Review: 8444 Air Enforcer
Posted by Huw,
Recently I've highlighted three old Technic sets from my collection that are cool, interesting or groundbreaking, and which you might not be familiar with. Today I've chosen one that is none of these: in fact it might just be the worse Technic helicopter ever.
In 1998 Technic took a turn for the worse and would not return to its former glory until 2005. I believe the main reason for this was the introduction of Competition, Slizer and Robo-Riders sets, then later Bionicle in 2001, presumably caused focus to shift from the core Technic theme and as a result very few sets of note were released. The all-time-low for Technic was 2002 when no new sets at all were made. There were exceptions, such as 8448 Super Street Sensation from 1999, but they are few and far between.
8444 Air Enforcer, also from 1999, aptly illustrates all that was bad about Technic at that time.
The four large Technic sets released in 1999 represent the second phase of the transition between studded and studless construction. They are predominantly studless but as straight studless beams were only introduced that year, not all lengths had been made yet, some studded beams were still used. This helicopter doesn't include straight ones, but had a 1x15 been available, it could have done to replace the 1x16 beams used in the chassis.
The thing I don't like about it is that it's so bare, it's all rods and tubes and looks very sparse. It includes four of the first generation of Technic panels, also introduced in 1999 which, frankly, look terrible and I'm guessing LEGO thought so too because they were redesigned a couple of years later, and then again a few years after that.
The designers seem to have gone out of their way to avoid using traditional Technic and LEGO parts in this, and other 1999 sets, a trend which has continued to this day, although the studless system has developed sufficiently so that it is no longer an issue in terms of aesthetics.
I suppose, on the flip-side, making a 40cm long helicopter from just 300-pieces at a cost of about $30 is impressive.
Its redeeming feature is that the control sticks in the cockpit tilt the rotors using the flex system, although it doesn't work very well, it's a bit stiff and there's not much movement.
The angled front wheels look ridiculous.
It's all air and not much else...
As you can probably tell, it's not one of my favourites: I'll be dismantling and bagging it up and it will probably never see the light of day again...
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36 comments on this article
That was a brutal review, but a justified one by the looks of it. Those wheels are laughable really!
i think the old panels are much responsible of the terrible looks of that era sets. They were really terrible, i don't know how they came to be. The next (and current) iteration is much better and also simpler, so i don't know.
Anyway, even if this set doesn't stand agains today's, it doesn't look all that bad. It was a pioneer of the studless world, so it suffered a bit, but i've seen worst
You should put it on eBay :)
I think it looks OK, but it's a poor collection of pieces. And the flex system here is badly implemented. The tube is under so much strain to stay in that 90° bend that after a while it pushes its way past the pegs at either end. That shortens its length, jamming the mechanism upwards and leaving no room for it to move.
What is interesting is they've gone for a 1-D swashplate design rather than the earlier 2-D movement. Although with a solid actuating lever rather than four little ball joints around the edge. The other intersting thing I never realised at the time, is it's the same part as used for car steering at the end of a parallel suspension frame.
I sometimes wonder how solid those ball-joint protrusions are - LEGO seem to be willing to put them under a lot of load, particularly on car suspension mechanisms. I never really had any sets that relied on them heavily, so I wonder how many ever snap off?
I got all four, and I actually liked the very sleek, modern look these brought. That crane truck is really 'out there' and it is green! (and dark grey!)
What a coincidence! This set has been a major disappointment for me as well, as at the time it was released I was 10 years old and this was my christmas present.
You can imagine the look on my face when I got this...
But thankfully my broken heart was mended when I got my hands on Super Street Sensation just a week later! :)
Bring back studded technic beams :-|
This is about the time I went into my 'dark age', which, looking at this set, wasn't such a bad thing.
Glad I came back out of it in 2005.
Huw I have to ask, slightly off topic, but related (and dont answer if you dont want to). Without being too specific I wonder if you could inform the group of the kind of House you have, the rooms dedicated to Lego, and If your Loft is about to collapse.... It always amazes me how much Lego you have..... and other contributors. I used to have a Spare Bedroom (4 bed house) dedicated with 4 display cabinets (with perhaps the same amount boxed in the loft) but now have kids so have a small display cabinet inside the fitted wardrobe (which can pretty much only be seen by me and my girlfriend) and some glass cabinets in a converted Garage. So I reckon I could display about 20 of your technic sets max. Loft is bursting.
