Wow Wee Bladestar Flame Indoor Flyer
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Bladestar is a revolutionary indoor flying machine that changes helicopter flight as we know it. This is the first flying toy with a sensor-based navigation that enables it to glide itself through the air as it avoids ceilings and other obstacles. Alternatively you can control it with the three-channel digital IR controller, and with the dogfight accessory attached you can face-off two bladestars to see who will win. When you notice power loss,… Product details and pricing info |
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6 Customer Reviews Posted
- Quality issue
- This is the toy I really looking forward to, since its announced from Las Vegas. The whole thing is well packed in a very nice, well designed and convenient box. The Flyer is well protected in its box, ready for the move to the next dog fight. But unfortunately my remote unit fails to charge the Flyer, so after using all the pre-charged battery, I could get a glimpse of what it could be, if everything works the way it should. What a pity, because I like the product, but Wowwee fails on delivering faultlessly product to its customer. I decided to return it for a refund, rather then an exchange. I'm not convinced, that Wowwee takes the quality assurance seriously.
- 2008-11-24, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- awesome design insight
- This is a flying machine unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's not an airplane, it's not a helicopter, it's not an autogyro, it's not an ornithopter with flapping wings. It's a powered maple seed. I'd have never thought of it, and you probably wouldn't have either, but the Wowwee designers did, and they deserve lots of credit for this masterpiece of out-of-the-box thinking.
I read about it in the magazine of an engineering society that I belong to, and the reviewer couldn't figure out what kind of "control equation" allowed an object with no non-rotating reference elements -- everything on the Bladestar spins -- to operate under directed flight. He must have come from the same aeronautical tradition as the ones that proved that a bumblebee can't fly. (We now know that insects use nonlinear "unsteady flows" to gain more lift than traditional aerodynamic equations provide for.)
While the Bladestar employs "AI" according to its advertising, it's not as smart as a bumblebee. But it can successfully avoid light-colored objects under good conditions. In the jargon of AI research this is called situationist autonomous control. If the room you're flying it in has dark walls like my living room, you'll have to guide it away from them yourself. The blades do collect dings if you fly it into hard objects, but the wingtips are covered with heavy foil that you can smooth out and it's nearly as good as new.
It naturally hovers very stably, so you might expect it to respond to the controls like a UFO in a video game, but no, this is a real flying object with gyroscopic effects when it tilts to move sideways. It takes a little bit of practice to learn to anticipate these movements and coordinate the controls appropriately. I was practicing landing on target after about 5 flights. - 2008-11-24, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Fun toy but switch broke on third flight.
- We gave our son a Bladestar for his 9th birthday and the first one just didn't work. We charged it and did everything correctly but the thing just wouldn't start. That one was exchagned for a second which worked great--until the switch to turn the flying part on/off broke off. The toy did seem fun on the three flights we had. The auto pilot mode worked and it stayed away from walls, etc. We decided not to buy another and were able to return this one to Target.
- 2008-11-02, 8 of 8 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Up...up...and AWAY!!!
- The Flytech Bladestar is an amazing little flying machine; unlike indoor R/C helicopters, it has a semi-autonomous mode which allows it to avoid crashing into light-colored ceilings, walls, couches, lampshades, etc. so you can have a boatload of fun with it even in somewhat cramped rooms that you wouldn't normally fly a helicopter in.
Although it looked a little complicated, the Bladestar was also *VERY EASY* to assemble; requiring only the two main rotor blades be snapped into receptacles for them.
It also comes with a hinge-lidded storage case that holds the Bladestar itself, its remote, at least two sets of main blades (yes, it does come with a spare set), and the "dogfighting accessory". This case has various pins & protrusions inside designed to hold all of the components securely, even if the case is jostled or otherwise manhandled.
I have an informal review of the Bladestar on my large website (this is a direct-entry URL to the actual Bladestar's review) at http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/sixteen/bladstar.htm if you're interested.
This review includes photographs and a video clip.
Remember, I'm not a professional product reviewer; I do this only as a hobby. - 2008-08-13, 18 of 22 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- the thing only hovers
- The breakthrough is supposed to be that this thing is smart and knows how to avoid walls and go left right up down by itself, but it totally does not. And even with the remote, it hardly goes left or right. It does hover extremely stable and goes up and down really well. But it's just a lot of promise and not a lot of results.
- 2008-07-21, 13 of 15 people found this review helpful, Rated:
