FlyTech Dragonfly 

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FlyTech DragonFly

only £27.89 from Amazon
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Available from Gizoo
£39.95 in green or blue!
£39.99 from Hamleys

While it can - and does - fly outside a good space away from anything breakable is required indoors to avoid problems. I would suspect the reason it scared Andy's wife was not because of anything else other than the threat of breaking items. The full comment from Andy on my Dream Toys report was "I've used the Remote Flytech DragonFly, I crashed a few times at the start but soon got in to it, GREAT fun but scared my wife ha".

It is 40cm from wing to wing, just on 30cm from nose to tail and a maximum of 12cm from leg tip to top of the wing it is very light and the body is polystyrene and plastic.

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The remote control is a far meatier product being a maximum of 15cm wide, 14cm long and around 4cm thick. You will need 6xAA batteries (not supplied) to activate the Dragonfly.

While the unit is supplied assembled you will need to attach the antenna to the remote controller. You need to charge the Dragonfly from the remote controller it is stated to take 20 minutes to power the unit for around seven minutes of flying time. You know when the Dragonfly is fully charged as it's eyes will stop pulsing.

This is recommended for '8 years upwards' and while I did venture to try it in expert mode without much success, I was more successful in beginner mode where everything is less responsive but this allows turns to be far more gentle. The maximum recommended range is 15 metres.

Flying of the unit is well documented in the ten side user manual and recommends that you attach the supplied tail ribbon as it restricts flying speed. Having the tail attached may seem to be more likely to cause accidents but it does not.

I never advanced to the point where you should be able to make it take off from the ground but I suspect this is well in the realms of the expert mode. If you visit www.flytechonline.com there are hints and tricks available and certainly the majority of these are for people far more athletic than myself.

A spare set of wings is provided in the box as well as instructions to replace them, they are fragile and unless the child is especially patient then an older adult would probably be best to perform this task.

Should you have an area indoors that is not to cluttered and not have lots of valuable china then this could be a toy that helps the child develop motive skills as well as have lots of fun. Yes you will crash a lot but as it's so light the amount of damage will be small or even non existent. Outside you do need a very still day and remember do not let it roam to far away as you will get out of controller distance.

The FlyTech Dragonfly is available at £39.95 from http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/ToysGames/RadioControl/DragonFly.htm