here was a previous woot where you could choose your colour.

Woot is stripping you of your rights, stand up and let your voice be heard.


Also: These are IR Choppers so they don't work in direct sunlight.

I own two of these. Does that make me a kid? =s

Also these are surprisingly durable despite my many crashes.

CowboyDann wrote: here was a previous woot where you could choose your colour.

Woot is striping of your rights, stand up and let your voice be heard.

Striping? StriPPing, maybe, or are we (or our rights) really getting stripes? :D

Seriously, thanks for pointing out that these are INFARED!

As a long-time RC fanatic, RC means Radio Controlled! Not infared!

Anybody know if these will charge via a USB port or if they have to charge off the AA's in the controller?

Doing a little searching, it looks like these are knockoffs of the Syma S107 (which are awesome little helicopters; I love mine.) Reviews on these ones seem mixed but largely negative ... given that you can find the Syma for less, it would seem to be a little risky to get these.

Do the batteries stay good in these after repeated charges?

skou wrote:Striping? StriPPing, maybe, or are we (or our rights) really getting stripes? :D

Seriously, thanks for pointing out that these are INFARED!

As a long-time RC fanatic, RC means Radio Controlled! Not infared!

phaha you have caught me. It's fixed, and I know the difference I swear. Just an honest overzealous typo

I disagree. I bought one of these the last time they were in kids.woot and it broke on the second crash from 3-4 feet off of the floor while learning to fly it. Fun to play with but only for a few flights. Big tip: don't drop the throttle or you probably won't recover. Be easy with it.

M_A_C wrote:Do the batteries stay good in these after repeated charges?

Bought these here last time they were offered...the batteries seem fine so far after about 20 or so charges.

snang wrote:Anybody know if these will charge via a USB port or if they have to charge off the AA's in the controller?

BOTH

javamatte wrote:I've got one of these and they are simply awesome. Tough, easy to control and decent battery life.

Plus, you can buy full sets of replacement parts on some gigantic retail site named after a river in the southern hemisphere.

I'm in for 3 more for the office

I'll back this statement up. I can't guarantee your results will be the same but I must have crashed my first one 200 times before she died. And I didn't even have to retire it because of broken propellers/stabilizer wings. I actually burned out the motor, and that only happened because I was too lazy to pick up the helicopter and sit it back up correctly. Just tried to fly it out from behind the desk it fell. Dumb Idea. At least I still have 2 more that fly fine.

snang wrote:Anybody know if these will charge via a USB port or if they have to charge off the AA's in the controller?

Yup... charges off usb plug. Or controller. Or class 3 lightsaber, if you made it yourself on Tatooine.

These make an AWESOME cat toy

Mine survived many crashes and only became unflyable when my cat took revenge and chewed off the tail rotor. :D

I don't know about this brand, but in general these toy helicopters are fun. IR is ok, they're way to underpowered to fly outside anyways. As long as it's a "real" controller and not some smartphone app controller they work. Best "mod" is to open the controller and cut the spring on the throttle so that it doesn't always snap back to zero.

So far, the best game an office full of engineers could come up with is "oil rig".

Set a full roll of paper towels on it's end (so it's like a oil platform in the ocean), and use that as your landing platform.

The person with the fastest time to land without crashing the oil rig (i.e. tipping over the paper towel roll), or touching the ocean (i.e. the floor), wins.

Much harder then it sounds.

Save yourself some grief and order the Syma version off of Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S107-S107G-Helicopter-Colors/dp/8499000606/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1336716443&sr=1-1-catcorr

Same price, and the replacement parts are cheap and available.

The USB charging is very nice. I got the Night Hunter copter on Woot before and it's nice but, man, it EATS through my batteries. It would be nice to be able to charge the chopper without having to drain AA batteris via the remote controll.

Hmmm? I bought 2 last time. Yeah, the USB charging would be nice (that's the only way to charge them, since that's the only adapter that was inside the box) BUT, the internal battery will NOT hold a charge.

Bummer. Nice try, WOOT

skou wrote:Striping? StriPPing, maybe, or are we (or our rights) really getting stripes? :D

Seriously, thanks for pointing out that these are INFARED!

As a long-time RC fanatic, RC means Radio Controlled! Not infared!

Since you seem to be the spelling police today. It is infrared and not infared. Also ditch the exclamation points. It makes you stand out in a bad light.

Woody1 wrote: Also ditch the exclamation points. It makes you stand out in a bad light.

The Woot logo is bad? I use ! all the time here on Woot!! See!! It's ok to use!!

Long live Woot!!!

A little bit of honesty would be nice. These are 3.5 channel helicopters. These use the little infrared LED to send a pattern of flashes to control the helicopter. Last time I checked those LEDs didn't send out different wavelengths of light, so why say it has 3.5 channels? The only possible reason is to try and fool the buyer into thinking he is getting a REAL RC helicopter that uses radio frequentcy and not the worthless LED crap.

Come on guys don't treat the customers like rubes, eve if we are.

Nice helicopter... but $24 shipped is what you would expect to pay for this on many other websites. Certainly isn't something you should jump on just because its a "woot".

