Horizon Hobby Mini Remote Helicopter Giveaway

I'm pretty excited about today's giveaway, I have to confess that I've always thought these guys looked particularly neato but have never had a chance to put my theory to the test.

Well I can report that 100% fun-ness was achieved.

This, my friends, is a mini-remote-controlled-helicopter from Horizon Hobby that zips and dives at the touch of a finger--or two to be precise.

I was sent one to review which was kind of a coincidence because just a couple days before when I'd asked David what he wanted for Christmas he said "A remote-controlled airplane." Apparently Santa has good hearing.

So when it came Andrew and I decided that we really needed to give it a try. You know, in the interest of full experimentation and all that.

Boy, we had a great time of it.

We took it over to a nearby gymnasium on a Friday night to see how easy it was and I can report that not only does it come ready-to-fly right out of the box, including batteries, but it doesn't take much to send it flying around and buzzing around the place. I'd heard that remote helicopters can be very tricky to fly but this one was fairly easy to use. David (age 10) is going to LOVE it--it'll be a little challenging for him but he ought to be able to handle it with some practice.

Here's a video of us giving it a go and I would also mention a couple things. First, that the teeny tiny battery is only good for 6-8 minutes of flight. Not very long. It needs to be tiny so there's only so much you can do about the situation but what they recommend and what I think we'll do is purchase one or two extra batteries so that you have a supply ready to go. The batteries are small and run quickly but they also charge quickly--30-40 minutes for a full charge.

When that battery starts to go the little chopper has a light that begins to blink and within about a minute you lose power and the controls go out so as soon as you see it begin to blink that's your signal to land.

If you'd like more information about flying model air crafts you should look into the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) which is an organization for those who love to fly these guys. It might be a nice place to start if you're considering of joining the craze. With so many children playing video games it would seem like a great way to put all of those hours of practicing hand-eye coordination to a new purpose and while this model is meant for indoor use only, some of the sturdier, larger ones would be a great way to get outdoors a bit.

So if you'd like to jump immediately into the model aircraft circuit you can take your chances at winning one of these mini helicopters for yourself thanks to the goodness of Hobbico and Horizon who sells all sorts of wonderful planes. And if you win? Bring your helicopter on over and we can zoom them around the gym together!

Here's how to win:

Before 12 am Monday go to the giveaway entry form on this page and enter your name and email. I will pick one of the names at random, contact the winner via their email and publish the winner's first name and home town in next Tuesday's post. See the bottom of the entry form for more details.

This giveaway is open to all readers so good luck!

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