Air Hogs R/C “Aero Ace”
Clearly, there has been a major manufacturing breakthrough in the whole commodity remote control toy market in the last couple of years.
Today, Fitz chatted me out of the blue and basically challenged my purpose for living unless I immediately headed to Target to pick up an Air Hogs R/C Aero Ace.
So, I did exactly that and I gotta say these things are damned fun!
The Aero Ace is a bit of foam molded into a biplane design that sports a propeller per wing. Their are no remotely controllable surfaces. Instead, the wireless remote features throttle and steering where anything beyond abut 30% throttle gives you lift and “steering” is defined by differing the speed with which the two props spin.
In other words, if you have zero throttle you have zero control.
Ben and I initially flight tested an Aero Ace in the Apple Quad. There was just a bit of a breeze and it was more than enough to send the Ace sailing like a slightly aerodynamic wad of paper. We quickly discovered that the Aero will recover controllable flight after a head-on with a tree or building; it is just a matter of steering immediately away from the next obstacle.
Clearly, this is a device that prefers still air.
So, we gave the Aero a spin inside. Given a big space, the Aero is an incredibly fun toy to fly around. The controls are exceedingly soft; slow and smooth is the key. Given that, it is possible to do banking climbs, dive bombs, and weave in and out of obstacles. That the plane is made of soft materials means that neither it nor the surrounding environment will be damaged through numerous head on collisions.
Easy to control? Nahh… not really. Quite the challenge in that the amount of forward throttle changes when you attempt to turn one way or the other. Total blast to fly, though. At $30, the plane is a bargain and — when it inevitably breaks (it is made of styrofoam after all) — you have a really simple and very versatile light weight R/C circuit to hack into something else. Target has ‘em, though after flying this thing around Apple a bit, I suspect that the Cupertino store is running low on stock.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:00 am
I saw these at the Discovery Store, but after picking up the air powered units (non-r/c) a long time ago, thought this would be just as poor.
I see they come in a bunch of different bodies. Do you have any idea if any should be avoided (for poor flight characteristics)?
May 12th, 2006 at 12:42 am
You gave me the bug, and I slammed down $10 on a clearance Estes Sky Squadron version at Radio Shack. It’s got a “200 foot range” remote control…that sends a sole signal to toggle to rudder between left, center, and rignt.
May 12th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Grabbed one of these immediately after flying Bill’s and have been flying it every chance I get (including taping a Thill “lunker light” to the bottom and night-flying.) It was nice and calm yesterday morning and I took it up until it was just a spot in the sky and I couldn’t hear the whine of the motors anymore.
I’ve also had more close-calls with the upper reaches of trees than I can count, got it stuck once and a nice guy tossed baseballs up into the tree until it came down, now it’s “parked” on my roof for the day (gonna have to borrow a ladder tonight…)
So far I’ve mostly been flying it just as it came out of the box, and it’s an incredible amount of fun, this weekend I’m going to start hacking it with some of the mods collected here…
Jim: We’ve been flying the biplane version, this little gem is only re-branded by Air Hogs but was developed by a company called Silverlit and marketed as the “X-Twin”, lots of the hacks refer to it by that name.
May 14th, 2006 at 8:01 am
Thanks Ben. The Discovery Store only has the Stealth version in stock. It looks more interesting in the box, but I’ll pick up the biplane if it flies better.
July 18th, 2006 at 7:50 am
hi. i have three, every one is a different animal flight wise removing lower wing realy makes plane more challenging to fly. try one and be hooked
September 28th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
i was looking to buy the airhog titan jumbo jet airplane cant find where to buy one but the new air hog boat looks cool to its a boat that flys and jumps and runs threw grass.looks cool still whant the jumbo jet to try out know where to get a titan air hog
March 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Try the Estes Air Force 1 Boeing 747. It retails for about $130 at Tower Hobbies. I don’t think Air Hogs is making the Titan anymore.
March 25th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I have an air hogs titan. i got it at cosco, but that was a while ago. i have flown it it is very hard to fly, you cannot turn sharply at all. You could look on ebay 4 one though. I dont go on computer often so no need to respond. By the way it is VERY VERY VERY BIG. 4 foot wingspan.
March 25th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
After looking on web for a while found hole in the wall website audapack.com, it has Titan but only for $$$$$$BIG BUCKS$$$$$$. I got mine for like $40
but they are selling it for $100!!!! Anyway, hope you have enuf money!!!
May 27th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
How long does the Titan fly on single charge?