Syma is the number one provider in the toy category with their patented Coaxial technology. The S107/S107G is honestly a marvel to fly around. The quality of the S107/S107G is on par with the flights of many Beginner Hobbyists Helis yet is priced in the toy category making it an EXCELLENT first copter. The S107/S107G is lightweight enough for some indoor flights, but is also able to fly at low height outdoors! Reviews are overwhelmingly positive and this copter has dominated the Amazon Best Seller list since it came out. It uses the perfected Syma Coaxial technology to stay nearly perfectly stable. In addition, it uses a simple balance bar to resist changes in direction and allow for total user control. This Copter has 3 CH motion: Vertical, Horizontal, and Perpendicular. Fly time is safety 5 minutes and charge time is 15 minutes with a recommended 5 minutes between charging and flying to avoid overheating. Following precautions, the helicopter is reported to last hundreds of flights.
UDI is the number one seller of quad copters. The China based company has managed to get the best features of quad-copters at an affordable price. This piece of machinery flies like much more expensive tech. The U818A has a built in gyroscope that can be activated to combat winds or it can be disactivated to allow for the highest horizontal speed. The U818A is beginner friendly with its protected blades. Amazon places this copter on its highest rated list and it is definently deserving! This UDI flies for roughly 9 minutes while keeping the battery at a safe charge. Then the common 3.7 v LiPo battery can be replaced for another round! These batteries go for $3-$5 around the web and there are people who have modded theirs to take higher capacity batteries for longer flights. The Range is categorized at 30m but that is hardly a stiff line as we have successfully tested over 40m before signal weakened noticeably. Also the U818A comes pre equipped with a 480p standard definition camera. This Copter is an absolute steal at the price point with the amount of features it comes with and is a testament to the real benefits of purchasing in the Beginner hobbyists category rather than the toy category.
The first contender from the Scale Category! Based on the HeliSport Ch7Kompress helicopter, the V913 is a sleek model that is very fairly priced. This is an absolutely gorgeous single rotor helicopter. This is an excellent first step into the scale category as a 1:50 ratio. This particular copter uses a realistic single rotor which makes it a bit harder to fly, it has a balance bar to offset this, but a new rotorist will find this to be a more difficult flight pattern than a quad or coaxial. However, unlike coaxial, it offers a full 4 channels of motion. This allows it to pitch and yaw in addition to the up/down, forward/reverse, and perpendicular motion. The battery is 7.4 V 1500mAH beast that will put this 14in helicopter in the sky for a full 10 minutes. This Heli is large enough that you can feel the power it produces. Another benefit is that batteries are grabbable under $20 if you can wait the 2 weeks for importing. It does take a little expertise to change out the batteries, which is a great introduction to the field of modification. Out of all of the copters on Amazon's best seller list, this is the best size/dollar ratio. Due to the use of single rotor and aircraft size, this heli is much more difficult to fly and is a higher level of flight than the previous options. This is an excellent start for hobbyists looking to have something to take to an airfield!
The Super CP is a cost effective, realistic flight heli. This is a sturdy little heli measures at a stout 9 inches long and is notorious for its ability to take a beating. Many people love to take this guy out to the airfield and see peoples expression as they crash it into trees, power lines, and trash cans. People who are flying larger or even same sized helis will freak out but the Super CP will keep on trucking! It is easy to get a full day of use out of one with its standard 3.7v LiPo batteries which are about $3 and give 10 minutes of active flight each. The Super CP offers a full six channels of motion, vertical, horizontal, perpendicular, pitch, yaw, and roll! It offers fully realistic flight and all of the benefits and challenges that come with. It is not unheard of to flip this guy upside down and send him careening to the ground from 20 feet only to walk up, flip it over, and throttle back up! Probably the most forgiving realistic heli on the Amazon Best Seller list!
