I have 3 grandkids, and one of them really wants a helicopter that will fly. Matthew is 4 years old, so perhaps a bit young, but I think he can fly this one. I bought the Whirlybird so he could give it a try, but it's so much fun I'm keeping it. I'll let him fly it when he comes to visit. Watch the video on the right!
The Whirlybird copter is a good value for it's price, but it is incredibly inexpensive, so expect to get what you pay for. If you read the reviews on Amazon you will learn a lot.
My copter has always wanted to spin to the left. I followed instructions and tried to conteract this with the fine adjustment, but that is not a trivial pursuit. We finally just tried to fly it anyway, and it flew! The helicopter has two controls, throttle and left/right. The throttle control seems to work fairly well, you can use it to make the copter rise or fall. We have "some" control with the right/left, sorta. I bent the fuselage a bit to compensate for our units tendency to turn left, but that makes it dependent on throttle, so it makes it very challenging to control. After flying it a while, I added a couple of the included weights, and that helped a little more. So far we mainly try to take off and see how long we can fly without hitting a wall or the ceiling. It is a LOT of fun, just don't expect a real helicopter at this price.
The controller takes 6 AA batteries, and you charge the helicopter battery with the controller. We get about 1 or 2 minutes of flight time per charge. I don't know how many charges we will get per set of batteries, because we are still on the first set. About 30 charges so far and still going.
To charge the copter, you turn the switch on the copter to off(off/charge, the up position on mine, there are really only two positions, off/charge and on), plug the controller into it, turn the controller on, and a green light comes on on the controller. When the green light goes off the copter is charged, or mostly charged. I get the impression that if I leave it charging for 10 minutes after the green light goes off, I get a bit longer run time.
Unplug the copter, turn the copter switch on (down on mine), and you're ready to fly. The switch on the copter is very small and hard to turn on or off with fingers. On mine a red led flashes in the cockpit so you know the copter is turned on.
Start in the middle of the room, and give if full throttle to get off the floor, then ease off before you hit the ceiling. It is harder to control near the floor, ceiling, or walls. Try adjusting the trim with the trim buttons now and then, sometimes it seems to help.
Adding to the challenge, the controls work a bit different as the battery voltage drops. So what works well on a full charge, will not work the same at the end of the charge.
In addition, mine has an auto-off feature, so if you leave it "on" it turns itself off and will not fly OR accept a charge until you cycle the switch to off and back on.
The blades pick up hair like a magnet. Frequent cleanings are necessary, and tweezers are helpful. Just a bit of hair or lint and it is uncontrollable. After the first two days this was much less a problem, as the copter had collected most of the hair and lint from around the room. We found the lamb skin rug should be avoided!
