Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys • Hacker News Board

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#71

Post by robotguy » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #52

kqr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say. Helicopters are difficult to fly, period! It's not just those -- also the big ones.

Large helicopters are not as difficult to fly as small ones, simply because the time constant of their instability is longer. This is similar to how it is easier to balance a broom on the tip of your finger than a pencil, and a pencil is in turn easier than a toothpick.

I keep trying to explain this to my friends in the aquarium and terrarium hobbies.

"I want to build a tiny one. It'll be so cute."

"It's going to crash in 30 seconds if you so much as look at it funny."

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#72

Post by meheleventyone » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #53

meheleventyone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re making slime out of household cleaning products so yup!

That's a little different from stuff like The Golden Book of Chemistry teaching you to distill alcohol and create chloroform.

Gestures at the Internet

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#73

Post by jeffreygoesto » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #59

jeffreygoesto wrote: post #13

Oh my. I got a then already very old Russian compression ignition engine like this [0] as a child. It needed a mix of petroleum, aether and rhizinus oil and was extremely hard to start. I did not have any spring or electrical starter and it took forever. Will never forget the sound and smell once it ran though. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbureted_compression_ignit...

I had to Google it, so just FWIW, that is usually called "castor oil" in English. :-)

Oh. Thank you, I did only check the direct translation indeed. Learned something today. :)

That oil is for lubrication, the petroleum is the real, main fuel and the highly flammable aether is needed to be able to ignite at all at the comparably low temperatures you can produce with cranking. Too high compression and the first firing will see a too high counter force to continue, too little compression (that screw on top of the cylinder head) and it won't ignite...

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#74

Post by euroderf » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #66

euroderf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who among us lit up the chunk of sulphur and (out of innocent curiosity) took a good snork off it, realizing too late that it was a stupid thing to do ? I sure did. Tinkering with chemistry also motivated me to look for sources of hydrochloric and sulphuric acids, but in New York state the guy at the pharmacy said I needed parental permission. Wasn't gonna happen.

Hydrochloric acid: My hardware store sells 30% HCl as Spirits Of Salts, for removing limescale from toilet bowls. It's effective, unlike toilet bleach. It's nasty stuff, and if your seat-hinges are metallic, you risk corrosion. And remember to flush before you crap. Sulphuric acid: No, hardware stores don't sell that here. You can get it from car batteries, and builders use the strong stuff for clearing drains. I hav…

Two words: ice bath.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#75

Post by allturtles » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:03 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #57

fxtentacle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest concern about modern toys is that we have dumbed them down to work for the lowest common denominator. That's why a 3 year old today can (with a bit of training) assemble 12+ LEGO sets. Back in the day, when I was playing with LEGO Mindstorms, I thought the fact that you compile binaries and flash them with a USB cable was a feature, because it gave you full control. There was even alternative OS choices li…

>My biggest concern about modern toys is that we have dumbed them down to work for the lowest common denominator. That's why a 3 year old today can (with a bit of training) assemble 12+ LEGO sets. I think Lego is the perfect example of this. I never understood the point of it as a kid. Why would I want something that comes with an instruction booklet to recreate the exact thing shown on the box? Why wouldn't I just a…

There's a sort of zen pleasure in putting pre-designed Lego sets together, especially the more sophisticated ones where you discover along the way the little building tricks or "easter eggs" included by the designer.

Lego bricks certainly aren't "useless for actually creating things." You can make lots of cool things with Lego, and there's lots of creativity to be found in the Lego community, beyond just following the directions.

I do agree with GP that the listed ages on LEGO sets are absurd if taken as difficulty levels. My elementary age kids have no trouble with "18+" LEGO sets. I think the ages instead serve a marketing role: the 18+ rating gives adults permission to buy a toy.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#76

Post by sjm-lbm » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

JoyfulTurkey wrote: post #8

I had one of these in the 80s, a P-51 Mustang. I vaguely recall it being annoying to start, but was with my dad so he definitely helped with getting it going. We had a bunch of soccer fields behind where we lived, so we flew it there to avoid any accidents. It did eventually crash, but was fun while it lasted.

I had one of these in the 90s, an F4U Corsair.

It's weird to think that these are considered so unsafe you can't have one anymore, seeing as by that time people were well into complaining about how the nanny state and/or lawsuit-concerned companies wouldn't let anyone have fun anymore.

(it was, to my memory, an annoying and silly toy, like everyone else is saying)

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#77

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:05 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #48

WalterBright wrote: post #24

Hey, I still have my Cox 049 engine somewhere. The airplane is gone, smashed up of course. I suppose it was dangerous by modern standards, but not at the time. About the worst it would do would cut your finger if it backfired when starting. Or you could use a cheater stick, or even an electric motor to start it. I once made a car for it out of piano wire. It would take off at high speed down the road, but because I n…

My biggest concern about modern toys is that we have dumbed them down to work for the lowest common denominator. That's why a 3 year old today can (with a bit of training) assemble 12+ LEGO sets. Back in the day, when I was playing with LEGO Mindstorms, I thought the fact that you compile binaries and flash them with a USB cable was a feature, because it gave you full control. There was even alternative OS choices li…

I have a bone to pick with LEGO. LEGO destroyed Erector sets. Erector sets were great because they were metal parts that you screwed together, and the machines you built look like machines. (My mom was reluctant to get me an Erector set, assuming I could not handle the tiny nuts and bolts. But I had no difficulty with them.)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133855778156

Lego machines look like cheap plastic crap with all those bright colors.

https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/airbus-h175-rescue-helico...

Sorry I just gored all the Lego lovers, but that's the way it is.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#78

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:07 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #53

meheleventyone wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re making slime out of household cleaning products so yup!

That's a little different from stuff like The Golden Book of Chemistry teaching you to distill alcohol and create chloroform.

The Kosmos All-Chemist set was pretty much a Germanized Golden Book of Chemistry.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#79

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:08 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #31

WalterBright wrote: post #24

Hey, I still have my Cox 049 engine somewhere. The airplane is gone, smashed up of course. I suppose it was dangerous by modern standards, but not at the time. About the worst it would do would cut your finger if it backfired when starting. Or you could use a cheater stick, or even an electric motor to start it. I once made a car for it out of piano wire. It would take off at high speed down the road, but because I n…

> but because I never could get the wheels aligned perfectly straight it would inevitably try to turn Hm. I don't think "wheels aligned perfectly straight" is the actual solution. I wonder if there's some simple mechanism by which it could be made directionally stable, in the sense of continuously adjusting itself to go forward instead of turn.

A rudder might have worked. Also, at the time I had a pretty poor understanding of stability, and no understanding of "oversteer".

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#80

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 8:11 PM UTC

stavros wrote: post #30

WalterBright wrote: post #24

Hey, I still have my Cox 049 engine somewhere. The airplane is gone, smashed up of course. I suppose it was dangerous by modern standards, but not at the time. About the worst it would do would cut your finger if it backfired when starting. Or you could use a cheater stick, or even an electric motor to start it. I once made a car for it out of piano wire. It would take off at high speed down the road, but because I n…

I don't know what toys you have, but my toys today are RC planes with a 25km range that transmit HD video so you can fly them with a first person view.

My toy today is a 1972 Dodge with a 400hp heavily modified 340 V8.