Drive Medical FW19BL Fly-Weight Transport Chair Review 2024

Unfortunately, this product has been discontinued. Check some of the Transport Chairs we’ve reviewed. 

Is your mobility issue putting a damper on your quality of life? Are you looking for a low-cost, lightweight transport chair to help you enjoy many things you used to do with a little assistance? 

If so, you’ll love our review of Drive Medical’s FW19BL fly-weight transport chair. As one of the lightest transport chairs on the market today, it may be just what you’re looking for.

Drive Medical is one of the Titans of the mobility device industry and is well-known for making top-quality products. Wheelchairs made by Drive Medical tend to be solid. This one is no exception, but as you’ll see, this isn’t a “general purpose” transport chair. It’s designed for a relatively specific type of use.

That’s not bad, but it is something to be mindful of. If you veer too far from this chair’s optimized uses, you’ll wish you’d picked a different model.

Do not worry. In the sections below, we’ll explain everything the FW19BL can (and can’t) do so you’ll have all the information you need to decide if it’s the right model.

Ready? Let’s jump right in and take a closer look!

Key Features of Drive Medical’s FW19BL Fly-Weight Transport Chair

The “FW” in the model number stands for “Fly Weight,” and this model lives up to its name. Weighing in at just 19 pounds, few people will have trouble folding this chair and stashing it in almost any sized trunk. Even if you’ve got a smaller car, you should have no particular difficulty finding a place to store it for transport wherever you wish.

You can tell that the company placed more emphasis on function and less on form, though. It’s fairly utilitarian-looking. That’s not a knock against the chair, though. Some people like the utilitarian, functional look. It’s by no means unattractive. Sporting a handsome blue paint job, with a black seat, seat back, and wheels, it just looks like it’s got a job to do and wants to be about it!

Many chairs offered at this price point don’t give you much in the way of point-of-sale customization options; this one’s no exception. The chair’s dimensions are what they are, and they’re either a good fit for you or they’re not. Here are the FW19BL specs in that regard:

Wheelchair Specifications

Don’t let the chair’s incredibly light weight fool you, though. This sturdy product is crafted from high-grade aluminum and well-supported, enabling it to hold up to 300 pounds of user weight, which is among the highest weight capacities in its class.

Adjustability & Comfort

Let’s get this out of the way: Transport chairs aren’t designed with comfort as a top priority. They’re great for short-duration sitting, like a trip to the mall or grocery store, but this isn’t the chair you’re looking for if you plan to sit in it for hours.

It is no great surprise that Drive Medical’s FW19BL fly-weight transport chair isn’t exceptionally comfy. The upholstery is soft and relatively comfortable, but that is said with short-duration sitting in mind.

Yes, there are some things you can do about that. Buying extra cushions for the seat and seat back is a trivial expense, and those things will help, but only to a point. No matter how much padding you add to this model, it’s still not something you’ll want to try to nap or spend the whole day lounging on. 

Also, note that neither the seat nor the seatback is angled. They’re both flat and level on their respective planes, meaning it feels like you’re sitting in a simple, straight-back chair (which isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world). 

That’s not necessarily bad, but it does mean that if you’re being pushed down a hill, the seat and seat-back design isn’t doing anything to keep you in it. Fortunately, the Deluxe Fly-Weight aluminum transport chair offers a safety belt to help keep you strapped in, so if you live in a hilly area, you won’t have to worry that you might go sliding out of the chair when headed down a slope.

As with many chairs offered at this price point, the FW19BL doesn’t offer much customization or adjustments. The only thing that’s adjustable here is the swing-away footrests. And it’s worth noting that because they swing away, you can be pushed right up to a table to sit with the rest of the family. (On chairs that don’t have swing-away footrests, you wind up having to sit quite far back from the table, which makes enjoying a family dinner a bit of a challenge.)

One final thing to call your attention to is that the Drive Medical Flyweight Lightweight Transport Wheelchair has full-length arms rather than desk-length arms. It’s a small detail, but we prefer full-length arms and like their inclusion here very much. From a practical perspective, the longer arms make it somewhat easier for people with limited mobility to get themselves into and out of the chair. However, being a transport chair, they’ll still need assistance moving about.

On-Board Storage & Extras

We regard this as a mixed bag. The FW19BL gets some things right, and others left us wanting.

For example, the Drive Medical Fly Weight transport chair offers onboard storage in the form of a pouch on the back of the seatback. Wheelchair and transport chair storage is generally found in that location, so it’s no surprise the company chose to put it there, but it still seems less than optimal. 

