I am a UAV/Robotics engineer and wanted to buy this to check out its flapwing design as we tend to view such designs as pretty preposterous compared to traditional fixed wings or rotary wings. Although I don't know that this would scale up very well, it works fantastically in this size!
First...I was initially disappointed since it did not fly in my home at all. Reading a review however, someone else suggested that the indoors pressure differential may have caused them to have this issue as well. So I took it outside and what do you know, the dragonfly flew like a charm!
The flap wing/ornithoper design of it is really innovative and it flies surprisingly well considering how it moves the airflow. Presenting it as a dragonfly makes complete sense, because with the wing design that is what it would most represent even if it were not painted like one.
Whether looking at this for your kid or yourself, it's a really well implemented flyer of a pretty novel design for its price range. Wowwee toys are always good (I have several of their robots)...not familiar with flytech, but they did a great job.
It's a bit hard to control as it's not the most responsive to turns, even on expert. Personally, if you've flow before, skip the tail feather, and the beginner setting...those are really best if you just want to float around and don't care about it going anywhere in particular. This flys most like a fixed wing, not much like a heli. Once you get the hang of it and get it trimmed up (mine has a severe right hand tendency when centered...I have to start it with the rotor spinning to get it to fly right, but it's a toy, so I'll forgive that.) it flys pretty well. The feather makes it turn slower...not really better and reduces its ability to climb. I could see where this would be good if flying it in a tight space though, but outdoors it is more limiting than helpful.
The charge lasts pretty well for this sort of toy...7 minutes seems to be a minimum if you are using fresh batteries in the charger and the recharge is reasonably fast as well (15 minutes is usually what I give it). I would not recommend using rechargable AA batteries...it's tempting I know as this dragonfly munches batteries if you use it very often (I get between 5-8 charges, but by charge 6 or so, my flight time is starting to be less and less). Rechargable batteries (at least of the NiMH variety - this is not true if you have the old alkaline rechargeables) actually have lower voltage so if you're using them, you'll find your dragonfly does not seem to fly as well or as long.
As for the construction, when I first looked at it, I was a bit disappointed. I thought it looked pretty "cheap". I mean, it's almost all Styrofoam and the wings are lightweight plastic film. It made sense that they were keeping the weight down, but a lot of "nice" looking toy-grade flyers are made of plastic (which generally ends up snapping or shattering after too many crashes and is nearly impossible to glue). But after crashing this thing constantly (you WILL crash this the first few times you fly it and probably several times thereafter), I completely understand. The Styrofoam is actually very dense and cushions the internal components extremely well. Mine is a bit scratched and gouged (mostly on the nose) from colliding with trees, buildings and pavement, but I have yet to cause it any real damage. If you don't intentionally try to break this thing, it does not break easily. Honestly, I worry most about damaging the wings, but so far have not managed to do that, even though I've flipped it over a number of times. There is a spare set of "wings" included but that is just the plastic film. If you break the struts, you may be out of luck. I worry most about snapping off the foam tail but so far have not done so, so that seems pretty well constructed too. I guess you could probably tape or superglue it together if it did break so long as the rotor can still turn, but I don't know how that would affect its flyability.
Other comments:
It can take a REALLY long time to connect to the remote. Sometimes on the order of 3 minutes or more. Best suggestion is to turn the trim (so the rotor will start spinning as soon as it's connected), extend the antenna, turn both on, lay them next to each other and go do something to keep yourself busy while listening for the rotor to turn on. However...it's a toy, so again forgivable. Once connected, they stay in contact pretty well. I've walked out of range, but as long as they're both on and you reconnect immediately, they usually pick up again pretty well. The range is at least as large as the manual says however, so as long as you stay within those limits, you should be fine (unless you let the batteries get too low, but by then it won't fly well anyway).
Recommend starting it from your hand at full throttle, tilted slightly up. It can take off from the ground but will need a "runway" of sorts as it's gonna take it a few feet to get up. Also do it full throttle and don't be surprised if it flips over if you don't get it up fast enough...it is nose heavy (for stability).
If it looks like it's going to crash, throttle back all the way. This way it doesn't hit with its wings flapping. Seems like a good policy with any moving parts on things like this and so far I haven't broken anything, so I think it's a good policy.
It glides pretty well as a fixed wing. I like to get it up and stop the wings temporarily. Then you can do tricks by turning the tail rotor. Start the wings again to get it to recover and climb when it starts to dive. Takes practice, but a lot of fun!
Watch out for buildings if you aren't confident of flying it. It sucks having to get a ladder to get it down. Flying it down off a roof is very difficult.
Only complaint is the indoors thing. I've seen videos of them flying indoors but it will not fly in any of the places I have tried it. Granted I have not had the opportunity to fly it in something like a conference room or a gymnasium yet though, so maybe.
And...last but not least, look for it on sale. I got mine for only $20 (not from amazon). Of course, had I known how much I'd like it I'd have gotten more at that price, either for gifts or to replace this one when it finally does break/stops being able to charge properly. Of the under $50 flyers I have, this is easily my favorite.
I fully intend to pick up a couple of the other Wowwee/Flytech toys when I find them for a good price.
Get more detail about WowWee Robotic DragonFly - Blue (27 MHz).
No comments:
Post a Comment