Hasta La Gadget!

Want to pick up your date? Forget your car. Don’t send a taxi. Send two R/C helicopters to pick her up and really impress her.

HeliGraphix is a club of radio controlled helicopter hobbyists that perform crazy stunts and puts the videos online. Seen here, their latest project is HULC, which stands for Heavy Ultra Lifter Crane.

This is a demo to show just how powerful two heavy duty helicopters can be when working in tandem. The team says that it has completed the first successful human flight by R/C aircraft. The proof is right here. They did several flights, some of them lasted over 40 seconds.

It is pretty impressive to watch. Sorry guys, this technique won’t help you kidnap a girl. She has to grab on willingly.

[via Core77 via Neatorama]

What is this? A flying drone? Eight flying drones? One flying helicopter? A moving room? A truck? It’s a little bit of everything. Called the AT Black Knight Transformer, it combines the vertical takeoff and landing of a helicopter with the off-road driving capabilities of a truck. So yes, that means it can fly and drive. Oh and it’s a drone.

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It looks like Call of Duty. It’s not. It looks like a movie. It’s not. Instead it’s an incredible photograph of a Marine Corps Super Stallion Helicopter taking off with a M777 howitzer in the California desert. In real life. What a powerful image. The helicopter is lugging the 7,500 pound 35 foot long monster of a weapon like it’s nothing.

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Remote-controlled helicopters can be fun to fly, but they’re not exactly easy to see in the dark. But these little R/C choppers not only light up when flying, their blades can display messages while airborne.

The helicopter’s spinning blades have LEDs on them, which can be programmed to display dot-matrix text or icons which emerge while the blades spin, thanks to a persistence of vision illusion.

Simply enter the text you want to display using the companion app (which appears to be Windows only), choose the animation pattern, and download the data to your helicopter. The text is designed to be legible when viewed from the ground looking up at the helicopter.

The helicopter itself has 8-inch gyro-stabilized blades, and can be charged via USB. The LED R/C Helicopter is available from Brando for $39.90(USD).

It would be cool to see this same technology applied to multi-blade drones too.

Want to fly an R/C helicopter but have trouble with the controls? Swann has announced a new miniature remote-controlled helicopter called the Mosquito. The little helicopter has a rotor diameter of only three-inches and weighs less than one ounce. Its small size gives the Mosquito superior speed and maneuverability compared to larger remote control helicopters designed for indoor flights.

The little helicopter features Easy-Fly Gyro technology making it easy to keep the helicopter stable for new pilots and it uses dual blades for stability. The little helicopter features a yoke-inspired remote control and uses infrared to communicate with the helicopter. The control has joysticks and trim control.

The helicopter can fly six ways including up, down, forward, backward, left, and right. Power comes from a rechargeable 3.7 V lithium polymer battery good for up to seven minutes of continuous flight. The remote control is powered by six AA batteries, and is used to charge the helicopter’s internal battery. The Mosquito is available now for $29.99(USD) at Fry’s electronics stores.