I purchased into a hobby that I really hope will be fun and entertaining to me as it can be for others who read through my posts. So what did I get you ask? An R/C scale Hughs MD-500, “Military Defender” series. Also known as the “Littlebird”, for its size, and yet versatility in what it can do, is its cool scale R/C helicopter. This is the FX070c 4-channel, 2.4Gh, using 3-axis gyro MEMs and what not, Flybarless (that means no weights to use as balance) .
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOEyFrSvFtE]
My tail starts when I come across a google search about the MD-500, and a pretty cheap price for it on a r/c hobby forum. When it was only $120 and was available. I went ahead and ordered one from Gearbest.com in May. My mistake there is a mix of my temper, and lack of communication from the seller. These two things don’t mix very well in a internet “instant results” world. Well after a month of waiting, no helicopter was being sent I canceled the order in April, so I went searching and found just as cheap of a deal for the FX070c at Banggood.com. Which took another three weeks for that to ship.
Well that starts as a pretty interesting tail of, “Yeah!” to “awhhh” to “hmmm”, in just one day.
It arrived! The package looks great, no points of impact or crushing.
May 5th, my FX070c arrives in the mail… or so it seemed, the box was too big to fit in the postal box down at the mailbox. So… I had to track down the box back to the USPS Office. The delivery man, mistakenly noted the delivered it, when in fact he kept it in his truck. I ended up having to pick it up at the Post Office.
Once back at home, the package was what other people described at rcgroups.com. Tons of yellow packaging tape, and the actual box for the helicopter was well protected for shipping.
Opening the box was a methodical process. I cut the edges of the yellow packing tape and we see the box.
The bad news, was realizing what was lose inside the box, was the helicopter itself. Which this is where we also find out, the left missile pod had crushed against the chassis of the helicopter. So a big crack above the pylon point of the chassis was found, another crack up higher from where the helicopter was pushed up against the missile pod at some point
This is where I realize why something was so loose inside the packaging. The helicopter wasn’t secured into the mold after its inspection.
The missile pod cracked the chassis, along with the landing skids wouldn’t stay in place. The screws the hold the landing skids in place were stripped, and hot glue was used to help hold the skid in place.
Cracks at the pylon point, and up higher near the “070” designation.
Checking under the chassis, the rear points for the landing skids both sides were just hot glued in. The screws were striped. this makes landing hard.
