Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked, “How much human life is wasted in waiting.” Dr. Robert Anthony stated, “Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait.”
Here, I sit and wait.
Why do I wait? Because I need parts. I got cocky and tried to fly my Honey Bee outside with a stiff wind. I wrecked. I broke my paddle control frame (PFC).
Why do I not have parts? Because finding parts for the Honey Bee V2 is like finding weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: Near impossible.
Don’t get me wrong, I can find every part that I need…if I am willing to pay an extra $20 (or more) in shipping and handling per part. It seems that every online store has one or two parts that I need and the rest are sold out. This is a real pain in my ass.
Another issue is that many of the online stores are based in Hong Kong and China. I have never bought anything online from Asia, and I am a very apprehensive to start now. Plus, the shipping charges are outrageous.
I checked HeliDirect (where I bought the helicopter). They had one part, but everything else was sold out. I have been on a wait list for a week, but I still haven’t heard anything.
I googled “rc heli parts,” “honey bee parts,” and anything else that would produce possible links.
I searched on Helifreak, a very good internet forum with a ton of fellow rc helicopter enthusiasts. I found a lot of possible sites, but still no dice.
I finally decided that some parts are better than no parts. To be fully satisfied, I need ringlike push-rods, flybars, a PFC, a trainer kit, and anything else that looks like it could break, but getting the bird back in the air is worth the money to just get what I absolutely need rather than what I would like to have. Although the push-rods are both broken, I do have them patched with tape and they are temporarily working so I don’t absolutely have to have the push-rods yet.
Fortunately, I stumbled onto an internet supplier called USHobbySupply. I not only found a PFC, but I found an Xtreme metal PFC for around $12 and got a trainer kit from the same supplier. It is an American supplier, so the shipping was not killer. I actually got it sent Priority for much less than what it would cost for a slow delivery from Asia. It should arrive in a few days and I will compare the stock plastic PFC with the new metal one when it arrives.
Until then, I wait.
SpaCityFlyer
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