I was lured in the same way as everyone else. The tiny Asian man at his tiny, underfurnished booth was showing off a flying X-wing toy. To draw spectators, he'd deftly fly the toy to another booth, hold it there for a second, and fly it back to his booth along with captivated floorwalkers.

The Incom T-65 RCX4 is an X-Wing fighter helicopter, with four screws, one each on the front, back, and two sides. Of course, there are lots of helicopter toys out there, but the RCX4 wowed with its dexterity. The tagline of vendor Digittronics is "easy to fly," and the demo showed off the RCX4's ease of handling features, including gyroscopic control of balance, and some kind of automatic climb rate control. The operator could abandon the controls for several seconds, and the RCX4 would stay serenely in the the air, drifting slightly but stable and level.

The RCX-4 comes in a snappy aluminum case, along with remote, charger, and batteries. On being taken out of the case, the user snaps its removable S-Foils onto the main body, locking them into attack position. Then the RCX-4 is ready to fly.

The remote is big and powerful-looking, with multiple sticks, and in the operator's hands, the RCX4 flies both in graceful hovering motions and purposeful aggressive patterns. Unfortunately, I couldn't sweet talk him into letting me get my hands on the controls.

The CRX4's battery is a single, 500mAh Lithium Polymer cell, and lasts through ten minutes of flight, meaning the power draw is about 11W while in flight. The recharge time is the same, so with two or three batteries, continuous flight is possible.

Of course, as cool as it is, this toy can never hit the mainstream, for IP reasons. It's clearly an X-Wing. Everyone in the booth knows it's an X-Wing. The proprietor chuckled knowingly when I prodded him on this point, and smiled beatifically. His demo reel, an abridged version of which is on YouTube, featured the toy snubfighter flying in a wide variety of outdoor environments, including flying a circle around an inflated windsock and dive-bombing the camera at what he claimed was 40 miles per hour. The music in the background was all drawn from Star Wars, mostly from The Empire Strikes Back. And while we congratulate him on his taste, LucasArts is unlikely to agree. This toy, if it ever comes to mainstream attention, is due for a quick, untimely death. And more's the pity, because it rocks. I want one for my birthday.