more expensive helicopter, but they just end up crashing them all the time in the beginning, as everybody does. Even if money's no object for you, that will still mean you're going to be heading off to the repair shop after nearly every flight.

But this one -- man! You can smack it into walls, trees, chairs, etc., and it usually doesn't get damaged. If it does, you're looking at $5 or $10 to replace this part or that.

Another advantage of starting with a small one like this is that, once you get your Ming vase out of the way, you can fly it indoors. With the larger ones, you're going to have to wait for a calm day. And when I say calm, I mean, eerie, Twilight Zone levels of stillness.

Trust me: start with the tiny ones. You'll know when you're ready to graduate.

Having absolutely no experience flying RC helicopters, I was quickly able to have this hovering and flying small maneuvers within an hour. I hesitate to call it a toy but I have been told by RC veterans that this little jewel of a heli will prep you well for larger more complex RC helicopters. It's extremely durable but if you break a part, there are plenty available on the cheap. The landing skids tend to break after a multiple crashes so buy some spares. It's loads of fun, just make sure you have at least 4 batteries so you can cycle through without having to wait. Very addictive and highly recommended.

I have a Blade CP and an MCX. This thing just puts a smile on my face it is so much fun! I used to get so upset ripping up blades on my CP and not learning to fly. The MCX was the perfect way to start flght training, the Msr is the next step.
I have put this thing through some punishing crashes on concrete with NO damage. As long as you get the throttle off quickly it can survive quite a bit of abuse. The blades are so strong yet flexible they can impact solid fixed objects without breakage.
The Celectra 4 port charger is such a great bonus, I have an MCX and a Parkzone ultra micro P-51 that all use this same battery. With this charger I never run out of juice!
If you can fly coaxial heli's then you should love this light little bird!

This thing is great, it will hover without input like the mcx2 but it can also be fast if you want it to be. Flies outdoors in no wind, light wind is ok for more experienced but not good for beginners. Super fast and maneuverable for its size. Most crashes you just pick it up and fly, some crashes something comes out of alignment and rarely something breaks. This is not that good of a heli to learn on. You can use it to learn throttle control and orientation but that's about it. You need to be able to adjust it sometimes to get it to fly properly. You need to set the trims to neutral and make it hover in one spot by adjusting only the swash plate, this will give you the most range of movement of the swash. Sometimes the swash plate separates and you need to press it back together. Sometimes the main gear gets pushed down a bit and that needs to be pushed back. Sometimes the tail blade needs to be bent back into shape. As mentioned by others, the motor of the tail cap could pop out in a crash, the solution is to put shrink wrap over the whole motor.
Overall its very fun to fly and relatively stress free.

I got into this hobby about 3 weeks ago. I started with a couple of Syma S107's and fell in love. I ordered a Blade MCX and an MSR on the same day I got the Symas. After they came in, I fired up the MCX and ran through a couple of batteries. Really nice compared to the Symas from a performance perspective.

Then I fired up the MSR.

The Syma is fairly slow and easy to control.

The MCX is about 2-3 times faster than the Syma, and not nearly as easy to control as it has 4 channels.

The Blade MSR is an angry hornet on crack.

I didn't read the manual. I hadn't heard about 'beginner mode'. When the MSR lifts, it quivers like its gonna explode in midair. The little motors on this thing are literally screaming. It was like it was begging me to punch the throttle. So I did. This thing took off like a bat out of heck, and before I even realized what was happening it had gone *splat* against a wall 40 feet away from where it started. I picked it up, inspected it (nothing broken -- amazing) and sat it on my kitchen table. I then decided that maybe it was a good time to read the manual.

I strongly suggest starting out in beginner mode. After powering everything on, press down on the right stick until you hear a beep, and the center light on the transmitter is flashing. Now you're in beginner mode, and in this mode, it's only about 5 times faster than an MCX, 10-15 times faster than a Syma. Seriously - in beginner mode.

In performance mode, it wouldn't surprise me at all if this thing could hit 25mph when banking. Sound slow? Consider having something moving that fast INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.

Responsiveness... When you tell an MSR to go, it really goes. It reacts quickly and instantly. It's a fixed pitch heli, which means all that nice stability that you had with your coaxial heli is out the door. The tradeoff is raw performance.

