Air Hogs Storm Launcher

by SpinMaster

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 7.7 pounds
• ASIN: B000ETRELK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,323 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Promising concept, disappointing results, October 22, 2006

By 

Mike Altarace "altarace" (McLean, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Air Hogs Storm Launcher (Toy)

I am a great fan of the Air-Hogs Aero-Ace Bi-Plane, so I figured the storm launcher will be the next step up. The Storm-Launcher also has replaceable batteries (30$ each), and it has elevation control which means it can take off from the ground/water/grass.
So far so good; but when I tried to use it flaws became evident:

1. Without engine power it drops like a rock. So if you ran into a messy situation while flying forget about gliding down to safety. It will drop fast and hard. Which means that you have room for about 10 or so mistakes before the Storm Launcher might crash beyond repair.
2. My Storm Launcher refused to get trimmed correctly. I think my left engine was simply not as powerful as the right one. So no matter how much trim I applied it kept turning left.
3. The Storm Launcher did not respond to any command. Removing and re-inserting the battery was the only way to get out of this state. Basically I would apply full throttle trying to take-off and within 3 seconds the engines would stop, at that point the plane stopped responding to any command (throttle, lift, or power off/power on) The only way out was to remove the battery and re-insert it again.

I do want to give it extra credit for:

1. Storm Launcher is able to take off by it self
2. once flying its very fast
3. elevation control works very well

In Conclusion: A Storm Launcher plus two LIPO batteries will const 140$ which is pretty expensive for a not so reliable unit that will probably not last that long. Any alternatives you can recommend?

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flys great and is very tuff, November 2, 2006

By 

Harley Dog (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Air Hogs Storm Launcher (Toy)

The Storm Launcher is a great toy. It's great out of the box if you just plan to do mostly driving and jumping. But if you really want to fly it a lot, it flys best if you remove the propeller guards, and cut off the upper horizontal (the upper rear wing between the verticals). In the commercials you can see some of them are flown that way. It becomes much easier to fly and is much more controllable, but then the verticals are a little easier to break. They can be easily fixed with some clear tape.

Just remember, the flight Times for one battery charge is only about 6 to 10 minutes, then it will shut off as to not hurt the Lipo battery. It can be restarted by pushing the start button to bring it back to shore but you will have to be easy on the throttle or it will just shut off again till you recharge it.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars storm launcher, November 9, 2006

By 

Dewayne T. Williams - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Air Hogs Storm Launcher (Toy)

all in all, a great toy, loads of fun for young and old, The only real downside is the batterynlife once charged, only about 7 to 8 minutes, depending on how you manage the throttle. I love this thing, I will be buying another one.