DeafFlyer

Has anyone ever experienced and/or bought one of those folding powerchairs that I noticed being advertised more and more. Might actually buy one, but wondered if anyone has tried them?


Example but not the only company that makes them: https://quicknmobile.com

DeafFlyer

Replying to my own thread. I bought one and am going to be flying to Europe with it next week. I’ll post experiences when i get back.

Dublin_rfk

Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Last year I went through this and found more scams than wheel chairs. We ended up spending a lot more so we could actually see the unit before trading cash.

DeafFlyer

I was also concerned about scams. I googled many times trying to find as much info as i could. My friend, who is disabled, had a chair from the company I decided to order from. She has had a good experience so far. That helped me to decide to go for it. Now I have it and it seems to be good for my trip. I hope no problems arise during the trip. I’’m not going be rough on it or anything. We’ll see how it goes. My backup plan is to rent a manual chair. We’ve done that before, but i hope we don’t need to do that.

Jaimito Cartero

I have a heavy duty electric chair. Oh, how I wish it was easily transportable. Especially in countries where electric wheelchairs are a rarity, and sidewalks are often unpassable.

I saw a gentleman with one similar to what you describe at LGB earlier this year. He seemed to like it. I think he paid under $1000 for his.

DeafFlyer

Wow under $1000? Would have been great to pay that much. I have the new chair now. I like it, but my current heavier duty chair is still my main chair. I went for this because we have to travel and I’m tired of being pushed around in a manual chair when we do travel.

‘ We’re going to a country where accessibility isn’t very good, but the places we plan to go are reasonably accessible.

Jaimito Cartero

My HD electric chair weighs about 300 pounds. I have to hire a pickup truck to move it around in Indonesia.

DeafFlyer

Same here. Mine weighs 278 pounds. The folding power chair weighs 63 pounds. (54 affter removing joystick and batteries). It claims to capacity of 400 pounds. I like it, but it’s brand new. My big chair is 14 years old and still works well. I’m bummed that I can’t take it on my trip.

Jaimito Cartero

I hope your new chair works well on your trip. I’m always paranoid that the airline is going to break something. It’s strange, at some airports, we can see the chair being loaded quickly. Others, it takes 3 guys an hour to figure it out. For our 35 hour journey to Indonesia, flying PHX-DFW-NRT-CGK we printed instructions in English and Indonesian and taped them to the seatback.

I’m not sure of the age of my chair, as I bought it second hand from Craigslist a year ago. Supposedly has new batteries. I’d guess 7-8 years old. My insurance paid for a manual chair, but nothing more. Me paying 5k for a new electric chair wasn’t on my list of things to do.

The chair came with a huge charger for it, 115vac only. Bringing it to Asia, and being unsure about using 240v to charge it, I found a dual voltage charger on Amazon that thankfully works well. The new charger is similar to an older laptop charger. The wheelchair has dual batteries, so I’ve never run them down in a single day.

I do find it much nicer to get around. I love swimming, so it’s nice to find a property that I can use my chair to get right to the steps. I absolutely hated it, if I had to get a wheelchair pusher. Embarrassing to someone who always got around totally on his own.

One of my best experiences was on a Carnival cruise in January/February. They have electric door openers for their handicapped rooms, that hold the door open for a minute or so. Plus wider than normal doors so you can get through easier. So, I could come and go on my own without needing to depend on other family members.

I do have to say that getting transported to/from some cities is very problematic in the US in wheelchairs.

My first visit to Las Vegas last November, I waited just under an hour to get a wheelchair taxi. The next trip, we waited for over 90 minutes outside breathing in car exhaust fumes, always being told that a taxi was going to be coming. Finally the taxi “police” said there were 0 wheelchair taxi’s scheduled that night. Rather ridiculous. He finally found a Bell Transport shuttle that had a handicapped lift, that we could get, but with a much higher cost for 3 people compared to a taxi, but you take what you can get.

The worst taxi experience of all was in Long Beach, CA. You can’t book a wheelchair Yellow Taxi in advance from LGB. Luckily upon arrival at the airport one was found within 15 minutes. You can pre-schedule rides from hotels or other places. I booked our trip from the Hyatt LGB to our cruise ship 4 hours before the ship departed, 3 days in advance. Come the day we are leaving and waiting outside at the hotel, no taxi. Call. “Oh, we’re trying to find a driver”. Call 30 minutes later. Repeat every 30 minutes. Over 2 hours go by. Getting stressed out. A bellman from the hotel suggests a friend with a big SUV may be able to help. Taxi still gives us the same BS excuse. Finally get the guy with the big SUV there, and 4-5 guys manage to get the wheelchair in the back. Lots of tips! Luckily we made it to the cruise about 25 minutes before check-in closed.

