Travel Buggy Review - Takeoff Buggy, ABC Design
We purchased an ABC Design (Lebruss) Takeoff Buggy as our holiday travel buggy in the hope that it would be an excellent solution to all the drama we anticipated regarding taking a pushchair to, and aboard the plane. We'd heard our share of bent and broken buggy horror stories!
Our aim was to avoid having to carry our hand luggage as well as our daughter for miles in an airport terminal. We frequently stop over on long journeys in different parts of the world so having a buggy to hand is essential.We have a big heavy 3 wheeler buggy at home that we love, but wanted a second travel buggy. One that we could use and abuse on regular trips away that would be small, light, last the distance and not cost a fortune (being our second investment in the buggy field). Whilst the TakeOff Buggy generally did what it is designed to do - go on board and fit in an overhead locker, it didn't perform as well as we'd hoped.
X The Negatives...No matter how much I fiddled with the various straps, the sitting position was never comfortable for our 14 month old. My husband said she was 'submarining in it'- which I can only assume is male language for 'sliding down and often sideways'. It is much better suited to toddlers than infants.
The front bar needs to be removed to collapse the buggy. How we didn't loose the bar amazes me. Its not necessary to have the bar always attached but if you like having it, it then becomes another thing to worry about.Our experience was that airline security staff generally didn't believe that the Takeoff Buggy would fit into an overhead locker. Consequently we were often asked to prove it by disturbing our sleeping bundle and collapsing the whole thing. If you are travelling on your own, someone would need to hold your child whilst you did this because...The buggy requires some gymnastic abilities to collapse and open. Its not difficult to learn how to do it, however the clip joints were no longer snapping into place properly on ours after the 3rd flight. This meant that I had to use both hands and a foot to open it and snap it all into place (perhaps ours was faulty?).There is no where obvious to put the caddy bag when the buggy is up. The seatback reclines by pivoting which means your childs bottom is pushed forward when the seat tilts. If they are already asleep and you want to lay them back, they need to be moved and the straps altered.The rain cover provided is not great - it needs to be fitted over the whole buggy like a sock. As a second buggy, its quite expensive. However, at the time of purchase, it was the only buggy we could find that we could take on board a flight.
√ The Positives...The Takeoff Buggy fits in the overhead locker of long haul planes (747, 737 etc) right down to an A330 (the smaller planes used for shorter 3-4 hour journeys, although we did have to push and shove alittle to get it in the smaller plane lockers). This means you can always have a buggy at hand when flying with baby. Hint; if it doesn't appear to fit in your overhead locker, try the opposite locker in the middle of the plane, they are slightly bigger and check the buggy seat isn't extended which makes a few cm's difference. It is a great engineering design. It folds down really small considering how substantial and solid the upright buggy is - and it looks pretty funky too.If you have a sports car with a small boot and rear seats, this would be a great choice. All the negaitve points aside, all of which are annoyances rather than fundamental issues, it still serves its purpose as a buggy and collapses down to a tidy square.If you have 2 young children, you can purchase the O Baby Kiddie Ride On BuggyBoard so that the older child can ride at the rear (very handy indeed).
TakeOff Sroller Variation Parent - Buy Online from Amazon
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