Review: WowWee FlyTech Tinker Bell
Written on Jan 17, 2009 by Brian and filed under Reviews, WowWee
WowWee is one of the pioneers in flying toys, it seems natural for them to pair with Disney to create a flying Tinker Bell. While this won’t let girls fly like a fairy, it does the next best thing, giving them control over a flying Tinker Bell.
The FlyTech Tinker Bell is designed for indoor flight and comes with the fairy and remote control (4 AA batteries, not included). They come in two versions of single channel pairings, the back of the box will indicate an A or B channel. If you buy one of each, two fairies will be able to be flown at the same time.
We were honestly a bit hesitant handing Tinker Bell over to a bunch of kids for in-home flight tests. Our past experience with kids and remote control flying devices haven’t gone well. But Tinker Bell is designed for ages 6+, and comes with an easy to use single button remote, so we felt pretty good about our chances.
Before the first flight, it’s important to carefully remove Tinker Bell from the package. This is definitely an adult job as she’s packed in tight and with a lot of tape. Kids could easily damage the unit during unboxing, so be careful.
The body is a lightweight foam and the wings are made of a durable plastic. The unit doesn’t look like the most sturdy thing out of the box but it held up very well in our tests. After many hours of flight and several test kids, many younger than the 6+ recommended age, Tinker Bell was a bit battered, but functionally still as good as new.
The other part parents want to help with is with charging. One area where WowWee could really improve is the charging mechanism. It’s the same they use on their other flight products that are geared toward an older audience, which is problematic for kids because it’s so tiny and somewhat fragile. The remote control wand doubles as the charger, a small cord unwinds and plugs into the base of the Tinker Bell. It takes about an 18 minute charge to get 4-5 minutes of flying time. That ratio is pretty standard for products like this, though both parents and kids wanted more time between charges. That’s part of the compromise though, as more battery adds weight, which would ultimately make it impossible to fly.
Once Tinker Bell is charged up though, the kids are fine on their own. As noted, the single button remote is as easy as it gets for kids to use. The harder they press it up, the more juice it gives to Tinker Bell. Older or more experienced kids will have a better time actually getting Tinker Bell to hover, but they all had fun running her, control or not. Even though it’s a fairy, boys had fun too and group play was especially entertaining.
When you’re done TInker Bell resides nicely in the included stand. She actually hangs on the front of the remote, which in turn sits in the stand. We definitely recommend storing Tinker Bell this way to avoid possible damage if she’s put in a drawer, toy bin or the like.
Bottom Line
Once parents get past getting TInker Bell out of the package and the gyrations needed to charge her, the toy is pretty solid. It’s easy for kids to use, and even though it doesn’t feel strong and sturdy, it is. Our test kids beat on it pretty hard and she still flies as well as she did the first time. There’s not a lot of control during flight, but that simplicity makes it easy for any kid to pick it up and get going. Tinker Bell is recommended for 6 and up, probably because younger kids may damage the fairy, but we had gentle kids as young as four having a ball with it. Quirks aside, we really like the FlyTech Tinker Bell and think for the price and age group, there’s no better flight toy.
4 out of 5 stars
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