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AIR KITE GLIDER
This is a long page with at least 34 images on it; dial-up users please allow for plenty of load time.
Somebody set up us the bomb.

Air Kite Glider, retail $69.95 (www.myvirtualzone.com...)
Manufactured by (Unknown) for AROA Marketing
Last updated 10-10-10

This is a large, lightweight powered glider (powered with a propeller) that has adjustable vertical stabilisers (adjustable via remote control) - these are individually adjustable on both left and right sides. But what prompted me to purchase it was not because I like things that fly (well, I really do), but those fourteen LEDs around the front and both sides of the wings.

It's advertised as being "easy to fly", but in the several hours I've had it as of this writing (I took it out for its maiden voyage at ~2:30pm PDT; it is now 7:06pm PDT), I have not yet gotten it to fly.

According to the furnished instructional materials, the full name of this product is the "Air Kite Flashion Electric Powered R/C Model"; and often refers to it as a "kite". So I'll probably just call it a "kite" on much of the remainder of this web page.

SIZE

Install the batteries in the remote and in the Air Kite Glider itself (see directly below), screw the remote control's antenna into the receptacle for it on the front of the remote control's body, and THEN you can go fly it into something and cause it to become broken.

Slide the little slide switch on the left side of the kite's undercarriage forward toward the "ON" position.

Extend the antenna on the remote.

Slide the switch just below the center of the remote's upper surface forward to the "ON" position.

Grasp the kite by its undercarriage (the white plastic "body"), lift your arm (the one holding the kite, not the other one

) above your shoulder, push the right-hand stick on the remote forward (toward the antenna) to throttle up the kite's motor (and subsequently, its propeller), and gently toss the kite straight ahead.

Congratulations, you are now a pilot!!!

For additional tips on how to fly, please read the instructional materials furnished with the product.

When you're finished, turn the kite and remote control off. Same switches as before, but slide them in the opposite direction this time.

To change the batteries in the remote control, slide the battery door off & remove it, very gently place it on the ground, and kick it into the garden so that the hungry, hungry praying mantids will think it's something yummy for their insect tummies and subsequently strike at it...O WAIT!!! YOU'LL NEED THAT!!! So just set it aside instead.

Remove the eight used AA cells from the compartment, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit.

Insert eight new AA cells into the compartment, orienting four of the cells so that their flat-ends (-) negatives face the springs for them in each chamber. Insert the other four, orienting them so that their flat-ends (-) negatives face the button-ends (+) positives of the cells directly behind them.

Finally, place the battery door back on.
Aren't you glad you didn't kick that battery door into the garden with all those hungry, hungry praying mantids now?

Here is what a praying mantis looks like.
I found this guy on the morning of 09-08-06 clinging to the basket of my scooter.

To charge the battery in the kite, turn the kite upside-down. You'll see that the white undercarriage is held on with two cotter pins - one near the front and one near the back. Use pliers to very gently pull these cotter pins straight out, and set them aside.

Lift away the undercarriage, and set that aside too.

The battery pack should be held in place with a rubber band. Disengage it any way you see fit without causing the rubber band to become broken.

Unplug the battery pack.

Plug the battery pack into the connector on the end of the "wall wart" charger's cord, and plug the large end into any standard (in north America anyway) 110 volts to 130 volts AC 60Hz 2- or 3-slot household receptacle.

After 2 to 3 hours, just reverse the above steps to get everything back the way it was. The cotter pins can be pushed back in with just your fingers; you do not really need the pliers for this part.

VERY IMPORTANT!!! There's a rather stern advisory in the instructional materials to not leave the battery charging for more than three hours.

This powered kite is designed to be used as a toy in a dry area outdoors, not a flashlight meant to be thrashed and abused, so I won't throw it against the wall, stomp on it, try to drown it in the {vulgar term for feces}bowl or the cistern, run over it, swing it against the concrete floor of a patio, bash it open to check it for candiosity, fire it from the cannoñata (I guess I've been watching the TV program "Viva Piñata" too much again

- candiosity is usually checked with a scanner-type device on a platform with a large readout, with a handheld wand that Langston Lickatoad uses, or with a pack-of-cards-sized device that Fergy Fudgehog uses; and the cannoñata is only used to shoot piñatas to piñata parties away from picturesque Piñata Island), send it to the Daystrom Institute for additional analysis, or inflict upon it punishments that I might inflict upon a flashlight. So this section of the web page will be rather bare, when compared to this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight.

There is a long, thin white wire coming from the back of the kite; ***DO NOT*** pull, cut, or otherwise remove it!!!
This is the kite's antenna, and it is absolutely necessary for the wire to be intact for the kite to maintain contact with the remote control!!!

O NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

I already busted it!!!

It crashed ***HARD*** into short grass, the "neck" is now broken, plus the battery pack popped out and I was not able to find it.

As a result, I will not be able to complete this evaluation.

The radio remote control.

