| Customer Reviews: Average Rating:  Rating : - Fun! Well Engineered! Glad I Bought It! I almost didn't order this due to the mixed reviews, but I'm glad I did. Yes, this this is fragile. I'm always afraid one of the kids or coworkers who grabs it is gonna brake something. If you are rough on your possessions, you may want to give this plane a pass. But, as far as being crash resistant, the plane is pretty good. In fact, I would say the whole bi-plane is very well thought out.
At times, I had the problem one reviewer had - the plane would basically dive and crash. This is because you have to fly this plane right above its stall speed to get good results. If you give it full throttle, the plane will climb quickly, then stall and dive. If you don't give it enough power, it will dive. Also, if you do not have it fully charged, the engine will not have enough power, and the plane will not be able to sustain it's flight. And, that means fresh batteries!
This is not a good plane for a small living room. You really need like a basketball court or some other wide open indoor space to fly it. Luckily, I manage a building with a large lobby. Let me say, it flies beautifully there. Once you get the hang of it, you can really control it. Mine likes to get into tight, spiral right hand turns, but tapping the left rubber will get her flying straight again. I can fly it until the battery dies without crashing on a good day.
The biplane is graceful to watch, although it does tend to porpoise a bit. When I fly it, people always want to but it for their kids.
Flight time is very good, I'd say I can fly her for at least 7 minutes before she start losing power. but, the plane really seems to drain batteries from the charger fast. I have Nihm rechargable that will power my flashlights for hours, or take tons of pictures with my digital camera. The plane seems to drain them in 2 or 3 flights. The AA batteries still have juice in them, but like I said unless the batteries are fully charged they don't seem to fully charge the plane's battery.
Carefully examining the plane, I think they incorporated some product improvements to this model. For example, another reviewer said the plane always wanted to turn in one direction. So, he cut asmall slice of the tail off so the rudder could swing further in that direction. This plane already had that modification done to it. The rubber is also permanently turned in one direction. The result is, I was able to fly straight, and turn left and right pretty much right out of the box.
For the money, I'm totally glad I decided to buy it. + See Full Customer Review |  |