Hobby Hangar

I’m from Herndon, but currently live in Charleston SC. The local hobby shop down there is crap! I save ALL my RC car and truck needs for when I come back up here to visit.
ALL the staff here are highly knowledgeable in their respective fields and are eager to assist you in any way that they can. Their prices are very competitive and they stock a HUGE inventory of all things RC related. if they don’t have what your looking for? They will source it for you quickly. It’s nice to be able to speak with someone about a specific item, and get a straight concise and educated answer. You are paying a little more than you would on the old Interwebs. But tell me. Where are you going to find all this knowledge and information?
Colin and Dave in the Car/​Truck section are AH-​MAZING, and all around good guys!
Keep up the fantastic work guys. You’ve made a customer for life with me!
Matt from Herndon VA/​Charleston SC

I am an amateur at best but I have always had great service from the employees here. They have always been good to me and my children. We have been going here for years and still feel they are nice people.
Buddy

If it were possible I would give this place a half a star, and quite frankly that is being generous. Recently I have been wanting to get back into flying rc planes. The hobby shop where I used to go and work at has closed, and has been for years, so I decided to go here as they are the only hobby shop in the area. On two seperate occasions I went to this store with a friend of mine. Each time I was prepared to spend hundreds of dollars on a new plane and remote. Each visit lasted about 15 – 20 minutes. In that time not one single employee bothered to approach me. I didn’t even get a greeting walking in. Now when I worked in retail, which also happened to be a hobby store, I was taught to greet and make contact with the customer within 30 seconds of them walking in. On the second visit an employee walked right by me while I was looking at the various planes and didn’t bother to say anything. (Knowing that they are employee’s is a bit tricky seeing as how their is no uniform or anything to let you know they do work there.) After finding out this guy was an employee and didn’t bother to talk to me I left. Not 2 minutes after walking out I noticed an employee or two (like I said its hard to tell who works there) come out and start playing with some rc cars with a customer. From these two visits I have learned that unless you are a regular who goes there frequently or you figure out who works there and approach them, you won’t get the time of day with anyone. I’m all for supporting small local businesses but this is one business I will never support.

A retailer succeeds or fails when there is a problem, anyone can do ok if everything is good but how they handle things when they go bad is their real test. By that standard, these guys are tops of any retailer not just the Hobby field.
I had purchased an item and it was (not obviously) dead from the vendor. They took it back and executed a swap immediately, with no hassles, and with many sincere apologizes for the inconvenience even though the issue was in no way their fault.
Had I ordered the item from the Internet, I’d still be waiting for resolution.
Couple that with a knowledgeable friendly staff and the largest inventory of any hobby shop I’ve ever been to — and I travel all over and have stopped at the ‘best’ local shop from San Diego to Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and now Northern Virginia. These guys are hands down the best I’ve seen. I’ll drive 30 minutes past 2 other shops to get to their location, its worth it.

Best hobby shop in the area by far! I have been going here for years and will continue to.

I have a very serious love hate relationship with this place. On one hand its the largest hobby shop dedicated to remote control toys. The selection is great, though it would be nice if they had more kits than so much RTR stuff. They have an excellent selection of parts and accessories if you are into the major brands. That’s about where my love for this place ends.
The disdain for this place begins with the colorful crew that works there. If you need help with something in a particular dept, you can only talk to the person that runs that dept, otherwise you are screwed. On occasion, someone from anther dept can approach the super busy dept head.
Mr Helis — Yes, if you buy $ 59 quad copter and want hour long lessons on how to use it, this is you your guy. He will sit in his corner and run through 2 or 3 batteries giving you lessons while five or six other customers stand around waiting for parts or to buy something way more expensive. I’ve probably walked out of there 3 or 4 times and gone home and ordered a new heli. If he does ever get around to helping you, he treats you like you don’t have the faintest idea about what you want even if you give him specific part names and numbers. He also thinks he knows everything, but really doesn’t, for example he told me a LP6DSM controller didn’t have a trainer port and for sure could not be used with Phoenix.
Mr Planes — Frequently he smells like he’s been warming his bones with a sip or two of the good stuff. He actually knows quite a bit about planes, much more so than Mr Helis thinks he hows about helicopters. The problem is he is super opinionated. I wanted a set of large foam wheels, for which he told me they did not carry. I pointed to a plane that had them, he said they were terrible and they didn’t stock any. I went around to the other side of the store, lo and behold, a whole wall of large dubro foam wheels.
Mr. Cashier — This guy is pretty hilarious, he’s always got some opinion on what you are buying, its sort of like trader joes except for he always ends the story at a jab about his rich father in law.
Mr. Bob, aka «Crazy Bob» — He’s listed on their site as making crazy deals. I wonder when. As you might note above, I spend a good amount of time and money in this place, but everytime I ask for 10% off a large purchase (never under $ 100) he acts like he’s never seen me before, knows nothing about a discount and is befuddled why I would even ask. When I remind him I can go home and order the same stuff for way less, somehow he always concedes. Every time I have to go through this drill. I really want to support my hobby store, but when I can get stuff for 20% less than his prices and have it delivered, why do I bother? How about doing some sort of club and give your regulars a bit of a break.
And that’s where I am on this place. I often wonder why I even bother going. I should just order direct from horizon, ultimate, hobbyking or amain but maybe its just nostalgia, I do love a good hobby store.

