Thursday, November 19, 2009

Air Hogs: The Great Toy Helicopter Our Parents Never Let Us Have

Air Hogs: The Great Toy Helicopter Our Parents Never Let Us Have

Ever want a toy helicopter when you were a kid?  How many of them did you ever get?  Probably about as many as I did--just enough to simulate the after-effects of a trip through the Bermuda triangle.  

Your folks probably skipped over this completely badass gift idea for the same reason mine did--they were big, expensive, hell to put together, and used desiel fuel.  And they were just about guaranteed to end up as a either a wreck on the football field, or a murderer of the next door cat-lady's cat.

Air Hogs™ is here to let you re-live the Flight Failures That Could Have Been vicariously through your children--without any of the above difficulties.  There is no difficult or fragile assembly with these guys and no gasoline--Air Hogs are strictly battery-powered!  At the prices they're going for, you can even buy one to put in your own fat-ass stocking.

The smallest model is called the Air Hogs Havoc Heli and, as the name implies, it's the absolute perfect toy for your favorite 8-year-old hellion.  It's small and made mostly of plastic.  That way if your kid crashes it--and you know s/he will--it won't end up a total heap.  Plus you won't leave a divit on the high school football field or kill any cats.  Plus the Havoc Heli Stealth model is only $25 bucks.

The Havoc Heli says it's for ages 8 and up.  It's also rated for indoor use, which sounds pretty insane until you realize that these things are tiny and made of plastic.

For ages 10 and up, get a load of the perfectly peaceful Air Hogs Switchblade.  One of the special powers it boosts is vertical take-off, just like a real damn helicopter!  I don't know who writes the copy for these things, but it's not me.

I'm sure you could fly this one in the house too, but it's got a special feature just for outside: press the Morph button on the control unit and it'll turn into a stunt flying plane instead!  All you need to do is steal some Transformers stickers from the kids next door, and your own kids will be drooling all over themselves clear to New Year's Day (and beyond!).

Let's not forget about the Storm Luancher, aka "The All-Terrain Wonder".  This is the platipus of remote-control toys because it moves on land and air as well as water!

These aren't the only Air Hogs toys out there, though.  They have a hovercraft (eels sold separately) and, my personal favorite, an "Apache Green" helicopter that looks just like the real deal--only smaller. 

(They even have Chinok-like choppers for G.I. Joe's extraction mission, and an SR-71-looking jet to fly while you teach your kids to love Rattle and Hum.  Go Air Hogs!)


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