Blue Lil Flyer Remote Control Helicopter Review: Not Worth It

Not all remote control helicopters are alike. Although the potential for fun with flying a remote control helicopter in your home can seem promising, you have to read the packaging print before purchasing one. The Blue Lil Flyer Remote Control Helicopter is a perfect example.

We purchased the Blue Lil Flyer Remote Control Helicopter from HSN for about $30. We bought this for our eight year-old son's birthday. Delivery was prompt and we've never had problems ordering from HSN. We opened the package and immediately followed the instructions for playing with the Blue Lil Flyer.

Construction. The Blue Lil Flyer is a tough chopper. Although it only measures about eight inches wide and is very lightweight, the helicopter is durable and can stand a few crashes. It also comes with an extra set of blades for repair just in case the Blue Lil Flyer takes one too many bumps on the chin. More on that later.

Battery Charge Life. The Blue Lil Flyer charges via an attachment from the remote control. The remote requires six AA batteries. You can charge the flyer in 30 minutes and supposedly get just as much flight time. We were never able to test that claim because of the controls.

Controls. The number one issue we had with the Blue Lil Flyer was use of the controls. The remote control was large enough for easy manipulation and had two main sticks: one for vertical lift and another for turning the Blue Lil Flyer's tail so that it could bank left or right. The problem was that to get the helicopter off the ground you had to push the lift stick quickly and completely "up" as if the helicopter needed momentum to fly. Once it gets in the air, you could release the stick slowly until it's at an acceptable level.

I will admit that I don't have a ton of experience flying remote controlled objects indoors. However, this is not an easy task for an eight-year old, let alone an adult. Any lack of speed with control action would immediately result in a crash. The "up" stick was also heavily spring loaded, so even if you managed to get the Blue Lil Flyer off the ground you had to maintain significant finger pressure to keep it hovering while you flew it around the house. After 20 or so attempts by four family members, we finally got about 30 seconds of flight time before another crash. I will admit that once the helicopter gets going its very fun.

Packaging. At one point we could only get the Blue Lil Flyer off the ground one or two inches before it would take an immediate nose dive to the right. We could hear the lower blades bumping against the helicopter's tail. I easily replaced the blades but that wasn't the fix because the helicopter did the same thing. So we packed the Blue Lil Flyer back into the box. As I read the packaging to make sure I didn't forget anything, I noticed that there was print that stated a 20-foot radius with no obstructions was recommended for operation. Again, I don't know if this is a standard for indoor helicopters. But since the Blue Lil Flyer is designed for indoor flying this baffled me. There aren't too many people that I know who have a completely obstruction-free 20 foot radius for a kid to fly the helicopter in. So if you decide to purchase the Blue Lil Flyer, you might want to consider flying it in a padded gymnasium.