I hadn’t tinkered with RC in years. My wife said I needed a hobby so what to do? Go to the local hobby shop? Not really, we live in Maryland and the closest one to us had closed I found after driving to it. The next closest one had a focus on trains and collectables so I ended up 40 miles away at Hobby Hangar after poking around on the Internet. Their website isn’t quite finished yet but don’t hold that against them. When you see their inventory and how huge it is you’ll understand how getting it all online might take some time. They have everything you could imagine and seeing it all was well worth the drive. I ended up getting a car and have been back multiple times for upgrades over the last few months. Nine out of 10 times they have what I need and if they don’t they have it direct shipped to me within 2 – 3 days so I don’t have to drive back. Not that I don’t want to, they have so much to look at it’ll take a lot more trips before all my questions have answers. I recently asked the manager how they knew the answers to all my dumb questions and he said they have zero turnover and the staff has all been there for a very long time. That’s the sign of a good company in my opinion. Their knowledge is remarkable and their inventory is huge. Their prices are close if not identical to those on the Internet and here you can see it and touch it before buying it. They’ve been great for my return to RC. Whether you’re looking for a beginner project car as I was or a lifelike fighter jet that has real turbine engines these guys can help. I highly recommend checking them out.

Staff was very friendly! I am not sure if they always have food and drink but when I went in Saturday they did. Staff also knew what they were talking about. Every time i asked a question they had an answer and if I asked a price! I will be back

I have been doing RC since I was 14 years old (47 now) and have been going to this store for the «good stuff» and «technical expertise» for over 15 years now. I live in Northern VA now but used to drive specifically to this store when I lived in Germantown, MD just due to the expert RC helicopter staff that is always here!
Their prices are the same as online and NO SHIPPING and you get it immediately!
Mike the «Helicopter guy» is aces… always knows what is hot, what works, what is crap and sorts it all out and really spends the time to educate you so you can make your own decision and when your ready!
They even have $ 20,000 twin REAL turbine jets!
On the other end of the Spektrum (look it up), you can buy a ready to fly quad copter that they support with spare parts for under $ 90!!!
Try to find that at some local hobby store…

I’m writing on their repair and installation service on their RC Car side of the business. I think their selection is really good and as others here have said their RC plane and Heli part seems on point. Those guys know their stuff.
My experience was on the car side for 2 RC cars that I brought in for repair. Both were small but branded traxxas and Losi cars (So they were not some no-​brand thing with no parts… these are cars that they sell) that I had a ton of upgraded parts that I brought in and bought from them to install. The guy I talked too seemed really knowledgeable and talked me into some good (but overpriced compared to what you can fined online) upgrades. I was told that it should be done in 2 – 3 weeks time… no problem. I started getting good courtesy calls once the parts came in but then nothing.
After a month I would call every other week with a «we’re working on it.».Smash cut to 3 months later after once a week prodding calls from me, with no status update and its finally done. I get in there and literally 90% of the parts that I brought in were not installed. He said he spent a ton of time trying to get it to work and/​or he’s had experience with that brand and just could not get it to work. Its funny because I knew of that parts brand’s reputation for ill-​fitment issues and gave them the «out» for not installing them and just got the «no worries bro. we’ll make it work». The bags were not even opened so i know he did not try… ripoff. The final price tag was literally like paying to get a real car fixed and they did not do anything but install what I bought there without an inkling of issues when I talked with them over the phone. By this amount of time that had passed I could not return the parts that I bought so I tried to just install them myself (note that I’m about as mechanical as a librarian) and so far everything is fitting fine. Its funny too because he said that he did not need my radio because all of the work he was soo confident that it will run fine when he installed it. One of the cars did not even run. The other one had some serious wheel alignment/​pulling issues. had he not been so cocky about not needing the radios and driving it, he could’ve trouble shot it in a matter of a single drive across the shop floor (or actually seen that it was not working).
Not using these guys again for repair or purchase. They either only like working on larger scale stuff or are

Best selection ro R/​C cars around. Have visited here several times over the years and always receive great service!

I went into this place pretty sure of which RC helicopter I wanted to buy, after spending some time reading reviews online. Bob, the General Manager, talked me out of it, though, and into a much cheaper quadcopter that was more in line with what I want to do. He also spent tons of time showing me around the store, talking about some upcoming air show they were doing, and showing off some of the cool high-​end stuff they’ve got.
There was no sales pressure and no judgement for wanting to buy something low-​end. A really great experience and well worth the schlep to Chantilly from Alexandria. I’ll definitely go back when I want to upgrade to something more challenging.

An adequate selection of plastic model kits, but the store is geared towards RC models. The staff has some of the worst people skills I’ve ever encountered– unless you’re plunking down a lot of money for RC equipment, that is. If you’re just buying a simple model kit, they’ll ignore you or be brusque and condescending. I’ve been stuck in line behind people buying nothing more than nuts and bolts and had to wait through a ten minute discussion involving two other staff members about the merits of different brands of glow plugs. There’s no reason for me to drive 20 miles just to be treated like a child when Piper Hobby is right across the street from them.
If you want to be treated like gold by the staff when you’re purchasing expensive RC helicopters, this is the place. If you want to be ignored while the staff treats people buying expensive RC helicopters like gold, this is also the place. Otherwise, Piper Hobby is where you want to be.

This place is awesome. I’ve heard of it for a long time and meant to check it out to buy an RC helicopter that’s better than the mall models. I finally went after Christmas and they have some awesome toys. The staff is very friendly and knowledgeable. I bought a Helicopter and plan to go back for another toy once I master this model. They have more than just small helicopters. I saw RC cars/​trucks, planes, jets, larger helicopters, and quadrocopters.