I figure there has got to be a bunch of others here flying these things, but I've yet to see anyone mention it yet.
This hobby has been exploding the last couple of years, there are clubs popping up all over, with a 1/2 dozen in Calgary alone. I got into the foam Parkzone planes back in 2010 or so, my uncle has built custom scale military planes since prior to me being born, and taught me to fly long ago on a little Aero .40 gas trainer, but I didn't touch it for 20 years after that. With the cheap, quiet, simple new electrics, you can get some pretty fun performance out of the model planes now.
I got bored with the planes quickly again, but really have had a great time with the r/c helicopters. I started with the little indoor micro fly bar heli's, and quickly went up to the 250, and now 450 and 500 class electrics. I have about a dozen different models now, some with a lot of custom metal parts, and mostly fly my Blade 450x flybarless and Blade 500 3d fly bar'd helo. The 500 was only 250$, which was a steal for such a huge machine, but it flies much differently than than the flybarless types I'm used to now. I also have an Align Trex 450 kit I've assembled myself, but not flown yet, and I'm looking forward to trying Align's now little 150 DFC head mini heli once it's out next month.
I have one of the smaller quad copters, and haven't bought a larger one capable of carrying a camera around yet, as they don't interest me that much, but the time and effort put into learning for fly the regular r/c helo's without cracking them up too much has been really rewarding, and I recommend them to anyone looking for a new hobby, especially if you're into aviation. For 100$ you can get a starter fixed pitch flybar helo with a cheap TX and batteries, but I would say for around 250$ you can get a decent radio TX and good starter collective pitch mode helo.