Overall, by far my favorite heli. I ordered a heap of spare parts, and a spare MSR from a member on the helifreak forum. I really wish I had a room the size of a gym to be able to let this thing rip. As it is, I'm going to try some outdoor flying this weekend if it isn't windy. I can imaging that this thing would get blown around easily. It weights like an ounce battery and all.

So far, I've needed to use the following spare parts:
1. landing gear
2. 2 tail rotors
3. flybar
4. replaced the swash plate - not broken, just wanted an aluminum one.

I strongly suggest that if you purchase this heli, you get spares of the first 3 above. Me and most other people that have one of these have needed them.

Still, it's my favorite heli.

I have wanted a RC chopper for a long time, and after seeing many cheap IR ones during Christmas shopping I asked about them on a forum. As I had figured, the $30 infrared choppers aren't really worth buying. They suggested I get one of the Blade helis. I picked this one since I figured it'd be a lot more fun than the coaxial ones while still being cheap enough for me to crash without too much heartburn.

I'm very surprised with just how durable the Blade mSR really is. I quit counting after the first 20 or so crashes. The best advice I got from my research on the subject was to cut the engine off the instant you lose control. The mSR is so light that you can't really hurt it when the blades aren't turning. I've let it drop 8 feet to my carpet without so much as a scratch countless times. I cleared out a large area in my bedroom when starting out, but even though I've got a huge room, there's really only about an 8 foot cube after I moved some furniture around. Getting braver, I started flying around which inevitably led to me running into things like card table legs and drum kits. Still didn't break the blades!

About a week after I received my mSR I took it outside since there was barely a breeze blowing. I wanted to see what it could really do. As it goes, soon as I got in the air, the wind picks up to a couple mph. That's about all this little chopper can handle - in my hands anyway. I dealt with it reasonably well with no serious crashes and was feeling pretty good about the whole situation when it all went terribly wrong.

Either the automatic shutdown didn't work properly, or I didn't notice and made it go back up. Most likely the latter. I lost radio control while about 20 feet up. The chopper was slowly spiraling upwards which was better than full speed ahead I thought. I put the transmitter down and followed under my mSR hoping the motor would cut out and I could catch it. Unfortunately the wind caught it and slowly pushed it towards some trees. It went into the top of one with the blades spinning full. It ricocheted around in the branches and finally crashed to the ground. I walked over to survey the damage. It looked okay till I got close. Both main blades were no where to be seen. I found them both 5 feet away on opposite sides of the tree. The blade grips were still attached, but each had half of the other screwed to it. The chopper itself was no worse for the wear other than the landing gear. The front portion on one sled was missing. The little rod that the blade grips pivot on was miraculously still in the rotor hub; the tiny bushings were understandably not recovered.

Twenty five bucks, a few days and meticulous repairs later, my little Blade mSR was airworthy once more. I had ordered 2 sets of grips, a new set of main rotors, and a landing skid so I can get up and go if I ever have another similar crash. I haven't gone back outside yet mostly because it's been gross weather for the past few weeks but have been doing some flying in my room again. I've gotten a lot more comfortable flying, and as soon as it dries out and the wind stops gusting, I'll head back outside and try again!

So to make a long story short, I would definitely recommend getting a Blade mSR micro helicopter if you feel like dipping your toe into the hobby. Under normal circumstances it's nearly indestructible, and if you break a few things it's not going to cost too much to fix. Just remember to cut the throttle if you think you're going to crash into something and you will probably be able to take off right after you get it back on it's feet.

After enjoying the MCX so much, I wasn't sure if I should buy the MSR, the CP Pro, or jump straight to the Blade 400, which will be my next heli. I almost went with a CP Pro since the price is close but you get a good 6 channel radio with the CP. Thing is, you get a better 6 channel transmitter with the Blade 400, so the MSR BNF still seemed like the most cost effective stepping stone.

At first, I thought I made a mistake because the MSR was much more unpredictable than the MCX, and I thought the problem was partly the imprecise basic transmitter. But after some practice, most of the the unpredictability was due to me learning single-rotor flight characteristics. The basic radio is definitely too vague and clunky for the MSR, but it is adequate.

I find the MSR a little frustrating because it can (and often does) go way too fast for indoors, but at a mere 0.8 ounces plus 0.2 for the battery, any wind blows it away. It's a great little performer without a reliable venue.

