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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 Fun for a beginner and a Good Price Dec 11, 2007
By T. Thomas
I bought this for my 16 year old son. I had bought an r/c helicopter before, but we could never seem to get it to perform, and it was big so only for outside. Since he has had this little guy, he has had a lot of flying time and a lot of fun. It took a couple of days to get the hang of controlling it, and fiddling with the collective on-the-fly, but it has been a great success.
It is lightweight and more resilient than you might think, I have to say, it took a lot of battering when he was first learning. Note: after you crash, make sure the gears are lined up before taking off again:-). The replacement part kit is nearly as expensive as the plane itself. ugh! On the positive side, a little tape works fine for repairing the rotors, and we just had to do that last week, so he has had it for 2 months of learning before actually breaking the thin plastic. (Actually, his 18 year old brother came home from college and was trying to learn how to fly it...)
We bought an a/c adapter for the charging unit. A good product and a good price, I don't think I would go younger than 15 or so, unless they have helo experience.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 You Will Need Extra Rotor Blades Nov 18, 2007
By D. McDonald
I recently purchased this helicopter and found it to be very fun to fly out of the box. The problem is its fragility. The blades were broken after the third flight. I read previous reviews of the Micro Mosquito sister helicopter that warned of issues with durability so I was very careful with each flight. Never the less, the rotor blades are so fragile I don't think it's possible to use the product without destroying them. Replacement rotors are available, but they are quite expensive and must be an excellent profit center for Interactive toys. Keeping the blades light is an excellent approach for achieving the power density that makes this toy possible, but there has to be a better more durable material than the excessively thin plastic that Interactive toys has chosen. SUMMARY: Fun toy...but consider the cost of regular replacement parts before you purchase.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Instability Problem Solved Jan 12, 2008
By Tim
The Draganfly Firefly indoor R/C helicopter is a fun, but delicate, toy. While learning to fly it, I crashed it numerous times (mainly into houseplants). This quickly destroyed the delicate blades beyond the point where Scotch tape could fix them. After retrofitting the helicopter with a set of (very) expensive replacement blades, it became highly unstable, spinning uncontrollably into the ground no matter what I did. The problem turned out to be the locking mechanism that holds the rotor shaft to the underside of the helicopter body. There is a locking pin, which looks like a little wrench, followed by a tiny washer, then finally a cap which is simply pushed onto the end of the shaft. When I pulled off the piece of rubber tubing from the top of the rotor shaft to remove the blades, the bottom cap was loosened ever so slightly. This allowed the shaft to wobble during flight, which slowed down the upper blades which are directly connected to the shaft (the lower blades rotate freely around the shaft). This caused an imbalance in the torque, resulting in uncontrollable flight. The solution was to simply push the end cap back on tightly until there was no wobble in the rotor shaft. Unfortunately, the manual is poorly written (it even contains sections that don't pertain to this model) and fails to mention this as one of the remedies. Ever since I discovered this fix, the helicopter has been very stable and is again fun to fly.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
fun to fly Oct 01, 2009
By Vegas Gambler
"JCMC"
This little toy is good for starters on the hobby of flying indoor copters, it's very durable as I've no experience and have crashed it many times, and it's still good. I'd suggest getting extra blades, or supper glue for minor repairs. It hovers real good, and runs apx 10 min per charge.
2 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Durable, with long-lasting flight times Jan 31, 2008
By Patrick Flautt
I purchased this product through edmund scientifics, but i felt that I should contradict the other less satisfactory reviews this product has received.
1) Item was in flight-worthy condition upon arrival and I could not ascertain any noticeable manufacturing defects.
2) I don't know about the other reviews that complain about the rotors easily breaking in a crash situation; this seems to be a half hazard assumption, and possibly attributable to improper flying at high altitudes with too many obstacles in the vicinity.
3) This helicopter is durable. I (and friends) have easily crashed this heli in excess of 40+ times since arrival. Crashes ranged from 5 inches above ground, to 10 feet above the ground. No breakage or misalignment of rotor blades has occurred in the week since I've used it (which is daily).
4) This unit charges in under 8 minutes with 6 'c' batteries. I am considering investing in the over-priced $20 ac adapter, but I'm fairly sure I can find this adapter at a cheaper price at a hobby store/online.
--- All-in-all, this is a highly recommendable and durable product. Would definitely recommend this to ages above the suggested 10 years old. It does take practice, and one does have to readjust the stability of the helicopter; as the full charge performance compared to the 50% charged performance in mid-use often yield different variables. Failure to adjust in mid-flight just causes endless issues from any range.
See all 13 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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