The Syma S109G brings lot to the table that has not been mentioned yet. The S109G is the PRIME example of a Toy class Scale model. It is based off of the most well known FAC (fast attack copter), the Apache. It reduces the amount of difficulty by only allowing 3.5 ch of motion. This is a step up from the most basic 3 Ch by allowing the user to implement a fixed pitch for strafe motion. This allows for more acrobatics than the others in its price range but also makes it a little more difficult to learn on. Syma counteracts this by giving it a slightly thinker frame than others in its class allowing for some great protection to the internal components. This does result in slightly shorter flight times due to higher weight, around 5 minutes. This is in the toy class, so you must charge between flights and cannot do contiguous flights. Over all, this is an excellent bridge in difficulty and is the best choice for those wanting something more difficult to try on!
The Syma S026G follows the Syma trend of small steps. The Chinook S026G is another step harder to fly than the S109G (which is harder than the S107G). The Chinook is approximately 50% bigger but has 200% more power. My experience with the Chinook Places it at the top of the Toy Category in terms of fun. It also wins the most stylish toy scale! The Chinook is not made for outdoors, but can handle it better than most other minis. As produced, the Chinook is a little slow moving, but a small weight added to the nose and a small trim adjustment makes this guy a beast! From personal experience, it is easy to build up speed and smash it since this is a modification. Remember that it is in the toy class so it is irreparable.
WLToys has a range of copters for a whole lot of different environments. The V911 is their response to the Syma F3. Both size in around 10 in and are excellent single rotor trainers. The V911 offers some specific benefits however. WLToys tries to catch niche markets wit their products. The V913 aims at people who want larger yet affordable copters but don't care about acrobatics. The V911 drops the price 50% and cuts down on the size while keeping everything else the same. As a 4Ch heli it offers more realistic flight and can be quite a challenge to master. Another niche this heli owns is grass indestructibility. This heli is built to be flown over grass and is able to fall from almost max height and land on the grass without breaking any internal components.
**UPDATE** Check out our Syma F3 Video Review. The Syma F3 is another AMAZING Helicopter to get in to. It offers 10in of length and is an awesome value. It is an extremely well rounded single rotor. Syma is known for its coaxial line, but their single rotor also benefits from their astounding understanding of stability. This is the first showing from Syma that was capable to be flown outdoors. It handles up to 10mph winds extremely well and offers up to 10 minutes of flight. This is probably the best first single rotor copter that is on the market as it is forgiving and can take a beating but still is quite agile allowing for real skill development. Syma has severe mark ups on parts but many can be ordered directly from the manufacturers. While this model is a little large for indoor use, its brother the Syma F4 can easily fly inside.
As the only Intermediate Helicopter on this list, the F45 earns its stay. It is an interesting blend because it has the cost input of a beginner class, but to properly fly and tune it takes more of an intermediate time investment. The F45 is considered the entrance to true RC flight. It is 100% customizable and it is almost a requirement to take the time to set this copter up. This copter has dozens of improvements from custom engines to power efficient motherboards that can completely change the product.
This is the most marketed RC copter that has been ever produced, and there is a reason behind that. It is one of the easiest to fly and most entertaining. The initial cost is closer to the Intermediate level, but the time input is more beginner if not toy class. The amount of entertainment is endless and it is easily accessible. The parrot uses a built in wifi system to stream the controls straight from an iphone like a video game. The Parrot AR 2.0 is also equipped with a 720p HD camera that does quite well at capturing the essence of the flight. While the wifi range is a little short for most people, the ease of use compared to specialized controllers and special monitors is awesome. It takes almost no set up time allowing you to take it out for short runs rather than dedicating sections of your day to it.
The S107G is a 100% awesome product. It flies around inside perfectly! It is extremely stable and it does a great job of navigating inside. With only a small amount of trim it can stay extremely steady. If you are a complete newbie to the field of RC Helis then this will be an awesome starter.
Endless hours of fun! You get a solid five minutes of flight time and only 15 minutes of charging time. Definitely a good purchase and well invested money. The S107 is just the best little heli out there in my opinion. Lots of fun and almost indestructible The best part is that it is the most solid flight control that I have experienced.
