Latest in Scale Helicopters

As the founder and principal software author behind RCUniverse (back in the day), I am excited to have you here to see what RCPilot is all about. I can share a few things:

- If you want to see what your RC World can be, change worlds using the menu by the logo up top and visit Scale Helicopters. We have lots of content there from the predecessor site, HeliStorm. It illustrates how phenomenal the platform can be when the folks commit to adding valuable content.

- This is NOT like Facebook in the sense that every contribution here gets analyzed by AI (subject to your final say) and cataloged by topic and, if applicable, product. This makes it possible for other members to easily find and benefit from the knowledge you shared. That said, we have a SHOTGUN SHARE feature that lets you share your posts with all of your favorite Facebook groups and forums.

- Unlike Facebook, we are not divided into little groups that spring up monthly. Trying to keep up with dozens of groups just ruins the community experience. Here, we are divided into "RC Worlds" but those divisions have proven to be useful over time. You can hope from one world to the next, but most of us are aligned with one primary discipline so that's likely where we will be.

- Our "build stories" are very cool. The link each chapter in your build journey into one story so that people can easily drill into a chapter to learn what they need while others maybe just follow along with every chapter.

- Our integrated "RCMarket" is the most advanced classified market software on the planet. Lots of security.

- There is a ton more here. Look around and please contribute. In this community, rank is achieved by the QUALITY of your contributions. There are no "Like" buttons. Instead, we have sentiment sliders that let you grade a post on 4 different criteria. That's meaningful feedback. Those whose posts earn high marks from the community, get status.

Hey All,

I just wanted to take a minute to highlight all the cool stuff that is coming this year for ScaleHeliPilot.com!

- We are rolling out a completely new user interface (likely in early March). I'm very excited about the improvements both in speed and usability.

- In June, ScaleHeliPilot.com is hosting an RC Pavilion at the 75th Anniversary of the Dayton Air Show. 100,000 attendees are expected and we will be there along with Horizon Hobby and the AMA. Our group will have a few hand-selected pilots along with their models to let more of the world know about what we do!

- Scale Heli Storm 2025 promotion and news bulletins will swing into full gear! We are working hard to make this event unlike any in the world. Bespoke doesn't even begin to describe the experience for pilots. We have some really cool things in store that are guaranteed to make each pilot stop and think, "wow, I've never seen this before."

- More content! As our membership grows, more and more of our community's knowledge, experience and wisdom is being stored in the world's ONLY scale heli knowledge catalog. Anyone can share anything on this site anywhere else on the web, but only here is every post cataloged for future visitors. With your contributions to ScaleHeliPilot, you are helping construct an enduring library of advice, media, experiences and information that we all benefit from. I hope it will become more evident as time goes on that when we work collectively we can raise the profile of the hobby and the opportunity for more businesses to serve us with new and better products. By gathering in a central location, we give those vendors an inexpensive and efficient way to not only tell us what's going on, but to take our collective feedback in order to bring to market things we dream about.

As always, I welcome your feedback and am grateful for your participation here!

Michael

New stuff is being cooked up right now! Around the end of January, we will be launching a brand new look and feel for the site. In addition, the site will be around 55% FASTER than it is now! Here are some screens to give you an idea of the new design.

The new concepts are:
- Cleaner and easier navigation and interaction
- Opportunity to spice up your event and club listings with images
- Focusing the user on content while still having filters available
- Having the post button in the SAME PLACE on every page and always visible
- We will show bulletins INLINE vs in a pop-up and will have a bulletin page
- We will have a video gallery

The dev time on this update is roughly 60 days and we will be working through the holidays to make it happen as soon as possible in January! We may roll out certain features after the main UI is released.

Let's see your face (or anything else you want in its place)! Click your name in the upper right of any screen and choose MANAGE ACCOUNT. Just click the avatar camera icon or the "change photo" button on the banner to customize your profile. If you add your country, a flag will appear on your avatar in all posts! As our community here grows, it's fun to see like-minded hobbyists around the globe (or, for flat-earthers, across the flat spinning pancake in space).