When arriving back from the cruise, we went ahead and pre-booked Carnival’s shuttle to LGB. It’s a shame we had to spend hundreds more to get to/from the cruise port nearby and return to LGB.

DeafFlyer

Thank you. We’re leaving in two days so we’ll see. We have the option of renting a manual chair if something goes wrong. We did it before when we had a need. We’re familiar with the country we are going to (Denmark) so I am less worried than if we were going to an unfamiliar place.

DeafFlyer

3 days into our trip and it’s working great. It performed well on cobblestone European sidewalks and grass. It bogged down in a parking area made of loose stones. People stepped up to give a little push to keep it going. I’m very happy with this chair so far. 12 more days to go.

DeafFlyer

We got back yesterday. This chair was used in many situations and came through everything. The only damage was a small piece of the armrest was broken off. That wasn’t the chairs fault. I fell to the ground trying to get in an SUV in Denmark and that’s how the small piece got broken off. I was desperately trying to fall back into the chair, but missed it.. Some passer-by called the emergency service (ambulance) to come and get me back off the ground. I only have a couple of bruises, but the chair had the small piece of plastic or rubber break off. Everything else is good..

Anyway, the chair worked well on grass, but had trouble on parking areas where they had used loose stones. My wife gave it a little push whenever it got stuck and it moved fine. I got this chair to minimize her needing to push me everywhere like in a manual chair. It worked on most cobblestones very smoothly, but one very old style cobblestone square was too much even for this chair. It was tech jarring journey cross that square. We found another way back to avoid it.

When gate checking, we had to take out the lithium-ion batteries, tape the ends, and put them in our carry-on bag. We folded it up after removing the joystick and cushion.. We used a strap to keep it from accidentally opening. We came up with that idea after seeing it mentioned in a YouTube video. The funny thing was on the first flight, the purser came and told us the chair was put in the closet in the cabin because the maintenance guys couldn’t figure out how to remove the batteries. What’s funny was that we had removed the batteries already and they were in our carry-on case. That was the only segment that they put in the closet, but it demonstrates that it can fit there.

All the people we met, including the handicap services guys had never seen a chair like this one before. It only goes almost 5 mph, which generally is fast enough, but not when you’re hurrying to get to the next gate that somehow seems o be at the complete opposite end of the airport. We made it though so it was fast enough.

I use a 6 wheel mid wheel drive Quantum 600 at home. Mid drive is very maneuverable. This new chair is rear drive and it took some adjusting to the way it moves. It is very maneuverable. It doesn’t seem to like backing up, although it can back up. The joystick was very sensitive, especially when set to faster speeds. I need to see if it can be programmed for me like it can on my other chair. My wife had no problem lifting it the 63 pounds (they claim 58 with the batteries, but our actual chair weighed 63 pounds) info the back of our rental SUV. She is fit and fairly strong so I won’t say it is easy for every woman. They do make a lighter version for people less than 260 ponds. My chair is rated for 400 pounds, but thankfully l’m not that big. One other thing in Denmark, it seems poplar to have a big door jam at he bottom of every door. As we learned with manual chairs, it is often easier to get over those going backwards. Every once in a while, my wife would have to give a little tug to help the front wheels get over the hump too.

This chair worked extremely well for me, a man with disabling condition that limits use of both legs and one hand. I have been using a powerchair for 20 years now. I still prefer my other chair for daily use, but this chair was great for air travel, whereas my regular chair would not be good for travel.

QT31415

May I ask which one you ended up purchasing?

DeafFlyer

Yes, you may.

I bought the Eagle HD. I could have got the other one with the reclining backrest, but I figured it would be one less thing to worry about breaking on my trip.

DeafFlyer

Going on my second trip today IAD-FRA-CPH. Will.do CPH-MUC-BCN next week, and return home BCN-IAD in 2 weeks. I’m using the same chair again. I got a fireproof bag to carry-on the lithium batteries this time. Trip details later.


IAD - Washington Dulles
FRA - Frankfurt Germany
MUC - Munich Germany
BCN - Barcelona Spain
CPH - Copenhagen Denmark