My Eagle Eye Helicopter

Last year on my birthday my son Carl who lives in Brazil was visiting with us and he gave me a present, a toy he bought from Target for $40. It was an Airhog Havoc Remote Control (R/C) helicopter. It was designed to fly indoors only so I flew it in our living room and family room. One problem was it was difficult to control and several times, I crashed into Louise’s houseplants causing damage to the plants and also to my toy. Luckily, it came with several spare rotor blades so I was able to make repairs for a while. I played with it for several weeks, then after one hard crash, it was totally unrepairable. The fun I had playing with this toy was worth $40.

I missed my Airhog helicopter. I searched the Internet for a replacement and found a bigger model that would also fly outdoors, the Art Tech Eagle Eye. It features an on-board video camera system that allows you to record what the helicopter ‘sees’ while airborne. The video signal is transmitted to a receiver on the ground where the video is recorded on my laptop’s hard drive. It was Christmastime 2008. I bought me a Christmas present.

It didn’t take me long to learn how to fly the Eagle Eye. After about two weeks of training in my garage I was ready to fly it outdoors. I have room in our backyard to fly it. Tekka, our family dog likes to join the fun when I fly my helicopter in our backyard.