Buying Your First RC Helicopter

What You Ought To Know When Buying Your First R/C Helicopter!

When you walk into the store or browse the Internet, you’ll notice most R/C helicopters come in different packages, RTF, ARF and Kit.

How can you tell which one is right for you? Well, you can talk to the salesperson for hours and try to figure out the words coming out of his mouth or you can read this condensed guide and find out in just a few minutes.

I know you have plenty of questions but the one I will try to answer will be…

Should I start with a RTF, ARF or a Kit?

It’s up to you! When I began with R/C helicopters, I didn’t know what I got myself into. I was in a fog, but as soon as it cleared, I had a kit package on my lap. Surprisingly, buying a kit was the best thing I ever did!

Why do I say this?

Well, the kit enabled me to really understand the inner working parts on my R/C helicopter. Every time I crashed it, I knew exactly on how to replace the broken parts.

But this is just some of the positives of buying a kit package, but that might not be the kind of experience you are looking for.

Some R/C helicopter packages are marked with RTF, ARF and KIT. This is just a fancy way of saying that you might need to get your hands dirty. But on the positive side, some kits all you do is take it out of the box, charge the battery and have fun.

Let’s look at this a little deeper and find out the differences in the kits. More on that after this message…

RTF (Ready To Fly):

The RTF package is short for (ready to fly) which means everything you need is contained within the box when you buy it. Most electric R/C helicopters come in this form. Nitro R/C helicopter RTF packages in the other hand are rare but they are available. RTF’s are perfect for people that have no time to devote to the assembling process.

ARF (Almost Ready-To-Fly):

The ARF is short for (almost ready-to-fly), which means that you have to do some of the dirty work yourself. You might have to separately buy and install the engine, blades or some other parts of the R/C helicopter to make it complete. The ARF is perfect for people with minimal time to devote to the assembly process.

KIT (Fully Disassembled):

Finally we have the fully disassembled KIT. According to the R/C Helicopter Forum, the Kit is the most popular form among nitro or electric beginners and intermediate. It comes in hundreds of unassembled pieces. You have to assemble it piece by piece. It’s mostly geared for people that have the time and those that are mechanically inclined or are willing to be.

My recommendation is get an R/C helicopter that gets you deeply involved in the heli setup process. This will give you a profound understanding of the inner working parts, making it easier when it comes time to replace them.