Flying Hazards: RC Toy Helicopter Recalls

Last year saw a rash of toy recalls due to lead paint violations and those recalls continue. But in the RC world, it's the batteries. About a year ago I blogged about these RC toy recalls related to fire and burn hazards from bad batteries. Now I've got a few more RC-related product recalls to tell you about. While the toys should be off the shelves by now as the holiday shopping season is getting started, you need to check your toybox for any of these you may have in your home. And be wary when buying used toys on eBay or at garage sales, etc. The bulk of these summer recalls are due to, you guessed it, bad batteries.

• Hobbico is recalling Electrifly lithium-polymer batteries (part #GPMP0401) sold alone or in the Heli-Max Axe CP-L radio-controlled helicopter kits.

• "Sky Scrambler" and "The Sharper Image" Wireless Indoor Helicopters are being recalled due to fire and burn hazards from their rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

• The rechargeable battery in the "Thunder Wolf" Remote Controlled Indoor Helicopters poses a fire hazard that has put it on the recall list.

• "Sky Champion" Wireless Indoor Helicopters sold at Walgreen's also have one of those fire hazard rechargeable batteries.

• Earlier this year Hobby-Lobby put out a recall on lithium-polymer battery chargers and lithium-polymer batteries used in the AT600 Falcon Helicopter kits because they could ignite while charging.

• The "Fun2Fly Microcopter" with item number 91001 is also subject to recall, again because of a fire and burn hazard from its rechargeable battery.

• And back on the ground, the Hurricane XP (1/8 Road Buggy), Avalanche XP (1/8 Off Road Truck), Monsoon XP (1/8 Off Road Truggy), and Tsunami Ultrawide (1/10 Truggy) from Redcat Racing are being recalled due to a malfunctioning transmitter that could result in injury from out-of-control RC vehicles.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission press releases on each recall detail when and where the affected products were sold and tell you exactly what to look for when determining if your RC toy is affected by these hazards.