Photograph of the kite in subdued lighting, showing the LEDs.

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs (white) in this kite.

Spectrographic analysis of the LEDs (red) in this kite.

Spectrographic analysis of the LED (green) in this kite.

Spectrographic analysis of the LED (red, lower left) in the remote control.

Spectrographic analysis of the LED (red) in the remote control.

Spectrographic analysis of the LED (yellow) in the remote control.

Spectrographic analysis of the LED (yellow-green) in the remote control.

Spectrographic analysis of fluorescence of the orange remote control for this product when irradiated with the Wicked Lasers Spyder 3 Arctic 445nm 1W Blue Diode Laser.

Spectrographic analysis of fluorescence of the orange wings of this product when irradiated with the Wicked Lasers Spyder 3 Arctic 445nm 1W Blue Diode Laser.

Spectrographic analysis of fluorescence of the green vertical fin of this product when irradiated with the Wicked Lasers Spyder 3 Arctic 445nm 1W Blue Diode Laser.

Spectrographic analysis of fluorescence of the orangish-yellow propeller of this product when irradiated with the Wicked Lasers Spyder 3 Arctic 445nm 1W Blue Diode Laser.

USB2000 spectrometer graciously donated by P.L.

Here's a photograph of the damage...the broken part is circled in yellow.

I attempted (several times in fact) to make a movie, but you really do need both hands to operate the remote control.
Even attempting to take a still photograph of the kite flying through the air would be just as difficult.

The only thing I can realistically do is provide you with the video on YourTube. It shows some pretty spiffy flying; even night flying.

Video on YourTube showing the glider being hand-launched and rather quickly crashing nose-first in a baseball field in Federal Way WA. USA.
This flight attempt was made late on the morning of 06-22-09.

This clip is approximately 3.5832 megabytes (3,657,124 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than eighteen minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.
I cannot provide it in other formats, so please do not ask.

In this clip, you can hear me say "Entering sector zero point four" in the same manner as the speech synthesizer in the coin-op arcade video game ''Star Trek'' {it's supposed to be Mr. Spock saying this}, then say "I mean...flight number four", in the same manner as the speech synthesizer in the coin-op arcade video game ''Looping'', followed by the glider being hand-launched and rather quickly crashing nose-first.

I had made five flight attempts total; the last (fifth) one came to a rather quick and somewhat dramatic end in a nose-first crash that re-busted the kite's "neck" so that I had to 'pick up my ball and go home' as they say. I'll be flying my P-38 R/C "Park Flyer" Airplane today (06-23-09) because I know for a fact that it performs well.

I cannot provide this clip in other formats, so please do not ask.

This is a screen dump (yes, it's really called that) of the video showing the glider shortly after launch.

TEST NOTES:
Test unit was purchased on the My Virtual Zone website on 07-14-07, and was received on the afternoon of 07-19-07.

The "wall wart"-style battery charger has a rated output voltage of +7.4 volts at a current of 350mA.

Product was made in China.
A product's country of origin really does matter to some people, which is why I published it on this web page.

UPDATE: 07-20-07
I felt so badly about destroying it so quickly (it crashed nose-down ***SO HARD*** - not the fault of the kite itself but of the pilot (me) that it was destroyed) that I ordered another...so maybe this review can be finished after all.

UPDATE: 07-20-07
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, a same-day update.
YAY TELEPHONY!!! (pronounced "tell uh FOA' nee")...I mean YAY, I FOUND IT!!!
The battery pack was found in the bushes at least 20 feet away from the crash scene, so it flew pretty far when the kite crashed.
I'll try to remember to purchase some epoxy tomorrow (07-21-07) and attempt a repair with it.

UPDATE: 07-21-07
I went to Longs Drugs and Raleys, and neither had the two-part epoxy that I was looking for. So tomorrow (07-22-07) or *MAYBE* even later today (07-21-07), I'll go to Nugget Market, Radio Shack, Big Five, and Right Aid and see if one of those stores has it.

UPDATE: 07-22-07
I made it to the Radio Shack not far from here late yesterday afternoon; although they normally carry what I was looking for, they asked me to wait until later today for their telephone call (apparently to see if they could procure the epoxy from another store in the Sacramento area) before going to their online store and purchasing some that way.

UPDATE: 07-22-07
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, a same-day update.
I never received that telephone call, so I attempted to find the epoxy on Radio Shack's website, and was not successful.
Because there is no hardware store or automotive parts store I can get to, I think I'm SOL on this one.

UPDATE: 07-24-07
The replacement arrived this afternoon; the soonest I could attempt a test flight is Thursday morning (07-26-07).
The test flight will probably take place in the park pictured below.

UPDATE: 07-26-07
This kite is significantly too large to fit in the basket of my electric wheelchair, so I'm going to have to conduct the test flight in our complex's courtyard or other nearby large open area. I'm not certain whether or not I can get a movie clip of it flying, but I *WILL* attempt to.
Sure, I could *CRAM* it into the basket, but I'd run a high risk of product breakage and a near-certainty of (possibly permanently) warping the kite if I did that.

