Seems kind of interestingbut also very pricey. Any tried it? Opinions?
Bought some indoor helicopters for $10 each at woot.com a few years ago, and had a lot of fun with them. Much more reasonable than $239.99.
Good lord that’s a rip! I could make one of those at a fraction of that cost. (Wish I would of thought of that for my college finals.)
A friend is into RC airplanes. He flies them outside but his first rule is to “never fly a plane that you aren’t willing to break.” I think that you could buy a 2X4 sailplane (two channels by a four foot wingspan) for a fraction of the cost.
Kinda my feeling as well although I’ve heard the cheap ones don’t last. Even at $120 for a nice one it’s half the cost of that flying piece of tissue paper. I can easily see a cat or dog destroying it in one swipe and what’s the fun of owning one if you can’t drive your pets crazy chasing it. It’s a laser pointer with wings.
Haven’t tried it. Really too pricey in my view. I see on the specs page that a battery charge lasts 10 minutes, but I don’t see anything about the time to recharge, or how many recharges the vattery is likely to take.
I had an RC blimp in my apartment for a number of years. It was very controllable, and being lighter than air, it only needed power in short bursts. I can’t remember ever running the battery down, though I’m sure I must have – it used a couple of standard triple As, and could run for hours.
Plus, you could let friends with no experience at all fly it around, Basically a balloon with props slung below, it was pretty indestructible.
My husband and I have one of these which are much the same as what you linked to, except a LOT cheaper!
You can fly this out of the box, it’s slow, it’s unlikely to damage anything or anyone.
Charge time is about 20 minutes, as advertised.
Someone skilled at flying - skilled enough to conserve energy - could get 10-15 minutes of flight out of one, but beginners are inefficient and more typically get 5-10.
After several years the film started to detach from the frame. We have replaced it and anticipate flying it again next week at our usual “free fly” get together. Crashes usually do not break things, but if it happen replacement parts can be purchased.
I also own one of these which I bought for $20 at Aldi. It’s a fun toy and I’ve found that it performs much as the wiki article describes. I find it’s not quite as controllable as an airplane (it’s an ornithoper - I think the wing currents coming off the flapping wings interact in odd ways with the tail rotor at times) but still fun. I had a complete novice flying mine briefly in a straight line in with about two minutes of instruction.
The downside is that they are often a bit tailheavy, but not so much as to prevent flight.
The smaller and lighter the airplane the more susceptible to air currents it is, and this includes very small RC aircraft. I would suggest starting with something like the Vapor or Dragonfly if you’re a beginner as you will probably find them less frustrating as well as cheaper.
At least part of the cost of the Carbon Butterfly is the aluminum case (actually not entirely an extravagance - these airplanes are fragile) and the flight sim software included. I don’t think flight sim software should be necessary for such an aircraft - it isn’t for the Vapor, for example. It’s *nice[/i if you have it, but not necessary. Also, I transport my “pennyweight” aircraft in a sturdy corrugated cardboard box, and most Vapor owners I know save the foam packing to provide more protection for both the aircraft and the control box.