RC Helicopter

[drewmo]

Can anyone recommend a small RC Helicopter for a Christmas gift in the $50 range - or is something that cheap not even worth the hassle? It'd be for my old man who doesn't have much RC experience, i.e., it'll crash a lot. I've looked on Amazon and have found a few in that range, but the reviews don't always tend to be good. Or, can you recommend a gift for a 70-year-old retired Navy captain/police chief? Thanks!

 

[spadafore]

e flite blade msr is an awesome heli. My brother has one and I have flown it a little. It is a couple hundred dollars. There are cheaper ones. Check out their web site. It is broken down pretty good with plenty of reviews.

 

[Gooserider]

The problem I've heard with a lot of the cheaper models is that they don't have a tail rotor, so it can be hard to make them go in the direction you want... However there are some mildly amusing ones out there - The GF was given one that instead of a standard chopper body, had one made of the letters of a certain FCC prohibited word (as immortalized by George Carlin) - Intended as the definitive answer to the question "Who gives a flying ....?" It would go up and down pretty well, but you couldn't really control it's direction of flight or keep it stable otherwise... (And no, I won't post any pictures...)

She took it to work at one point, and even some of her colleagues who were into RC stuff couldn't get it to do much.

OTOH I've heard that some of the standard design helicopters can be pretty decent, so I would definitely say to look at the reviews, and possibly look around for any Forums or other sites that talk about them for advice about what to get...

Gooserider

 

[Squiner]

Can anyone recommend a small RC Helicopter for a Christmas gift in the $50 range - or is something that cheap not even worth the hassle? It'd be for my old man who doesn't have much RC experience, i.e., it'll crash a lot. I've looked on Amazon and have found a few in that range, but the reviews don't always tend to be good. Or, can you recommend a gift for a 70-year-old retired Navy captain/police chief? Thanks!

check out this page, some helis in that price range.

(broken link removed to http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0093p?&C=EAA)

from that page, I think the one I linked to below may be your best bet. It comes with a LiPo battery which has a very good power to weight ratio. This should provide for some decent flight times. Also, I have owned a Venom heli before. It was 4 channel and worked quite well.

(broken link removed to http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXVEV4&P=0)

 

[mayhem]

Anyhting in your price range in strictly indoors...they won't have the power or the mass to deal with even the slightest breeze. Some will have tail rotors, but most will not, rather they have a pair of counter-rotating rotors mounted on top of each other coaxially...its actualyl a very forgiving and agile configuration (my nephew worls for Sikorski and has been working on their coax heli program). I have an efilte Blade CX/2 (CX/3 is the current model i think)...runs about $160-180 and all you need are battereis for the controller. its a good toy but I find I don't have the patience(nor the time really) to play with it enough that I've become at all proficient in flying it. So one day I head to my hobby store to buy some parts for it to replace the ones that underwent a RUD event (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) and he hands me the controller to his new toy which was basicalyl a scaled down version of my heli. I think it was called an mCX. The rotor blades are flexible, its very light and I was able to just pick up the controller adn fly it around his shop...I even landed it on top of his celiing fan and I can barely get my CX to hover.

It was well under $100 and came with everythign you need in the box.

Other than that you'll see $25 Air Hogs toys at Wal Mart and even in teh grocery store...my father in law has one...works ok, but since the battery is built in and made cheaply its jsut about shot after very light use for a year...won't hold enough of a charge to get more than a half inch off the ground now.

 

[Stoveblazer]

Air Hogs makes excellent copters that are very durable. They are not very expensive either! I personally have a micro chopper, but the tail rotor broke ( both of them!). I would buy an Air Hogs RC copter if I were you.

 

[mayhem]

Saw a really cool dual rotor helicopter at Wally Worls the other day. Air Hos Twin Thunder.