Customer Reviews

WowWee Robotic DragonFly - Blue (27 MHz)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this because it's the first RC flying toy I've seen with actual flapping wings. I'm an adult and I bought it for myself because I work in a room that's a converted warehouse and we have really high ceilings and not many walls. It's really enjoyable to fly because you've never seen anything like it. It really does resemble a giant flying bug and it's movements are kind of creepy and it makes a soft buzzing sound.



The key is to make sure a) the controller antenna is fully extended, and b) the rotor is still and while you start the wings flapping you hold it and release it into the air. With more practice, you'll get better. Don't be frustrated if it crashes--the fun is seeing how long you can keep it going. Even if you can only get it to fly around the room once, it's worth it.



It comes with extra wings (different pattern and color printed on them), and an extra rotor. Be sure to unpack it all from the box carefully because some of the small parts are tucked away inside. It takes 6 AA batteries that go in the controller, which charges the bug via a small cable. The battery life seems pretty good so far. (I've had it for a couple weeks and have yet to change the batteries...but then, I only fly it here for fun and not more than about 10 minutes a day.) I've had it run into walls and poles from the height of 10' or so and it seems pretty durable (because it's so light). Fun. Somewhat educational too because it demonstrates a unique method of flight.

This is a very good product but it's very hard to learn to make it fly well, and it has waaay too much packaging - make sure you have some scissors. It was weak when I first tried it, but got stronger after a few charges. It crashes in spectacular fashion every time you fly it, but it is very durable and hasn't broken yet. So far I've crashed it at least 100 times, mowed down all the origami from my shelf, decimated the chess board and dive-bombed the laptop. The dog is thoroughly freaked out by this thing, and it's very funny the way it buzzes around and crashes like a real dragon fly against a window screen. I would recommend putting away anything breakable before flying this thing inside.



The toy itself is very durable, but it will knock things around. Pay attention to the condition of it after each flight though - I had to fix the nose of mine with some clear packing tape. I had the opportunity to test this with an 8-year old boy (I'm 36 and my boys are teens), and he was actually better at flying it than I was. He dropped the controller in our warehouse and the antenna bent... then I broke it trying to bend it back. It still flies fine though, and it is a standard sized radio antennas and replacements can be bought at Radio Shack. It does not fly outside in any breeze at all! The one time I've taken it outside to fly and we had no wind, it did very well, but if there is a slight breeze it will dip and dive and sail and turn all over the place. The wind picks it up very nicely, so be aware of that.



Tips: Turning of any kind causes it to go into a dive, so make sure you turn gently. The tail feather slows it down a lot and makes it hard to turn, so you need even more space. The tail feather is very difficult to attach, and I hurt my thumb a bit trying to get it on. The best way to launch the dragon fly is by starting the motor and holding it about 4 or 5 feet in the air, giving it a slight forward push as you release it. Let it fly a bit to stabilize before you try to turn it. It does not launch from surfaces very well, but if you have a long, smooth runway, it will take off from the ground. To do this, you need to start out slow and accelerate to full speed, otherwise it flops over on it's nose. It taxis around on my no-wax floor in a fairly silly way and in this respect, makes a very funny pet toy. In the house, I set the trim dial to one side so the Dragon Fly will go in circles, then use small controller inputs to periodically straighten it out, which makes it gain altitude. You need to vary the power level carefully as you fly, or it will stall out and dive. Only if you are outside or you have a ton of space, should you set it to fly in a straight line... it just doesn't have enough control to keep it within the allotted space. A basketball court would be a good sized space to try this in, but once you get some experience, you will be able to fly it in more normal-sized spaces.



NOTE: when I bought this, I was told that it simply would not work at high altitude above about 7000 ft. I am at about 5500 feet, and it clearly doesn't have the ooomph it might have at lower altitudes. Please, if you write a review, please indicate the thickness of your air - it matters a lot. Again, WILL NOT WORK above 7000 ft or so.

What a great toy: It is quite simply LOADS of fun! Loads I tell ya! I gave this toy as xmas gifts to 3 kids of varying ages (14, 17, 19... and a 4th one I bought for myself, a kid of 40). The kids loved their Dragonflies. And everyone else loved them too. Everyone wanted a turn to fly the remote control insect. Definitely the smash hit of all the xmas gifts given that day. They were so enjoyable I went and bought one for myself. I'm nearly 40 years old, still play video games, and will always be a kid at heart. I've been having a BLAST flying this thing around my neighborhood. Everyone who sees it is keenly intrigued and impressed at how this thing flies by flapping it's wings. It's just so cool.