Get Version 2.0 of the Scale Heli Pilot app!

The new version fixes issues with notifications. We moved to native iOS / Android notifications which are faster and more accurate than what we were using. You can now swipe notifications left to delete individual ones. We also added Apple login and tweaked the menu a bit. There were minor UI changes and the app is faster overall.

Apple App Store Link:

Google Play Store Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kranitz.scaleheli...

There is so much information to be shared in our hobby and much of it gets lost in the noise of Facebook or buried under the most recent flurry of posts. That's why I created ScaleHeliPilot.com. Using the filters that are attached to every post of any kind, users can both catalog what they contribute and easily find what others contribute. Once you get used to the filters, you select none of them to see everything or narrow down as you wish.

Here is an example of Jon Ellis's build story on the HeliFactory EC-130. To find it, just locate and select the model on the left! You can also filter your feed to only look for build stories. As Jon adds chapters, they snap right into the story and you can make comments!

I hope you will add to our global repository of knowledge by contributing your content here. You are free to share what you post on any other site, but you can bee 100% certain that your contribution will remain easily discoverable here for years and years to come.

Every post you contribute here gets preserved and cataloged so that pilots who visit days, weeks, months and years from now can easily find your contribution and benefit from your experience and knowledge! We have seen great progress since launch and you will see new features and updates regularly. I am committed to making ScaleHeliPilot.com the world's best repository of usable information in our hobby. THANK YOU for being a critical part of that journey!

What are we doing here? Some pilots have asked why ScaleHeliPilot is here when we can all use Facebook. Here is why:

- Facebook is built for everyone and anyone. It does not have tools, categories or other capabilities that are specific to our hobby.

- Content posted on Facebook is here today and gone tomorrow. FB was not built to catalog and preserve information. On ScaleHeliPilot, information is all cataloged by topic and product so current and future pilots can easily find specific information when they need it.

- Anyone and their cousin can start a group on Facebook. Many groups overlap which means users often see the same post over and over simply because the poster shared it to multiple redundant groups. Our corner of the hobby is so small that it doesn't make sense to organize ourselves into overlapping groups. ScaleHeliPilot is the group. Everything else gets organized by content type, product type, information type and other attributes that actually matter.

- ScaleHeliPilot has tools that FB does not have like "Who's Flying Where," a buy/sell area that is organized by scale heli-specific categories, a chaptered build story post format, and coming in 2023, a "Master Course" area that features instructional videos by experts in our hobby.

- Our hobby is small so one of our missions is to support the vendors who provide product for the hobby. Facebook makes it hard (and expensive) for vendors to communicate with us about new products and other promotions. If we are all gathered in one space, that job becomes easier for them and we don't miss any news!

Please tell your friends about the site and please contribute your content as well, knowing that it will be preserved and discoverable for years and years to come.

Apply Now! If you are an expert in scale helicopter modeling, you can apply to be one of a handful of experts for our upcoming "Master Course" feature due in early 2023. Experts will contribute courses on things like weathering, head setup, flight techniques, etc., and each course will consist of connected video chapters. Users will be able to track their progress through the course and earn "expertise" badges for completion.

Here is the application:

We have some new stuff coming! By the end of the month, we will support native video upload directly from your laptop or phone! Videos will be limited to 5 minutes (after which most people are bored anyway).

We enhanced our multi-language capabilities as well so that users who are not signed in can still use the translation features.

We will be working with IRCHA on turbine education as well.

Finally, I’m working on a large giveaway with full kits from Roban and Vario up for grabs. More on that in the coming weeks.

In the end, YOU will make this community thrive by contributing your insights, experience and media, all of which will remain easily accessible no matter when you posted it.

Thanks for being part of the revolution!!