While at this location, I also took the heli inside and let two more RC'ers with hobby-grade helicopter experience give it their best shot in a controlled environment. It took all of my skill to keep it from either crashing violently or quickly drifting away. Predictably, what little breeze did make itself around into the little cove where I was flying blew this poor heli wherever it felt like. Fast Lane says the FA-005 will fly outdoors as long as there isn't heavy wind, so I figured I'd give it a shot, keeping in mind that in box-stock form, it wouldn't fly controllably indoors with no wind whatsoever. With the fix working, I took the FA-005 outside to an area partially protected from wind by the intersection of two single-story buildings. It was still extremely difficult and required repeated full movements of the right stick on the controller back & forth very quickly to stop it from still spinning all over the place, but at least it was possible now through extraordinary efforts to keep the heli within a reasonably small cube of airspace. I put that in quotes because it's a very relative term. After this modification, the FA-005 became much "easier" to fly. To address this, I used a small jeweler's screwdriver to remove both the horizontal and vertical fin assemblies that are attached to the boom. In rare moments when it would actually reach a hovering state, it would start to inch rearward on its own. Amidst all of the frantic out-of-control tail-wagging & spinning, I saw evidence that the heli was too heavy in the rear. I noticed one potentially solvable problem with the design of the heli, and I decided to go about trying to fix it. I wasn't ready to give up completely, though. The test of the FA-005 as you can buy it from the store was over. Two adults with plenty of experience with RC helicopters ranging from 2 to 4 channels, both toy- and hobby-grade, gave the FA-005 our best flying efforts repeatedly, but we spent more time spinning out of control and crashing into walls & other objects than actually flying as intended. Making this more difficult, it starts its turns very sluggishly, so every action is delayed a lot from when you move the stick on the controller. If you want to turn just a little, you have to give it a slight command to turn in that direction, and then immediately correct with full opposite turning input to slow its spinning down before it goes out of control. Because the FA-005 has no stabilizing "gyro" system, once it starts to turn, there's really nothing to stop it. When the two rotors begin to spin at different speeds, inertia and drag start to spin the heli in one direction. In a 3-channel "coaxial" style of helicopter like this, left/right tuning is accomplished by slowing one rotor relative to the other. There's one major problem with flying the FA-005 controllably. It's also heavier than most toy-grade RC transmitters once you install the necessary 8 AA batteries in the rear compartment (not included). The controller is very large and really tailored towards adult-sized hands. A rechargeable lithium polymer battery is pre-installed and not removable, and you fill it up with juicy electricity from an included wall charger. It has a sleek, "hobby-grade" style of canopy (outer shell) that is lightweight and leaves plenty of open room for air from the main rotors to keep the large motors cool. The frame of the helicopter itself features many metal parts, making it fairly sturdy. With large size & weight can come both danger, and stability, but indeed this one touts "improved stability" right on the box. Initial ImpressionsĪt over 17 inches main rotor tip to tail rotor tip, the Fast Lane RC FA-005 is a much larger helicopter than we're used to seeing in the toy-grade RC world. Please see the new FA-005 review, which has a very different outcome. It is preserved for archival purposes and is no longer linked on our site. IMPORTANT: This is an old, outdated review for a product that is no longer on the market.
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