My 13 year old has a Blade Heli just a model older than the one that Dan linked above. It is so super stable inside. It is small and easy to fly. If you want something just to monkey around with that is pretty durable, look for a Syma S107. Make sure that it has the little "warning" markings on the blades as one indicator of an authentic one vs. a knock-off. These sell for about $20 on Amazon. Not as much control and features as the Blade, but a LOT cheaper for someone who just wants to mess around.
My "bigger" heli is a model that is a couple of years old. An Esky Honey Bee CP2...
This isn't my picture, but it is the same...
I've got all sorts of mods and upgrades on mine, and I don't use the stock transmitter either.
This one is just a hair over 20 inches long (not counting the diameter of the rotor blades), where the Syma S107 is about 7.5 inches, and the Blade is about 7.5 inches as well.
For size comparison, the following picture gives a reasonable representation...
The bottom yellow one is the Blade that my daughter has. The blue/white one near the top is the size (different model) of what my "biggest" one is and it is considered to be smaller...
Here is a stock photo of my plane. A Multiplex Easy Star.
Another easy thing to fly. Again, I've got mods on it like a rudder mod to make it turn sharper, and a super powerful brush-less motor and more aggressive prop. These are commonly used to mount small cameras to for taking aerial video because they are solid and almost fly themselves.
Oddly enough, my first experience was horrible. I even put a YouTube video up years ago with all of my crashes on a single day, and the thing took a licking. Found out just how much drag can be created by a simple decal on a wing. Removed the decals, and it flew very well until newbie pilot error happened and I fly it straight overhead, losing sight that as it was flying towards me, it was also flying towards the ground a bit too much. Hard to explain, but I broke the nose right off. Had it fixed, at the field, in about 10 minutes, but called it a day anyway.