@Huw: you're a bit harsh here about Technic between '98 and '05. 8448 from 1999 is one of the best Technic car sets and 8445 was a nice Jordan F1 car. 2000 gave us the awesome 8458 Silver Champion. Yes, it used the ugly panels but it also introduced the new suspension elements and its sheer size was impressive. In 2003 we had 8451 & 8453 which are still among the best small studless sets and the brilliant 8455 Back-hoe with 10 pneumatic cylinders.
For worst helicopter I'd like to enter 8812/8429.
See also my Bricklist of all Technic helicopters: http://brickset.com/sets/list-1174
@joefish, I've had no problems with ball joints. The only parts that have broken over time are the damper cylinders in 8448 and 8446 that thankfully I requested enough replacements for at the time.
@rslotb, I thought the same about 8446 when I dismantled it. It really is 'out there' in terms of design and its use of Slizer elements. The best thing about it was the green Technic elements which I don't think had been available before, certainly not in such quantity.
@Lego34s, I live in a three storey house which has a large room at the top. Most of my LEGO is in there, with some overflow in the garage. The house does not have much of a loft because of the extra storey, so that's only used for storing LEGO boxes.
@duq, there were indeed exceptions but the majority were pretty poor, IMO. I have one last pick from the era that I'll write about tomorrow.
I'm probably a bit too young to remember these sets when they were out, but am enjoying these quick reviews nonetheless. I agree with you Huw, this helicopter is just... bad. In addition to what you've already said, the rotors are far too short, that last picture of the side view just looks like it would snap in half if you even breathed on it, and that wheel at the back just looks like a tacked-on afterthought. I can't really find much to defend about it actually. As a set modifier, I can see that any attempt to make this better would look so strikingly different, it'd probably be classed as an MOC :-)
Definitely not LEGO's finest hour, that's for sure :-)
It seems TLG was confused about the future of Technic at this time. Remember Znap? I hated those, but it seems that modern Technic does incorporate some Znap principles, such as what I call TWOS (the war on studs).
To be honest, I prefer these 1999's technic sets, compared to today's studless sets. Surely 8444 isn't the greatest technic helicopter of all times (which is 8856, imho). But it looks good/modern, and from 1999's point of view, you' ll get a bunch of new and unusual parts.
Another example is 8446 - it looks awkward, but it works excellent and offers lots of features.
Gah! What the HECK were they thinking with those panels?!
Huh. It looks like the frame of a helicopter. And honestly- it just looks stupid. Those wheels are just a fail, it doesn't look like it could withstand 10 mph winds, and the rotor blades look terrible with all this flex tubing being used.
This was indeed Technic's darkest hour.
EDIT: I see that green crane truck going for $20 on eBay. Someone must have gotten it on a deep discount, or else totally hated it. I think it looks kinda cool.
You can see the similarity with this set and 8068 Rescue helicopter. The shape is loosely defined using flexible parts and then in 8068 they are filled in with various panels. I don't think it's a terrible set and you can see where they were trying to go with it - I guess at the time they were still developing stud-less designs like you said and they didn't have all the necessary parts.
I have a couple of the old stud-full 1990ish universal sets I bought for the purpose of robot-building with an Atari, and I think maybe 6 of the newer sets (last 5 years say) and there is no comparison but when you look at the evolution of them, it's just so cool.
^ The evolution of Technic is indeed very interesting and worthy of a series of articles, I reckon.
The proportions are terrible, but I kinda like the general design of it. Kinda like a prototype flying contraption / death trap :P
I kind of liked the old Throw-bots and Robo-riders, they were interesting in their own right, but it's too bad the resources to create them were aparrently diverted away from Technic proper.
It's been fun reading about everyone's favorite (and not-so-favorite) helicopters--I had no idea there were so many out there. I'd throw a vote in for 8412. Those flex cables are rather delicate, but it packed so much functionality into a good looking and relatively inexpensive package.