I bought a few of these and unfortunately would not reccomend them. These are indoor only helicopters. The IR remote is like your TV remote, line of sight, no direct sunlight.
Here is the eventuality of outdoor flying: it goes slightly over your head, you point the remote up towards god's flashlight and the heli gains altitude out of control to about 100 ft then stops, decends at an alarming rate then lands on terra firma at 20 mph and does not work again.

jmminch wrote:Doing a little searching, it looks like these are knockoffs of the Syma S107 (which are awesome little helicopters; I love mine.) Reviews on these ones seem mixed but largely negative ... given that you can find the Syma for less, it would seem to be a little risky to get these.

They look just like knock offs of the Syma S107. We got one of those last time this knock off was listed here and the Syma is awesome. It is tough and flies great. I would look for the Syma over this one.

thomas998 wrote:A little bit of honesty would be nice. These are 3.5 channel helicopters. These use the little infrared LED to send a pattern of flashes to control the helicopter. Last time I checked those LEDs didn't send out different wavelengths of light, so why say it has 3.5 channels? The only possible reason is to try and fool the buyer into thinking he is getting a REAL RC helicopter that uses radio frequentcy and not the worthless LED crap.

Come on guys don't treat the customers like rubes, eve if we are.

They are being honest. 3.5 channels refers to the physical movement the helicopter is capable of. Not the amount of control frequency channels. This article explains it well:

http://www.thinkrc.com/faq/coaxial-3ch-4ch.php

the .5 usually refers to something trivial like being able to turn off the lights remotely or something.

These are not bad, but for the same price you can get the real thing...the Syma S107 on Amazon.

These are made by WorldTechToys and very closely resemble the Syma with a couple exceptions. One the tail rotor is pitched opposite so the Syma parts will not work. The charging port is also different so if you have Syma chargers, etc. they won't work.

However, they do fly, and they are fun. But, for the same price get the Syma and the ability to get spare parts. It's nearly impossible to find parts for this model.

Oh, all of the helicopters this size are indoors only as even the slightest breeze will toss them around pretty good.

Purchased one of these last time woot had them. It refuses to take a charge. I have had no response to my numerous phone calls and emails to world tech toys for replacement. good luck

thomas998 wrote:A little bit of honesty would be nice. These are 3.5 channel helicopters. These use the little infrared LED to send a pattern of flashes to control the helicopter. Last time I checked those LEDs didn't send out different wavelengths of light, so why say it has 3.5 channels? The only possible reason is to try and fool the buyer into thinking he is getting a REAL RC helicopter that uses radio frequentcy and not the worthless LED crap.

Come on guys don't treat the customers like rubes, eve if we are.

3.5 channels refers to the amount of motion that these have - has nothing to do with the transmitter signal.

Each channel is used to control a range of motion.

Your channels would be:
1: Up / Down
2: Turn Left / Turn Right
3: Move Forward / Move Backward
.5: Usually adds an on/off for lights, or a speed control. (in this case, it may be the trim pot)

A 4 channel helicopter has:
1: Up /Down
2: Turn Left / Turn Right
3: Move Forward / Backward
4: Drift Left / Drift Right

sinsemilla wrote:Save yourself some grief and order the Syma version off of Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S107-S107G-Helicopter-Colors/dp/8499000606/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1336716443&sr=1-1-catcorr

Same price, and the replacement parts are cheap and available.

This is truth. I just ordered one of the Syma versions last night after trying to search for replacement parts for the Night Hunter version I bought a few weeks ago. Get the real thing. Parts are readily available and inexpensive. You can also get an AC adapter for the helicopter so that you aren't tethered to a USB port.

You can charge it via USB on a pc. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can get this for $5 cheaper by saving the shipping costs

Bought one last time and it was broken out of the box. They were really nice at Customer service and sent me another one and it worked for about 5 minutes and then died....

##These S-107 are pieces of Junk!!!!##

Don't waste your Money!!

We bought a ton of these for the office when they were up a while ago.

Most of them have held up well. One had battery issues after a month or so in that the battery wouldn't hold a charge.

They've withstood falls from the 30+ ft warehouse ceiling, mid-air collisions with other copters, and a drop into a tank of water.

Once a copter goes down permanently, we just use it for spare parts.

I'd say, of the 6 that we started with, 4 are still going strong after 6 or so months.

Our game consists of picking a landing zone in the warehouse, (sometimes up on pallet racks, or on various boxes, etc.) then having three people race. The first to land there wins. Then they pick the next landing spot...

snang wrote:Anybody know if these will charge via a USB port or if they have to charge off the AA's in the controller?

Yep, a proprietary USB cord is included. The chopper will charge with any powered USB port, and the plug lights up when charging is complete. I use my iphone's USB wall wart to charge it all the time.

skou wrote:As a long-time RC fanatic, RC means Radio Controlled! Not infared!

Seriously, just assume any toy helicopter in this class is IR and save yourself the drama already. You did not discover gravity and nobody cares if RC means Radio or Remote control.

ibrlunatic wrote:Purchased one of these last time woot had them. It refuses to take a charge. I have had no response to my numerous phone calls and emails to world tech toys for replacement. good luck

Yikes, sorry about that. Woot can take care of this for you, I will send you an email shortly.

yaa for Syma knock offs!!

In for many, never thought I could have my own fleet of choppers... :-)

alager wrote:Yikes, sorry about that. Woot can take care of this for you, I will send you an email shortly.

Well done Woot!