# when did toy helicopters become feasible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 21, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352 "2012-09-21T03:19:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/21 "2012-09-21T12:21:22Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Are you sure? I think you will find they do. It is a tiny gyro chip that does all the work of keeping the heli from yawing without control input. My son’s has one, though admittedly it is probably a $40 heli. The super cheap RC helicopters I’ve played with require manual control of yaw (and quite a bit of coordination to do so I must say). ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/22 "2012-09-21T13:34:43Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I think most of these helicopters actually run on capacitors, not batteries. Batteries are somewhat better than they were in the days of Edison, but the advances made in capacitors in the past couple of decades are nothing short of amazing. When I was an undergrad, a 1 farad capacitor was the size of a garbage can; now they make them about the size of a D battery for a few bucks. It has already been explained that they don’t use capacitors, but even the best capacitors nowadays are still far inferior to batteries in terms of energy storage. Not only that, most small ultracapacitors have a very high internal resistance (ohms vs milliohms for batteries; see the one **Dr. Strangelove** links to, which has 4 ohms of ESR and in any case 1 farad stores only 3.645 J of energy at 2.7 volts, or 3.6 watts for 1 second; a 3.7 volt 130 mAh Li-ion cell (from **Wesley Clark** ’s example) can deliver that much power for almost 8 minutes - **475 times longer** ). You also have to deal with the fact that the voltage drops continuously (exponentially if you try to draw constant power since energy is 1/2(CV^2), so you need a DC/DC converter to deal with that (that also assumes you can discharge it completely to 0 volts, although at 1 volt you have only 13.7% of the energy at 2.7 volts left, and you could use two in series). For another perspective, according to [HowStuffWorks](http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/capacitor2.htm) you would need more than 10,000 farads to store as much energy as a AA battery. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/23 "2012-09-21T14:33:01Z")
I think the big innovation has been the Lithium Polymer batteries, they are powerful and light. They would keep my $180 Blade CX helicopter flying for 10 minutes or so. Only problem is LiPo batteries are [potential fire hazards (youtube video of intentional LiPo puncture.)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OsBc8RqSKU) ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/24 "2012-09-21T17:43:06Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I had one of those - amazing bit of engineering really - the controls linked to the motor unit via mechanical cables and the helicopter itself was just a plastic shell, with motive power delivered through a sheathed drive shaft. > > The notion of an untethered fully-electric flying machine seemed like utter fantasy at the time - and it was indeed because batteries were heavy for their capacity and motors were large and heavy for their power. Oh my goodness, a VertiBird! I had one of those when I was about twelve years old. I loved it – it’s one of my best-remembered toys of my childhood. But boy, was it hard to control. ---
**Author:** ![ducati](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@ducati](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ducati)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/25 "2012-09-21T21:55:59Z")
You’ll have to define “toy”. If it’s the little buggers we have now, then Li-Po batteries and tiny motors are key. If you just go with remote control, they’ve been around since the early 1970’s at least. I had a couple in 1979 or so. There were certainly more planes than helos at the flying field back then, mostly because of the expense. You could get a plane and engine for under a hundred bucks, but a helo would be closer to a thousand all in. I say we send [this guy](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDXVFarwGRI)into Afghanistan or wherever needed. He can cruise a camera sled through town, darting aroung like a dragonfly. Get live pictures, and they’ll never shoot him down. 😃 I love the smell of glow fuel in the morning. Smells like…skipping school! ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/26 "2012-09-21T23:32:47Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I believe real helicopters have (or had) those bars. > > Do you mean [one of these, a _ **Vertibird** _?!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertibird) I had one of those too, mid seventies. It was so cool my older brothers played with it as much as I did! > > I bought a mid-level one ($69) about four years ago from Radio Shack. Are they easy to fly now? Because that thing sure isn’t! It has no self-stabilizing functions. Wow. I remember those too. My brother and I had one each - you could set them up so the helicopter flight paths overlapped, just a little… ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/27 "2012-09-22T02:33:12Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I believe real helicopters have (or had) those bars. > > Do you mean [one of these, a _ **Vertibird** _?!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertibird) I had one of those too, mid seventies. It was so cool my older brothers played with it as much as I did! I think that was it - I remember the space capsule that you rescued. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352/28 "2012-09-22T02:56:22Z")
I’m thinking that with the palm-copters, the innovation that makes it feasable is putting the entirety of the receiver and control circuitry on a spec of silicon under a dot of epoxy. Several orders of magnitude of savings on weight and energy consumption. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-toy-helicopters-become-feasible/635352.md?page=1)