The Taiyo Gyro Hawk 7.2V was an RC Helicopter released by Taiyo in 2004.
Our commentary on the Gyro Hawk will be via comparison with the hyper-successful Picoo Z which was released two years later and became a worldwide phenomenon.
In the mid 2000s there was a boom of small toy helicopters, thanks to a leap in battery technology (lithium) and micro electric motors. Easily the most memorable, and which many readers may have owned themselves was the 2006 Picoo Z (photo below).
The 2006 Picoo Z, manufactured by Silverlit, took the world by storm thanks to it being so small, cheap, and eventually cloned and mass manufactured by China (such that you'd never really know if you had a genuine one or not). It entered the Guiness World Record Book as the smallest full function helicopter ever sold. They were truly everwhere, and almost everyone it seemed would have one, break it somehow, buy another, again and again until they were tired of the concept. At just $13 it was'nt hard to justify another one, especially since they flew so well (for the first 5 minutes!).
Two years before this craze, Taiyo released their own mini helicopter with mostly the same features, but in a larger package and with one key weakness.
Above: Notice the large 'flaps' both sides of the cockpit, for countering the main rotor torque / spin.
The 7.2V Gyro Hawk was Taiyo's first foray into helicopters, built at their China facility. Unlike the Picoo Z it was powered by NiMh (Nickel Metal Hydrate) batteries which added significant weight, requiring more power, which then would require two large 'flaps' that connected to either side of the cabin to prevent the whole unit from torque spinning out of control. For this reason customers may not have seen it as a 'real' helicopter.
Two years later the Picoo Z would solve this problem by using a tiny lithium polymer battery, allowing the whole helicopter to be a fraction of the size of the Gyro Hawk, needing only a small counter-balance rotor on top of the main rotor to keep it stable in flight, and the power of a rear micro motor to keep the torque spin under control.
And so the 7.2V power of the Gyro Hawk was its eventual failure. Had Taiyo been able to focus more on R&D, had they kept their talented Japanese engineers and designers instead of selling out to SEGA who outsourced so much to 3rd parties in China, then they would have been well placed to jump on the 3.2v lithium polymer batteries that Silverlit took advantage of, and perhaps, just maybe, produced a product that was so successful it would save them from liquidation by the fools at SEGA just a few short years later...