This is a great flying little quad, although it has been fairly windy since this has been delivered I have still enjoyed it, it does fair in light wind but it is a very light little machine and a gust of wind will pick it up and carry it away fairly quickly, It's a tough little bird though, I hung it up in a tree yesterday and instead of freaking out I looked and saw how it was hooked to the tree then I flew it right off the branch fairly easily, then instead of getting hung up even further up the tree I let it fall the rest of the way down, it smacked just about every branch on the way down and really don't even have a scratch on it.
I was looking for a helicopter that was easy to fly for friends. There is almost always a mild breeze blowing here and this helicopter handles it easily. Handles way better than Coaxial helicopters. A bit slow to respond sometimes, but that makes it a perfect trainer and it is not as slow as some make out. All in all a great helicopter and I was so impressed I bought a second one. I was looking so hard for something a little more challenging than a coaxial with some freedom. At the price, I don't cringe when it crashes and I can have a good time watching my friends fly it around!
The Walkera Super CP is a tank. BestRCCopters has had an awesome time flying this one around! It has seen some horrendous crashes from up to 50 feet but is still running great. The batterries do an awesome job and still hold their charge after a tremendous amount of flight time.
This is my 2nd Walkera Super CP. I learned to fly 6 channel helicopter using this model from a fixed pitch 4 channel Walkera. The heli can survive crashes that it endured as I progressed through my actual flight learning curve. I spent hours of helicopter flights through a flight simulator in my computer where I first learned to hover and to orient my brain how to control the helicopter particularly orientation(where the direction the heli is pointed.) The heli came with a Devo 7e that worked well and flew the chopper out of the box. a great starter unit for immediate use.
I own two other indoor helicopters that I purchased for three to four times as much money at the mall. This is the helicopter that has the best control out of all of them. I can land this thing on a soda can and fly circles around my wives head (my favorite part, especially when she is watching stupid TV shows like the Kardashians). This is the absolute best gift for any male you know. My 8 year old can fly it. Cant say enough about what you get for the price
The Chinook is a really fun toy! We love to fly them around our office. We gave it a little tack and use it to fly pencils around the office, we have tried with a buncho of copters, but this is the first one that can do it.
While this is fast for a beginner helicopter, it is actually much slower than a 6 channel fearlessness helicopter. Also if you let go of the right stick, it will self level and hover without skidding, very rare. This is great for new pilots to learn with, or for experienced pilots to practice new stunts indoors on rainy days because they can recover an out of control heli before it hits the wall. I can now do hurricanes, nose down funnels and tail down funnels easily on this thing.
Simply put, this thing is stable and durable. It's both a great 4 channel trainer and a great indoor flyer for more experienced 6 channel pilots. I now have 8 helicopters, ranging from the V911 all the way up to brush less fearlessness 250 class collective pitch, and just about every other well known 6 channel helicopter in between.
The F3 is a really great helicopter! It flies scarily fast and we cannot reccomend it enough. If you fly it up thirty feet and cut the engine, you can gun the engine after a 25 foot drop and it will instantly gain control. It is extremely stable. The Control gives a perfect amount of control and offers differrent levels of sensitivity for beginners or for elite flyers alike.
My only prior experience was with 3 channel co-axial, and I don't have access to a simulator. I didn't even have training landing gear attached. I am also not a video gamer, and was never any good at them either (just mentioning all this to indicate that I have just average hand-eye coordination skills!)Yet I was able to take this helicopter off, fly and land safely.
This Drone is definitely the coolest gadget I've ever owned. It took a few flights to get the hang of it but now I can fly like a Pro! I brought this bad boy to the courtyard of my job and I was able to go 100 feet (about 30 meters) high with no loss of connectivity (I didn't stay there long, I'm not a mad man) I did break the foam bumper on my third indoor flight but the included double sided clear tape had it up and running looking and flying perfect in no time.