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11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
 very cool toy plane!!! Dec 15, 2007
By Brian Womack
this plane is really cool. it's super fast and is very durable.
it takes up to 40 minutes to charge , but flies for 10-15 minutes.
my shadowhawk wants to pull to one side, they should have made
somekind of trim control to fix this! still ,you will not believe
how this thing flies. i would recommend larger areas to fly this plane.
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Great fun and capabilities, but charging is long and inconvenient Dec 23, 2007
By P Eidelbus
Pros: flying capabilities; durability compared to other fliers; price when I bought it.
Cons: long charging time; can't charge from controller's batteries unlike other fliers.
My "Starscream," a different brand and model of radio-controlled styrofoam aircraft, recently and tragically got caught in a very high, impossibly inaccessible tree branch. Searching on Amazon for an equivalent replacement, I saw the XPV 2.0 Shadow Hawk for $21. For the stated capabilities, I figured it was a steal and bought one for myself and a second for a friend. After playing with it, I'd consider it a great buy at $30. (I would say $40 or $45, but if you read the rest of my review, you might want to buy a car lighter socket adapter to help charge it, making for a higher total price.)
This is not just any old styrofoam R/C toy: this is a durable, highly capable flier that will delight grown-ups too.
My first impression: wow, the XPV Shadow Hawk is HUGE. Almost 13" long, and 13" wingtip to wingtip. The styrofoam is very strong compared to other fliers, and the whole setup does feel heavy. One might initially wonder if it's too heavy to get airborne, especially with the plastic wheels. It came fully charged and wowed me with an initial test over my front yard -- and two neighbors' yards! This is definitely NOT a backyard toy, unless you have acres and acres.
It's also quite noisy compared to other fliers, because of the powerful motors. PLEASE BELIEVE THE PROPELLERS' WARNING LABELS! The propellers are plastic, but when the labels say to keep your fingers away, they mean it. To test their power, I held my Shadow Hawk while giving it full throttle, then put a wooden toothpick into one of the propellers. The propeller chopped up the toothpick and came out unscathed, so it could do the same to a child's small finger. The box says 8+ years old, which sounds right, but I personally would want to supervise any pre-teens who might not yet understand the danger.
The flying capability is superb at this price range. Some people have reported difficulty keeping their XPV Shadow Hawks and Minis airborne. If your XPV pulls to one side and therefore downward, the solution is to "trim" it. Unlike other R/C fliers, these XPVs don't come with a "trim" knob on the control (which balances the flying by giving more power to one engine than the other). However, you can "trim" XPVs in the literal sense. The term actually originated from cutting off tiny pieces of the material, slivers at a time, but don't do that with XPVs. For one, it won't be aesthetically pleasing afterward, and second, you might affect the aerodynamics.
Instead, "trim" your XPV by peeling off non-essential plastic tape from the side it pulls to -- being careful not to remove tape that covers the wires! Don't remove it all at once: remove some, test the flier, and remove more if necessary. If that's still not sufficient to balance things, add clear packaging tape to the back corner of the other side. Repeat until it flies reasonably straight.
Durability is amazing. After only one afternoon of serious playing, I crashed mine several times into the ground, and none of the wings were so much as creased, let alone bent. The thin hard plastic over the cockpit cracked, but that can be fixed with white glue.
The Shadow Hawk charges via the included AC adapter and a cylindrical "transformer" (which like the controller is encased in futuristic-themed plastic). The AC adapter, of course, plugs into an AC outlet; its cable plugs into the transformer; and the transformer has a cable that plugs into the Shadow Hawk to charge it. The Shadow Hawk's charging port is built surprisingly solidly into the foam, and it even has a sliding plastic cover for the port. Other styrofoam fliers merely have a flimsy and unprotected port. The Shadow Hawk's is very sturdy, not that you shouldn't still take care plugging in the charging cable, but other fliers seem ready to break.
This charging system can be nice because you don't have to drain your controller's batteries to charge, but it's inconvenient if you must fly at a park or other location without handy AC outlets. However, you can use an adapter that turns your car lighter socket into an AC outlet. Better yet, buy an adapter that turns your car lighter socket into a coaxial tip for DC voltage, then plug the tip into the Shadow Hawk's transformer (that way you won't need the AC adapter). Buy an adapter with a set of coax tips, to ensure you'll have one that fits. If applicable, make sure you have the polarity correct. It looks like you won't need to buy an adapter with varying voltage. The Shadow Hawk's transformer is rated 6V input, but it worked at 12V (the adapter I bought has selectable voltages ranging from 3V to 12V).
But even if you can charge it anywhere, there's the insurmountable disadvantage of long charging times. The back of the box says it takes 80 MINUTES to charge, for only 9-11 minutes of flight. This isn't very fun at any age. Frankly, other fliers have much better ratios of flying time to charging time. I preferred my old "Starscream," which like other competitors' products does charge from the controllers, flies just as long and charges much faster.
The Shadow Hawk as a whole is great fun, but because of the charging issues, I almost returned mine in favor of an XPV Mini. Instead, I bought an XPV Mini as well, to play with while its big brother charges. The Minis do have a shorter range and lesser capabilities: they're smaller (not necessarily a lesser quality though), they don't fly as fast, and they must be hand-launched. The Shadow Hawks have a clear advantage in that their wheels enable them to take off and land like real aircraft, even on slightly rough pavement. If yours happens to crash right-side-up, just give it full throttle and make it take off again.
The Minis, though, charge from their controllers, and in under half the time. I don't think they're any easier to fly than the full-sized Shadow Hawks (the design is basically the same, just on a smaller scale), and they don't take off from the ground. Still, I think the Minis are better as a first choice, just because of the faster charging times.
I give the Shadow Hawk three stars overall. Five for durability, four for fun (I'd give five stars for fun but waiting to charge it is NOT fun), and five for educational value, since younger users will learn about "trimming" and other aspects of aerodynamics. But only three stars overall, because of the charging issues.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Not a young kids toy Apr 24, 2008
By Joshua Westerfield
Let me just start out by saying this is not a kids toy. After reading a review for this by others and after purchasing one myself I can say this. The plane is very fast, itll probably do atleast 20-30 mph in the air. I had this thing about 200 feet up and when it dives you can expect even higher speeds. It flys and drives just like advertised but there IS a learning curve to flying. Changing direction requires only a quick flick on the thumbstick and for some reason alot of kids just can't get the hang of this(mine included.)
Also, the pamplet says you need at least 200 meters of fly space. You can get away with less, but only just barely. If you crash on the street in a nose dive at 30 mph expect it to break. However it wrecked multiple times in grass and it was recoverable everytime.
Well thats the end of my rant hope it helps a few of you out. Also, there is a Mini XPV that is slower and much easier to fly that would be great for kids younger than 12.
Lots of fun Feb 08, 2008
By Jeffrey March
I purchase several of these on after Christmas sales for about $25. The plane was easy to fly and lots of fun. The foam body survived many hard impacts and never broke. With practive I was able to perform high speed fly bys and smooth landings.
works so far Jan 14, 2008
By A. Julian
"weluvourkids"
My son got this for Christmas and so far it works fine. It does need room to take off and it has not gotten far in the air yet. It has been pretty windy. You can not play well with it if it is too windy. So far it still works which is better than most and has not broken. So I condiser that to be pretty good.
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