We didn’t count it against the company. Still, given that these chairs are designed for people with mobility issues, we sure wish more companies would offer storage under the seat so that the person sitting in the chair could more easily access it.

The other positive aspect is that, given the chair’s low cost, adding as many aftermarket “extras” as you want is a trivial expense that will still result in a lower cost than buying many other transport chairs. 

That gives you the freedom and flexibility to make the chair exactly how you want it to be without paying extra for features you don’t plan on using.

Now, let’s discuss the negatives in our Deluxe Fly-Weight Aluminum transport chair review. 

We love that this chair is so lightweight and easy to store, but including a travel bag would have made it even easier. 

This matters because you must remove the footrests to collapse the chair for transport. Yes, you can toss them into the trunk next to the chair, but having a bag to keep everything in one place makes it less likely that you’ll misplace something in transport.

This would have been an easy addition that wouldn’t have significantly increased the chair’s price, and we consider its absence a loss.

Speaking of those footrests, the company prides itself on its excellent engineering design so you can pop them off quickly and easily without tools. That’s a good thing, but it can also be a problem sometimes. Since they come off so quickly, they can also come off easily when you don’t want them to, and there’s not much you can do about it. Be mindful of this!

A (Mostly) Indoor Chair

In the introduction, we mentioned that this chair was designed for a fairly specific use. Here’s where we’ll talk more about that. You may have seen the popular tee shirt featuring a picture of a cute cat with a smug look on his face and the phrase, “I’m an Indoor Cat!” That applies here because this is a (mostly) indoor chair.

Drive Medical decided to put equally sized 8” wheels on the chair. Many transport chairs boast slightly larger rear wheels, and the advantage of doing so is that the larger rear wheels make the chair more capable of handling a wider range of terrains.

This decision is a bit of a curiosity to us because adding even slightly larger wheels on the back (say, 12”) wouldn’t have significantly increased the price of the chair and would have made it much more versatile. 

The FW19BL is fine on flat surfaces, but maneuvering it across even moderately uneven terrain will be challenging. Indoors, plush carpets may also prove challenging.

As long as you stick to hardwood floors, tile, laminate, or smooth pavement outside, it handles quite well and offers a smooth ride. If you want to spend a significant amount of time enjoying the great outdoors, this almost certainly isn’t the chair for you.

Underscoring that this model was designed primarily for indoor use is that no handbrakes are located at the back of the chair, which means that the person pushing it has no easy means of slowing the chair down on a slope. 

The braking mechanisms are located next to the wheels and are easy to access, but they’re not practical for slowing down on a hill.

No Learning Curve (No Assembly Required!)

One of the things we like about this model is that it’s ready to use and right out of the box. Just unfold it, snap the footrests on, sit down, and you’re ready to go! It offers one of the quickest setups we’ve ever seen and folds up just as quickly. Combined with its ultra-lightweight, it is exceptional for what it was designed for.

Since the chair doesn’t have any significant adjustments, there’s nothing to learn. However, you will want to spend some time in it to decide what, if any, aftermarket “extras” you want to add to make it a better fit for you and your use.

Pros & Cons of the Deluxe Fly-Weight Aluminum Transport Chair

As you can see, this model has a lot to like. In our view, its biggest strengths are:

On the flip side, if we could get the design team to give us anything we wanted, there are a few things we’d like to change. The most significant things are:

We don’t regard any of these as deal breakers, but we felt it was important to mention them so you can compare what this model is and isn’t good at with how you plan on using the chair so you can determine whether or not it’s a good “fit” for you.

Drive Medical FW19BL Fly-Weight Transport Chair Conclusion 

Overall, we like this model very much, but we cannot stress enough that it is designed for predominantly indoor use. If you don’t spend much time outside anyway, that won’t be a problem, and you’ll enjoy this chair very much. 

If you want to get out in the sun, do some gardening, or enjoy a picnic with the family, Drive Medical’s FW19BL fly-weight transport chair will likely leave you underwhelmed.

We recommend it for the right user.

Recommended Reading

Elite Care Lightweight Deluxe Transport Chair Review

We reviewed the Elite Care Lightweight Deluxe Transport Chair, a budget-friendly and feature-rich option.

ProBasics Transport Rollator Review

Explore the ProBasics Transport Rollator, a versatile option suitable for average to small-sized users.

Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Drive Medical Transport Chair, Official Brand Website
• Small Space Ideas: The Benefits of Folding Chairs, Apartment Ratings.