>A quad copter is best modeled as a brick with a magic anti gravity device attached, if the anti gravity device fails it is a suspended brick and gravity will soon assert itself.

Very nice definition.

There isn't AFAIK such a neat distincion in English, in Italian the iron (the device you use for ironing, maybe flatiron?) has a specific name "ferro da stiro" so it is common to use it as a term of comparison for such a behaviour.