Customer Reviews

Air Hogs Reflex Helix - Styles and Colors May Vary

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've owned this toy for a few weeks and have given up on it. At first this toy was a little fun and I was optimistic about getting it to handle correctly. I'd adjust the top screw to trim it from spinning clockwise or counter clockwise and everything. This gets old after doing it every time after a charge. Next, using the forward and backward control doesn't work that well. Also, it will drop out of the sky or do something weird every now and then. All in all I wouldn't buy it again, especially at the higher price it is currently going for. Try the smaller havoc, it seems to handle a little better (Youtube has a few movies of it flying). [...].

Okay, so I'm 65 years old and I love a toy! So what? It makes me feel young. This thing is tremendous fun. Some reviewers say it's flimsy. I say, it's light. Heck, what do you expect it to be made out of? Cast iron? How would it fly?

Some say it's not durable. Heck, I've crashed dozens of times. All I do is re-hook the blades and take-off again. Yeah, I imagine if you got it up to full lateral speed and flew it into a cinder block wall, you could break it. But you'd break your SUV if you did the same thing. But if you at least try to stop and slowly chop the throttle in the crash, you're not going to hurt anything.

Educational? I think so. At my age, I appreciate a little hand-eye coordination practice. You have to think ahead when you fly this puppy.

The only down side is you only get 6 or 7 minutes of flight for a little over an hour of charging. And if you obey those harsh instructions, you're suppose to wait 30 minutes after discharge before you begin the charging process. Bummer. I don't care; I'm still giving it a high rating. It's just too much darn fun.

I've purchased several cheap RC flying helicopters and planes over the past year and in general they all seem pretty fragile. But then again I'm not a great pilot.

The Reflex is the most recent helicopter I got and it seems to be the sturdiest of the bunch. Its blade mechanism is designed to "fold in" if they hit a wall which seems to reduce blade breakage. It doesn't reduce breakage to zero however, so the extra blades are handy. You get 4 extra blades, but the bottom and top blades are not interchangeable, so depending on your breaking pattern, you may have burned through all your bottom blades and have 2 extra top blades you can't use.

Setting the trim with the little knob on the top, and making sure the blades are in their "clicked in" position is critical to having any sort of controlled flight. But when properly adjusted and in still air (i.e. indoors) you can hover quite stably.

Now steering is a slightly different story. Again, I'm not a great pilot, so your mileage may vary. The vertical up/down action works quite effectively, but the copter itself seems to spin somewhat unpredictably if you move up or down too quickly. The forward/back control initiates movement, but the heli seems to act a bit like a pendulum and after some forward input, it will want to swing backwards. Using the left/right control to address this is challenging since you really can only use one direction (left, right, forward or back) at a time. I.e. you can't make a forward left input, just forward, then a little left, then a little forward, etc.

Still its the best sub $70 flier I've purchased.

I purchased this helicopter for my husband for his birthday; it's fun and easy to use after you trim it in the right direction. If you just screw in the top and not follow instructions, it doesn't work correctly, it just makes it more out of trim. All in all, it's a great buy (especially at Sharper Image because of their 2-3 year warranty.)

This thing is mostly brilliant. Like other reviewers I cannot stress enough that you *have* to get the trimming right before getting adventurous. Read the supplied instructions carefully and follow the trimming directions. When trimmed correctly this thing will literally hang a foot from your face and barely move. If you buy it for a child, do the trimming yourself before handing it over - and don't expect really young kids to get much out of it. To fly it the way it's done in the commercials, you need to be on the controls constantly; if you expect to just give it full throttle and have it hang like a helium balloon on a string you'll be disappointed. It's a real flying machine and it takes careful and constant control in all directions. Being very light, it reacts to very little air movement like forced air/AC vents, open windows and its own rotor wash when close to a wall.

Pros:

- Very fun and addictive.
- Easy to fly once you get the hang of it. They recommend a double garage or a basement - I fly it in my 20x20 living room with no problems.
- Good flight time (about 10 minutes on a full charge).
- Durable (even a 6+ foot drop on carpet will not damage it and if (well, when) you hit a wall or a piece of furniture the rotors simply fold in).
- Wall-plug charger (doesn't require a base with batteries like other brands).

Cons:

- Long charge time (at least one to one and a half hours; other brands will recharge in about 30 minutes).
- Small radio controller (obviously made for kids, but still...).

The user of these micro helicopters has to be patient... they're easy to fly (certainly easier than a full-size RC plane or helicopter) but still require some ramp-up time. Flying it every two hours or so (allowing the battery to cool down and then recharge) over a couple of days or (long) evenings should get most to a point where they can take off and land on e.g. a coffee table or even their own hand.

