My son (7) is desperate for an RC helicopter or drone for his birthday. Personally I couldn’t think of anything more boring and for that reason I know next to nothing about the subject matter. I was in the apple shop today and spotted the Airhourne Cargo Mars drone, £70, seems quite expensive for what it is but what do I know… Anyway I am hoping the singletrack collective will guide me to spend up to £70 (preferably less) on something that flies in the direction you want it to, spins around and will quite possibly get trodden on in a short space of time.

Apparently it’s not actually a very good drone but I’d still have to get the quadcopter millenium falcon.

True helicopters are very hard to fly; but at that budget I’d guess at a contra-rotating heli, which are much easier to get going on… Although less challenging in the long term.
What you’ll see in gadget shops is at best 4 channel contra-rotating or “3.5” channel, which imo is even less challenging – I wouldn’t entertain one for myself.

I know nothing about “drones” but I guess they’re even more stable than a contra-rotating heli. Again easier to get started but easy to lose interest…
… but for a 7 year old…

I know very little, but get the impression that they’re far more capable than contra-rotating helis, if not much easier to fly.

One of the small RC helis would be better IMO he will have to learn to use the sticks a lot more and only £30.00.
Ive had proper RC helis and they are VERY difficult to fly and expensive to maintain if he wants to go bigger then move him to a Phantom etc drone.

Bought a couple of the mini helicopters for a nephew around that age but they’re just too frustrating (for both of us). Could never get the trim right for starters so then it’s just 5 minutes of out of control flying/crashing then something usually bends or breaks or it’s time to charge the battery and repeat.

Get a drone, they’re a lot easier to fly than even a contra-rotating helicopter. I’ve got a Hubsan X4 which was pretty cheap and not too hard to control (make sure you get the crash pack, though!), other options are of course available.

Personally I’d get him the Hubsan. If he’s learning to fly it’s going to get damaged. Hubsan spare parts are cheap and easily available. Rebuilding is easy. Once he can fly the thing you can unlock “Pro” mode. At this point you need to take cover 😀

Modern ones with 6 axis gyros can be pretty easy to fly, and the small ones bounce off most things and parts are cheap. Still a bit more tricky than a quad though, and the sort of thing I’m thinking of is out of budget anyway.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAYVyj6vf3Y[/video]

How much is one of those eagles?

Hudsan x4 all day , mind there NOT for 7 year olds to be honest , wouldn’t have though many people buy rc helicopters these days ,
you can fly a hubsan till it goes out of sight { there that good } so be prepared to lose one .