A. B. Gee Ltd Silverlit Rc Wing Master I-Bird > Reviews (1)

My son recieved on of those mini helicopters for Christmas last year and the whole family had such fun trying to fly it without crashing into the Christmas Tree or wall.

He has played with alot and got quite good at flying it, in fact he's quite the little pilot and far outshines the rest of us !

Just after Christmas, my son wanted me to take him to our local town which is Salisbury, with £20 of his Christmas money so that he could get a game for his PS3.
Once in town, we decided to go to The Entertainer before going to the game shop, and as we looked around we saw these remote control birds called the I-BIRD.

I admit I was quite fascinated by the whole idea of getting something like that to fly like a real bird and tried to get my son to get one with his Christmas money and I would put in the odd couple of £ extra.

He ummmed and ahhhhed for a bit but decided to stick to his original plan and get the game.

I thought no more of it until a couple of months ago when my son said he wanted to get rid of some of his PS3 games and get something else but he was'nt sure what yet.

His dad put his games on ebay for him and he made around £40 profit, so decided he would spend £20 and put the rest in the bank for a car when he's older (hes 9 !).

Off we went into Salisbury, and we saw the I-BIRD again, this time he wanted one of them.

As it was £24, I put in the extra £4 and he bought one.
It comes in several different colours, he got the blue/yellow one.

When we had been home for a bit he got the bird out. It was mainly polystyrene body with thin plastic bag type wings.
The bird had to sit on a base to charge it, once done the base then became the remote.
It seemed a bit flimsey but then I suppose it had to be lightweight to fly.

The base/remote needed 4 AA batteries which were an extra cost.

It was charged and ready to go.

As my son was the expert flyer, and the bird was his, he had first fly.

You have to gently throw the bird into the air as you would if you were releasing a bird into the wild, then using the hand held remote, fly it.

His first 2-3 flights ended before they began, and after several attempts he finally got the bird into the air, but not for long.
Then it was my go.

I was so much worse than he was and didnt even get past the release !

When his dad and brothers got home from work, they tried and didnt get very far either !

My son put the bird away saying how stupid it was, and didnt bother with it up until last week when he found it again.

He has had several more tries at flying it, and after landing it on our conservatory roof, then getting it stuck in the tree in our garden and breaking a wing, he has again declared the bird as stupid and put it away again !

It is a really difficult thing to get to fly, and every-one that has had a go on my sons agrees that it is near impossible to get into the air and keep it there.

While the idea is a good one in practise it doesnt quite work, well not when we tried, and I think that the technology of it needs a bit of a tweak.

On the box it states:

Super wide infrared control
Real life flapping wing movement
Indoor fly and easy control
Graceful flight patterns

In our reality, it did none of that !

I would'nt really recommend this toy as it is flimsey and the most annoying and awkward thing in the world that I have ever played with !