Zing Sky Gliderz (ZB551)

This product was chosen as a stocking stuffer for my son, who is 7 years old. And by the way, the package will not fit into a stocking. :-) We took the planes to a nearby field and gave them a shot.My son and I had mixed experiences with this toy. While he was really excited about the concept of using a slingshot to launch planes up to 100 feet in the air, the reality of the situation is that they hardly ever get that high. In the review, I'll give my own opinions and mix in some of his comments, as well.The wings of the plane are a flimsy foam that has some plastic ribbing for extra rigidity. The plane seems generally durable, taking nose dive after nose dive into hard ground without damage. The only reason why this did not get a 4/5 star is because these planes are very finicky in how they fly in the air. You have to experiment constantly with the wings, bending and twisting the foam into a number of different positions in order to find a position that will send the planes far into the air. If you bend the wings too much in one direction, the planes will either perform small loops and dive into the ground, or they will bank to the side in a loop, quickly diving downwards into the ground.We did enjoy finding a few moments when the foam wings were bent "just right", as we were able to pull back the sling and launch these planes high into the air. These few experiences happened maybe 10% of the time.The sling itself is decent, and kids don't have to worry about snapping their hands with the rubber launcher band.The band itself can be hard to pull back, however. My son, (again, aged 7), had a hard time pulling the band back like I could. So he became frustrated that he could not make the planes fly as high as I was making them fly. If an adult or teenager pulls back the sling, and with the right foam wing manipulations, these planes can really get going! But it takes work, and my son showed no interest in always having to manipulate the wings.The advertised "whistle" feature is nothing exciting. There's a small "tea kettle"-like whistle that makes an unimpressive screech when the plane first launches. But once the plane slows down and begins gliding, the whistling stops. Not a big deal, but it's promoted as a feature on the package, and yet you'd never really know it was there if it weren't advertised on the package.So if you have a child that you are buying for around the same age as mine, they will enjoy this product for about an hour by themselves, unless you can assist them by constantly manipulating the foam wings to make each flight more exciting for them.

These are great fun. My 8 year old son and I took them to the park, and fired them off for a couple of hours. They fly VERY far, so don't use them anywhere near trees or buildings, and pay attention to where the wind is blowing, as they'll often glide in that direction.These things are tough. They're made of flexible foam with a hard nose. My son flew it into the ground nose first again and again with no damage. And they fly great, a couple hundred feet into the air at least. We got great exercise running to retrieve them and bringing them back to the predetermined launching point (where they wouldn't get stuck in the trees). Sometimes they fly straight, and sometimes they loop and turn. The wings are flexible so you can tune the planes to do different tricks.These are highly recommended as a toy that can get kids outside, learning a bit about flight, and getting exercise. Easily competes with things like video games, and produces great father-son time.

The boys had fun shooting this for a while but they didn't last. We had three sets (6 total) and the glue let go on two of them. Flying them is temperamental. They either dive bomb the ground (boo) or fly AMAZINGLY well (YAY!) but we couldn't figure out the trick to make it fly that way all the time. We had one that flew great, and compared it to the others that divebombed to see if we could match the bend in the wings but they looked exactly the same. Then as soon as the one that flew well hit the ground the wings got slightly get out of alignment (I guess?) and then it started divebombing again too. Very frustrating for the boys, especially when one would fly well and they others didn't. Average of three stars - 5 for the AMAZING flying one and 1 for the others. Got them on sale at Christmas, paid maybe $13 each, would say I got what I paid for.

Be sure to point and shoot the glider away from trees, 2nd story roofs, streets, anything that can snack on your brand new glider. I lost one in a tree, 1 on our roof, and 1 And one Eaten by my three-year-old daughter.

Purchased the Sky Ripperz, Gliderz and Heli Howlerz -- The Gliderz and Ripperz (rockets) work like a champ. They are a blast and the kids love them (as much as / more than me). I would not recommend the Heli Howlerz, they don't fly far and they don't "helicopter" much. The rockets and gliders are a lot more fun. I'm amazed how far you can shoot the rockets and the stunts you can get the gliders to do. Definitely a fun summer toy.

So i bought this for my son (preschooler) because hes recently been fascinated with all things flight. I figured it would be a good yard toy...i was wonderfully wrong. These gliders easily fly half to three-quarters of a football field length and eazily close to 70-80 feet in hieght. They each have unique flight characteristics and that makes it more fun. Its created a great evening father son ritual.

Great airplane, goes high, flies for a good little while. Very durable and fun. Keep your ladder close and make friends with your neighbor though, it will likely end up in their yard or on the roof.

Can rocket so high it disappears from view, then glides and glides - BUT ONLY IF YOU KNOW HOW TO TUNE IT, otherwise will disappoint you. Like all toy gliders, adding instruction how to tune the flying properties would greatly help inexperienced users.