6 New Flying Toys to Get You Outdoors This Summer

popularmechanics ^ | May 29, 2009 | Seth Porges

[JoeProBono]

Getting a toy to maintain flight used to be difficult, with the possible exception of some well-folded pieces of paper. Now, would-be miniature aviators have it a lot easier. A number of consumer robotics and toy companies offer products that take little more than a full charge and a clear line of sight to reach flight. Little assembly, but maybe some batteries, required. Here are six of our favorite new flying toys.

[JoeProBono]

WowWee FlyTech Hoverpod Racer

Interactive Toy Concepts Duck Hunter

WowWee FlyTech Lightstar

Air Hogs R/C Havoc Razor

Hobby Zone Firebird Phantom RTF Electric

SEE ARTICLE FOR DETAILS

[JoeProBono]

[JoeProBono]

[nuconvert]

hmmm... 10 min charge time for a 4 min flight. That’s disappointing.

[CommieCutter]

Oh, I want the hover craft and the duck game.

[JoeProBono]

Yeah, but just think - you can buzz the neighbor's Bar-B-Que for 4 whole minutes!

[Nailbiter]

ping

[wally_bert]

I always thought Blue Thunder was a good looking chopper. Somewhere I thought I read of a flying RC model Airwolf some guy had built.

[LiberConservative]

I bought one of those tiny RC helicopters for my cats to play with. They loved it. They thought we had a bird in the apartment. Lasted all of 30 seconds. One flyover, one athletic jump and a lethal bite to the “throat” and the ‘copter was toast.

[Dosa26]

I destroyed a couple of those “havok” copters. The tail rotor motors are fragile and burn out quick if you use them indoors (don’t know about outdoors.) They flop on the floor and pick up any hair or dust there is. They are virtually unguidable and have poor vertical control with a intermittent signal lag.

[biff]

My neighbor has a shotgun.

[JoeProBono]