Bottom line: Fun, addictive and well built but requires trimming and is not a toy for young children.

I started out my RC helicopter hobby by buying a Air Hogs "Havoc" model... a cheaper, lighter, more unstable, model with with no forward or backward motion control (but still lots of fun!) So I decided I wanted to upgrade to a model with more control and stability. The Air Hogs "Reflex" seemed to be the answer.

So here's what happened when I first got it. After wrangling it out of the package (the packaging sucks and you literally need the jaws of life to open it ) I actually read the instructions (for once in my life). I charged the helicopter up (like it said in the instructions) and about 30 minutes later it was fully charged... or so it seemed. But when I powered it up with the controls, the helicopter would not hover more than a few inches off the ground. At this point I thought that perhaps it needed more charging... so I did what any geek would do: I let it run until the battery was completely dead (as to not evoke the dreaded "memory effect") and charged it once again. This time it remained charging for longer... about an hour. The charging cycle is automated by the way, and it's done when the red light in the back of the helicopter stops blinking.
After the second charging cycle was done I tried to powered it up full throttle again and this time it was able to fly up about 3 feet off the ground... still very disappointing. To me, it seemed like the battery or motor was not able to provide enough power for full flight. Yeah, my helicopter was a defect... a dud. So what to do next? Well, I could return it and call customer support... but the thought of waiting on the phone for half an hour or more wasn't too appealing to me.

So being the geek that I am... I decided to modify it. I cut the landing props off to make it lighter and "presto", it flew high all the way up to the ceiling. It flew and controlled as well as I initially hoped for... and flew for about 10 to 15 minutes. Now, I'm not recommending that you do this to yours if you get a defective one... but if you're as lazy and sick of customer service as I am... well, I'll just leave it at that. Also, here are some pros and cons about this helicopter:

Pros:

-Pretty stable in the air compared to other small RC helicopters (like Havoc). More resistant to small drafts of wind.

-Right, Left, Up, Down, and Forward controls work pretty well.

-Helicopter blades fold upon impact to prevent damage.

-4 Spare Helicopter blades included


Cons:

-Prone to defects. Both me and a friend received defective helicopters.

-Long charge time (about an hour) relative to short play time (about 10 minutes)

-Helicopter blades should be more sturdy... they are prone to chips during crashes.

-It was a bit difficult at first to pop the blades back in if they pop off because the instructions are not very detailed. But they only come off during very horrible crashes.

I bought a second-hand Havoc (the Reflex's smaller cousin) and had a blast flying it until it fell apart. I decided to replace it with the Reflex, and so far I've been very impressed.

The Reflex is basically twice the size, power, and price of the Havoc. It's also MUCH more controllable - you can control the altitude, forward/backward speed, and rotation. It still takes a lot of concentration and a fairly open space to fly, but it's a huge step up from other models, including the Havoc. I've only crashed it once, so I don't know how well it will stand up over time, but it sure feels solid, and the fold-away wings really do work as described.

The flight time is impressive - I still haven't completely run it down from the first charge, and I've had it in the air for well over 10 minutes. It even came 100% charged out of the box (it's supposed to come partially charged.)

In hindsight, I don't know if it's worth [...] - you might consider waiting to see if the price drops - but it's a heck of a lot of fun and a great way to relieve stress

I bought 2,one each for my young teenage boys. However, they both ran on the same frequency so they could not play at the same time. After getting them aligned they had fun for a while until the blade broke. I felt it was a waste of money for the amount of time they could play with it. Very dissapointed.

I bought this for my son a while ago thinking that I would help and also have a fun toy to play with. I am writing this because I see it featured and I think you should save your money. This toy is fun at first, and hovering is relatively easy, however, stearing is pretty much impossible. As far as durability, it's not very durable. It is mostly made of styrofoam and very light materials. If you have younger kids in the house, this likely will not last. I would recommend wearing safety goggles, for the user and any bystander, as this easily goes out of control. In fact, I have never been able to control it completely or will! It is fun watching it go up, hitting the ceiling and then crashing down, and that fun lasts about 10 minutes. The trim doesn't do much at all for helping to control it, but it does add a button to the remote. LOL! Save your money. Buy some paper, make the right folds, and you will save a lot and have more fun, and be safer! Really!

Much harder to control than the smaller and lighter Havoc. When you let go of the throttle the Reflex drops like a rock to the ground due to the weight. I returned the heli and stuck with the Havoc which is much more fun.