UPDATE: 07-27-07
I have ordered another balsa wood airplane with wheels (again, I'm interested only in the weels here); I'll affix the wheels to the bottom of this powered kite and see if I can get it to take off. It worked on this product, so what have I got to lose?

UPDATE: 07-28-07
The balsa wood airplane with wheels came today, but they will not work here - the propeller on this powered kite is too large.

UPDATE: 07-29-07
I'm not ready to call this kite a "feline flagellated stool sample female parent inseminator" (toliet words replaced with innocous ones - the correct acronym is PWPOSMF) just yet...if the wheels themselves are brought closer together, the propeller will clear the ground, but I need epoxy to fasten the wheel assembly to the kite's undercarriage (the bottom of its fuselage) - the transparent packing tape I used was simply insufficient and could not do this job.

UPDATE: 07-30-07
The thrust from the propeller is just...how should I say this...AWESOME!!!
When the kite is aimed upward and I put the hammer down (apply full thrust via the remote control), the kite is difficult to hold without thinking it's going to break right then & there.

UPDATE: 07-31-07
Radio Shack has discontinued the epoxy; one of the clerks told me that the reason is because too many dim bulbs have been gluing themselves together with it...perfect candidates for "The Darwin Awards" I think.

Since I cannot find epoxy in my local area, I don't know how I'll affix the wheels to the bottom of the fuselage (body).

UPDATE: 10-08-07
The Air Kite Glider's motor will automatically turn off when it loses contact with its remote control; thus the toy will not "fly, fly, fly away!" (as Seattle Mariners baseball announcer Dave Neihaus might say when somebody hits a home run) if it goes out of range of the remote.

UPDATE: 01-04-08
I ordered some epoxy last night; it should be here within a couple of weeks. I also made certain that I knew where the wheels were...safely tucked inside a lidded plastic box, exactly where I remembered they were. So when the epoxy gets here, I'll use it to affix the wheels to the undercarriage and see if I can't get this puppy off the ground.

UPDATE: 03-06-08
The "Mighty Puddy" kneadable epoxy arrived yesterday afternoon; I used it to affix wheels to the kite's fuselage and (assuming I can find the battery, charger, and R/C) may attempt to fly it later today.

UPDATE: 03-07-08
Wheels did not work.

So the flight is on indefinite hold, and this evaluation cannot yet be completed.

UPDATE: 06-22-09
I used the "Mighty Puddy" to repair my original, and have taken it out for its first flight in Washington (or "Warshington" state if you prefer); please see the video clip above to see how it went.

UPDATE: 06-22-09
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, a same-day update.
The repair was incomplete, so the test flight planned to take place late yesterday morning has been postphoned at least 24 hours. It will take place later today if weather permits; otherwise it may take place late tomorrow morning.

This is the baseball field I intend to make the flights in.

Here's the park entrance - note the sign reading "South County Ballfields".

UPDATE: 06-23-09
I had a number of flight attempts all ending with limited success yesterday; culminating in the "broken neck" repair I had conducted failing...so now the "neck" is once again busted.

Also, in *BOTH UNITS*, when power is applied to the main motor, it appears to "max out" at approximately 50%, then the entire power system in the kite shuts down if the right-hand stick on the remote is pushed any farther forward. That is, the propeller stops, all of the LEDs extinguish, and the vertical elevators become unresponsive.

If I were to rate this product like I'd rate a flashlight, I'd give it the prestigious (cough, sputter, sound of a wall-mounted porcelain uranator flushing} "Zero Stars - Whip Out Your {vulgar slang term for male tallywhacker, six letters, rhymes with 'wrecker'} or Sit on the Commode and Piddle On It" rating. It's too large to show a photograph of it in a toliet bowl, so you'll just have to take my word for it here.

See, told ya so.

PROS:
Looks really neat
Has LEDs - looks really cool at night

CONS:
Doesn't fly
Even relatively minor crashes cause product breakage
Doesn't fly

MANUFACTURER: Unknown
PRODUCT TYPE: Powered kite
LAMP TYPE: LED
No. OF LAMPS: 14 (2xhigh-flux, 12x3mm)
BEAM TYPE: N/A
SWITCH TYPE: Slide switch on/off on side of body
CASE MATERIAL: Carbon fiber, plastic, and nylon
BEZEL: N/A
BATTERY: 8xAA cells (transmitter), 2 Li:ION cells (connected together) (kite)
CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
WATER- AND PEE-RESISTANT: Very light sprinkle-resistance at maximum
SUBMERSIBLE: NO WAY HOZAY!!!
ACCESSORIES: Radio control transmitter, antenna for same, wall-wart charger, spare propeller
WARRANTY: 1 year

PRODUCT RATING:

Air Kite Glider * www.myvirtualzone.com...

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