As a Beginner you’ll most likely tear up your heli in a learning process. Take me at my word on this. I can tell you time and again I had to wait for parts to repair damaged heli’s. I’ll take you now into a world of bits and twisted parts. The most common parts broken or damage would be as you expect the main and tail blades, that’s only the beginning of the trail of broken parts you may encounter.  

            If I could do it all over again I’d do as I recommend you do. When you order your first heli get as many of the spare parts your budget allows. I’d start with blades both main and tail. Depending on which type of heli you buy, this will have a big effect on the spare part inventory you need. Buying a smaller heli like Walkera #4 Fp or a Blade Cp, the most likely part other than blades would be rotor head parts, of these blade grips, ball links, main and spindle shafts are often damaged. Landing gear is by far the most often broken part you have two ways of going when it comes to landing gear. Buying stock replacements or getting an after market set. The after market sets are a good way to go, but in most cases they are a bit heavier and a lot stronger. The tail boom and tail gears are next on your list.

 If you bought a higher end heli like a Trex or a Walkera#36 the model you bought may have a direct drive tail system. These systems are shaft and or belt driver, which means you’ll likely have a tail blade rotor pitching assembly. The assembly has blade grips and slider parts, which are all likely targets for breakage. Buying aluminum upgrades for the main and tail rotor assemblies is expensive, but in my view worth it. The shaft drive systems have gears that often strip out. The belt system is from what I have seen stronger but still can give you trouble with damaged gears or belt, so having spare for these system is clearly a plus in my mind.

On to motors, with brush motors the cost is low enough to keep a main and tail  motor on hand. The brushless is far more costly and doesn’t stuff the same ills of a brush motor. At around $50 USD. It might not be feasible to keep these sitting around. In general I’d say if your not sure what you’d like to keep on hand, when you first get your heli look any parts list over and place your spare parts order at that time. One more word on blades if you buy Cf main blades, once you ding them you’ll likely find they come apart quickly after that.

Below is a couple of photos of damaged and broken part from my heli’s just to show you the kind of stuff that can and does happen.

Written by CaptKDS