I also have 8448 (recently tore it down, cleaned it, and rebuilt it with my wife) and it still rocks :)
^ you used your wife to rebuild 8448 ? How did that work :-p
It was a learning experience for sure ;) But I figured if we could do that, anything else would be simple, right?
I agree, what an awful thing! It's lucky that the studless system evolved as quickly as it did. Technic was nearly killed by dross like this, and those early panels! Ugh! 8448 and 8455 kept it alive during this time. Great review, though.
I think there is some context missing in the poor reviews of Technic during the period mentioned. There was competition from the emerging Knex toys range which is why I think Lego designed the flexible hoses and axles to give their Technics models a skeletal look. These flexible parts gave the sets an organic look which includes the 8444 helicopter above.
Also kids who bought Competition, Slizer and Robo-Riders sets, then later Bionicle in 2001 had fathers who grew up with the Technical sets from the late 70s. This gave Lego a generational link.
I am waiting for your review of 8448 as I think it is the best Technics car produced and has some impressive auto engineering.
^ I'm not doing that one, it's widely known that it's a cool set and besides, I've already broken it down.
I can pretty much blame this era of Technic sets for triggering my dark age, which I only came out of two years ago. Imagine my surprise when I finally looked at Lego again and how different the Technic sets had become. I'd like to add to the call for an evolution of Technic article!
And regarding breaking ball joints, I had one let go on my 8880 super car back in 1995.
Wow ... you really are cynical aren't you.
@Huw, as you know, I agree that 8448 is a cool set. I have recently added a 8883 M Motor to my set in both the Gull Wing and Convertible modes. It's as if the motor was designed for this and battery pack fits comfortably in the boot. I will update my review to include this: http://brickset.com/reviews/author-flagsnz
I'm up for writing "The evolution of Technic" series of articles.
If you want a good example of how those early style panels should have been used, 8454 Fire Rescue Truck gets it spot on.
There is a half decent website out there that covers technic releases up to 1991, the year before I briefly popped out of the dark ages. It shows, year by year, the sets that were released and what parts were new or specific to the set. Unfortunately the owner has stopped working on it but the site is still great for the earlier years.
This one? http://isodomos.com/technica/registry/registry.php
The set, frankly, looks rubbish. What was LEGO thinking? This year's smaller Twin-Rotor Helicopter was much better than that. 1999 sets certainly don't look much, do they? Interesting review anyway, Huw! ;-)
^^ No, I just dug it out. It's this one: http://www.technicopedia.com/
Actually goes to 1995.
It's a shame that both resources are no longer maintained, isn't it...
I know. Although I can understand because of the amount of work necessary.
I actually saw a topic on BZPower recently asking "Was LEGO Technic better in the early 2000s"? See here: http://www.bzpower.com/board/topic/13891-was-lego-technic-better-in-the-early-2000s/
Generally, I think the Technic sets of that era were pretty weak in hindsight. However, I say that with some caveats. Technic back then had a lot more "kid-oriented" sets, including Star Wars–themed sets with lots of science-fiction flair, "Competition" sets packed with play value, and of course the infancy of the BIONICLE theme (which, for its first few years, was treated as a Technic subtheme).
Technic sets today are definitely more complex and realistic in lots and lots of ways. The building styles have improved with developments such as studless beams, the new panels that started coming out in 2008, Linear Actuators, etcetera. But at the same time, sometimes "realism" can be a little bit limiting. I've loved the Technic sets I've gotten recently, but they don't excite me as much on a conceptual level as BIONICLE and Hero Factory sets do. The coolness of LEGO Technic is not in the concept itself, but rather in the superb execution.
I also wonder if the sets from the early naughts, with more kid-oriented concepts, might have been in part to generate interest in Technic over here in the United States. Its presence over here is definitely dwindling, with sets coming out much later than in Europe, when they come out at all. Technic over here is mostly exclusive to Toys 'R' Us if I'm not mistaken.
the year 2000 also brought the set 8002 destroyer droid. Which is a great technic set. The disappearance of the studded beam is a bit sad to me as the studded beams offer the best integration between regular lego blocks and lego technic.