What's the difference in a belt driven tail rotor and a motorized tail rotor for a RC helicopter?

Question

I'm getting the Esky Honey Bee CP2 6 ch Heli and I noticed it has a motorized tail rotor as opposed to the belt driven tail rotor on the Honey Bee King 2 6 ch... I was wondering what's the big difference? Is one easier to fly than the other? Is the handling any different?

Answer 1

The motorized tail will be simpler to fly as you don't have to worry about collective pitch mixing and RPMs as much. (If the main blade is spinning too slowly on a belt drive, the choppers spin will not be controllable as the tail won't be spinning fast enough.)

In the larger choppers, (.30+ glow) you always have a belt driven tail as running two gas engines would be tough. The micro electrics almost always have a motor in the tail for simplicity- i.e. a belt driven tail has adjustable pitch tail rotors while a direct motor drive has fixed pitch tail rotors.

Oh, cheaper to replace the tail rotors on a motorized tail rotor.

Flyability will be easier on the motorized tail. You probably can do a bit more 3-d with a belt tail, but I think that's an arguable point.

HTH

Answer 2

a belt drivin, the tail rotor is drivin by a motor on the canopy, maybe even the main rotor motor. otherwise the motor is directly attached to the tail rotor