You will find the Raptor 30 V2 is just about the best thing to learn on, the parts are cheap and are available all over the place.

The expensive parts like the engine, gyro and exhaust won't be damaged in most crashes, so it doesn't matter if you have the best right from the start.

When you are learning you may go through a few set of cheap blades and a few bits of plastic, but most crashes are low level and only look messy, you only get the right offs later on when you start doing loops.

You need to learn with someone who knows what they are doing, these things are not toys, to set them up properly you need to play with the engine at full speed, some will argue differently, but the last thing you need is the engine cutting out at 3/4 revs, so ground tests are needed, and let me tell you that can be very scary even with loading balls on the rotor head.

I have never crashed my heli, I took it slow and took small steps, having a go on the sim before trying in the real world. The only crash was by my more experienced "friend" who flies mode 1 and not mode 2 like me.

It's a great hobby if you have the time to learn, you will need a good year or so to get a good hover and basic moves, rushing it will lead to expensive mistakes, the average started crash costs in around £80ish.

I am off on my hols for the next few weeks, I had planned to ebay it all on my return, as one lot I'm not going to split it, if you are interested let me know nearer the time.

Edit - Yep they will take the weight of a camera, a 30 size can lift a camera, pan and tilt stuff and video downlink stuff with no problems, I had video stuff on mine until just a few weeks ago.

Cheers

Cris.