Only caveat I have noticed is that it can take a bit of practice before one gets the hang of flying this thing. It's not so easy that just anyone can fly it on their first try. Most people are able to fly it pretty well after 2 - 6 training flights. Some may take longer. It took me two days before I could get it to stay in the air. But I'm glad I didn't give up because it's just so much darn fun once you get the hang of it! In my opinion it should be for ages 12 and up. I think 8 is kinda young for this toy and 7 or under I seriously doubt they possess the needed skills to master this machine.

If you have any doubt about this item I would encourage you to seek out any of the remote control hobbyists discussion forums on the net and see what they have been saying about this toy. (Look for subjects about "ornithopters" which are flying machines powered by flapping wings). These are people that live for flying RC airplanes, helicopters, ornithopters, and other machines. They know their stuff and overall they seem to be thoroughly impressed with this inexpensive little "toy". (IMO this thing is much more than just a "toy".)

Without a doubt this thing is the best bang for the buck I've encountered in many years. If you can get it for less than 40 - 50 dollars, then by all means GET IT! Especially you adult kids out there, like me, don't make the mistake of thinking this thing is only a toy for children. Quite the contrary, I'd have to say the older you are the more likely you will be able to appreciate the impressive physics of this machine and therefore derive that much more enjoyment from it.

[...]

I purchased the DragonFly for my grandson who is 9 years old. It was an immediate hit and even prompted him to write a thank you letter! (a first).

The remote controlled DragonFly is very easy to operate. After only a few tries we were flying high! The aircraft part is sturdy and survived several collisions with furniture and walls before we were all pushed out of the house by an irate Mom.

The structure of the DragonFly is based on the early experience of Igor Sikorsky, who saw the insect version as a child and tried to design his first helicopters based on the flapping wing concept. (Eventually the current horizontal 4 bladed rotating wing proved more mechanically durable and and was universally adopted.) This great aviation history lesson can be added to the product, and it really helped open up communication between this Grandpa and a very active 9 year old.

Great product and a good value. I bought it through an Amazon affiliate and it was delivered on time and as advertised.

I'm not sure why some people had trouble flying it. I charged it up, went to a local park, and gave the RC controls to my 6yr old daughter. she loved it! She had absolutely no problems flying it or keeping it in the air. My job was to run after it and make sure it didn't fly away or over the park fences.

It's plenty durable too. We had no broken parts after flying it for about 1 hour.

I was pleasantly surprised and give this 5 stars.

I got my dragonfly today and it looked cool and i couldnt wait to use it. I charged it for 20 minutes like it said to and then took it out to fly. The first time i got it to go around it it was cool. Then it landed and i did it for a second time. I couldnt get it to stay in the air for even 3 seconds it hit the ground and one wing broke. I put on a new, wing took it out to fly, it fell and one more wing broke. In the end i have one good wing left and this is still the first day I got it.

Neat to see. The dragonfly doesn't stay in the air very long no matter what I did, so if you are looking for fun flight times, better go with an RC helicopter. The design is great to look at, and the sounds and feel of the dragonfly are really pretty incredible, but I think it needs work to keep it in the air.

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.

I bought this for my 9 year old for Christmas. He has had a great time playing with it. It took him several hours to be able to get this toy to do a loop around the living room before crashing but he had fun learning it.

This toy has crashed into walls, the Christmas tree, curtains, and cupboards and it is still working. Not bad for something made out of Styrofoam.

As a warning to parents and those with pets, the wings are loud. It terrifies our dogs and is annoying when you are trying to watch TV or listen to the radio.

This is a good gift for those in love with flying but since it is difficult to master keeping it in the air, you may want think twice if it is for someone with a low frustration threshold.

This was a great flying toy while it lasted. Unfortunately, after the breeze took it down a few times onto the cement, some of the paint scraped off of the black nose and blue eyes. I was disappointed, but it still flew well once I got used to it. It has a styrofoam body like the Air-Hogs (a toy you should not buy), but since you have control over it, it doesn't go down so hard. On May 15 (2007), I charged her up-- oh wait, I hardly charged it up at all because as I later found, the left eye had quit after a few nose dives. ARG, ARG, and once again ARG!!! I knew it would still fly, but if the other eye went out, I would not know when it was charged. I proceeded to charge it for about 20 minutes, unplugged it, and waited for two minutes for the remote to detect the Dragonfly. It never detected the Dragonfly, and after turning it on and off, on and off, I concluded that it was history. There were some things I liked, though, such as: styling, pair of extra wings, extra propeller, flight, (before A FEW nose dives) and the compartment on the remote controll to put the charging cord in.