Great: Maneuverability, speed, overall durability, single rotor, sounds angry, extra tail rotor and mixing flybar, comes with two batteries (uses one at a time) and a great 4-battery charger with a wall plug.

Frustrating: Unstable in a light wind, too sporty for the basic transmitter (precision control is much better in the low rate mode, but then it lacks the control throw to move any faster than an MCX), flight time per battery is shorter than the MCX even with the 120mAh battery.

The MSR's surprising, MCX-like durability was definitely the best reason to choose it as an intro to single rotor flying.

My first mSR was an experience in frustration. It flew erratically, hovered poorly and darted backwards at incredible speed. Trimming it out was impossible even though the dual rate was set at beginner; anyone in the room with it was at risk. The mSR made a screeching growl as it flew and needed full forward trim with the forward control pressed to its limit in order to launch. The reviews and my experience didn't match up so after a few weeks of trying to get used to the controls it was returned. The replacement was very different. It hovered right out of the box, requiring very little trimming. Considering its feather weight it moved around with good control. It is much quieter than its replacement and can be landed consistently on a snack tray. I can now give a good review on this popular single rotor micro.

I have several coaxial toy helicopters and as reported, is quite different other than the basics. Coaxials are so stable in comparison that learning to fly the micro Blade is a bit like starting over. Simply put, imagine a pingpong ball atop a wave. The mSR is so light that it follows its own turbulence. Take your hands from the controls and if there are no objects in the radius of the washing effect the mSR will settle into a reasonably stationary hover. When maneuvering, sliding left/right or backwards produces very quick movement, even in the low rate setting. Forward locomotion is very similar to the coaxial counterpart if not slower. In other words, the mSR in the low rate is still quite quick and nimble and if not prepared, will get into trouble in all directions but forward. What is perhaps the least desirable aspect of the mSR is the way it launches. Unlike a coaxial, it will not rise straight up. Invariably, it moves a distance left or right. My guess is that it again is being buffeted by its own turbulence. The heavier coaxials with counter rotating blades that act as stabilizing gyros and the overall weight produces mass to overcome this. Perhaps that is the reason the demos show the mSR being launched by hand. You need to forget how easy the coaxial helicopters are to fly and resolve to deal with a new learning curve if you are to enjoy this little humming bird.

I have experienced the beginnings of coordinating a sideways slide with a turn to produce a nose down pitch and turn pirouette style maneuver. This is completely different from any coaxial capability and of course very rewarding and addictive. This I suppose is the definition of the 3D maneuvering capabilities and what draws someone into the more expensive 3 dimensional helicopters. At any rate, this is what has happened to me. My five star rating ignores the relative crudeness and focuses on the value and gratitude to E-flite for offering such an affordable, effective and durable product for the transition. The mSR endures crashes simply because it weighs next to nothing. It is like crashing a feather. Had I rated the mSR on my first experience it would be one or at best two stars. I was unlucky to have gotten a faulty first unit. Now I'm a die hard fan. The simple MLP4DSM control is an excellent value and can be used on their other Bind N Fly helicopters. My eye is now on the 120 SR; a heavier / larger helicopter that can be flown inside and out and has all the same function of its little sibling.

The fit and form of the mSR isn't impressive because it is all business and ignores the coaxial bling race. It has one blue LED to let you know it is active. The canopy is at minimal thickness held on with friction fasteners all made for lightness. Removing and installing the battery each time you fly isn't convenient but once again is simple practicality. The overriding aspect is that every part for the mSR can be purchased, even the screws. It has a large stable following and is THE step one can affordably take from the toy helicopter society into the 3D RC helicopter hobby. It departs radically from the stable flight characteristics of the coaxial (other than hovering) but supplants that change with very rewarding maneuvering capabilities. It is only natural to initially fly the mSR like a coaxial. The result is to complain about the inherent instability during maneuvers but once the controls become extensions of your nervous system, the bird flies from brain waves. What started out as a disappointment has turned into an addiction.

but a bit much for in the house. There, my MCX2 is much better. But at the gym, or on a still day (pretty infrequent where I live), it is a blast.

Haven't broken anything yet, so can't say about fixing/replacing parts, etc.