Silverlit Tandem Z1 Chinook
The Silverlit Tandem Z1 Chinook rc helicopter is the newest in a series of indoor rc helicopters by Silverlit. The realism is amazing and thanks to the twin rotor blades it is very stable in flight.
super wide infrared control
3 channel rc
built-in Li-Poly battery
charged in 20-25 minutes from the remote control (requires 6xAA batteries)
flight time of around 10 minutes
trim control
durable EPP styrofoam body
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As I was passing a model plane store yesterday a shiny blue electric helicopter caught my eye. I went in to check it out and I ended up walking out the store with a brand new E-Sky Lama V4
Wow, it looks good. It has a co-axial counter rotating design and a 4 channel control unit. It is supposed to be very stable in flight and allows to perform beautiful maneuvers.
At first sight it looks pretty sturdy but I did buy 6 spare blades of each type. Since both rotors are rotating in a different direction they have different rotor blades, called blade A and blade B. I hope I won’t need them too soon …
To be honestt it looks a bit big to fly indoors. Well at least until I know how to fly it with precision. It came with a simulator program on a CD-rom. PC only I am afraid. I will try to use it on my Mac with Parallels. It has a USB connector so there is a chance it might work.
I will post some pictures here soon and I will record some movies of my progress during the initial flights.
Check it out soon!
This is a short video of an Air Hogs Havoc helicopter flying in the back yard. That works fine unless it’s a windy day of course. The heli is so light it would be blown away.
It looks pretty stable but it needs some more trimming of the tail rotor to avoid spinning. Then it will stay straight without pushing any buttons.
On a recent trip to China I found this dirt cheap indoor rc helicopter at a small market in Shanghai.
Back in my hotel room I opened the box of this little ready to fly heli and wanted to give it a try. It hit the wall and crashed after just a few seconds.
So I got back to the market and found some replacement blades. Somehow those guys were smiling even more than before. They must have seen it coming.
A couple of hours later I managed to keep the thing in the air for at least a few minutes. I had finally figured out it needed some tweaking as well to keep it stable.
Back home I checked some websites on indoor helis and decided to buy a better one. I was pleasantly surprised to see it flew better than the first one. Maybe I had gained some skills in the mean time as well …
Anyway I got hooked and since then I have bought a couple of different models already. This way I could figure out which were the best and the easiest to fly. My friends and I have even started flying “combat missions”.
Since a mini indoor heli is quite light and sensitive to the wind it is usually better to play with it indoors. But on a calm day we sometimes fly our rc toys in the backyard. Less damage to the furniture and less arguments with the wife. She wasn’t too happy when I attacked our wedding picture. No sense of humor I guess.
Still you have to take some precautions. Start your first flying lessons in a big room with inexpensive objects. You will probably hit things and a soft couch is not as bad for your air hogs indoor helicopter
I plan to share more of my experiences soon and I hope my future writings will help you make a better decision on which indoor rc helicopter to buy for your kids! Or for yourself.
