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Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

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Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#161

Post by [deleted] »

JasonFruit wrote: post #119
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad made something like that, except not with a Frisbee. It had two helicopter blades, and a dowel sticking out opposite the engine for balance. It had a little ring at the center of it holding the other parts together. He'd launch it from a screwdriver through the ring. And once he did, it was pretty random where it went. Once it just went horizontally at about ten-year-old-me's head height. I ducked under it and…

I'm not sure that device qualifies, but I've often told my wife that I hate the farewell phrase, "Stay safe!" that's become so common lately. Sometimes you have to balance whether something is enough fun to justify the risk of death.

[deleted]

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#162

Post by chiefgeek »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #149
greenbit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sure were different times. I recall in the mid 1970s, as a kid no less, being able to go into a pharmacy and buy sulfur or KNO3 w/o any trouble at all. However it wasn't more than a couple years later, when a request for phosphorus was met with an icy "do I need to call your mother" stare, that my budding career as a chemist came to an end. Besides, the Radio Shack across the street had this computer set up for…

My friends and I found documents authored in the 70's and went around the 90's trying to buy saltpeter--whatever that is. Luckily time had changed "Do I need to call your mother?" into "What the hell is that?" and our mothers were never called. We eventually gave up and graduated to shoplifting model rocket engines, which we powdered with vice grips.

Yes! So many Estes "D" engines up in smoke. Loved the mini-mushroom clouds!

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#163

Post by m4rtink »

kokanator wrote: post #124

For those interested, there is still a very active community around Control Line airplanes as well as world championships. http://flyinglines.org/ https://www.fai.org/page/f2-control-line I was the president of the Northwest Fireballs for awhile. http://flyinglines.org/Fireballs.html If you are in the Portland/Vancouver area visit Delta park on most weekends and there will most likely be a group flying. If you have t…

I still remember those from my airplane model building years! When I joined the airplane modeling club at the local House of Youth here in the Czech Republic, we had a few of them still hanging around under the ceiling - but we never flew them by that point.

People were mostly building analog glow spark or detonation engine powered planes or electric and unpowered gliders.

Interestingly the thing basically all people built at tje start was a throwing balsa plane and then an uncontrolled glider, that you would drag up using a line, kinda how manned gliders are lofted with a winch.

Then every year we would hold a competition where members would compete with the planes they built - IIRC my glider was in the A3 category but I don't think I won any top spots back then. Also one way to assure victory was to build a bigger glider in one of the categories no one else competed. :-)

By doing it this way the club members learned how to use the tools and materials to then build more advanced designs - I managed to also build a RC plan eventually, powered by a 1,5 cm3 glowspark and controlled by a SkySport 4! I think 9 still have it somewhere.

Then high-school started and I had much less time and that was it with airplane building back then. :P

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#164

Post by nibbleshifter »

kqr wrote: post #154
nibbleshifter wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its still sold in the UK for certain culinary purposes, surprisingly enough. As for why your experiments weren't as spectacular as you hoped: the particular charcoal you use is really important. Its best to make your own with a paint can, some willow, a nail, and a campfire. Adequate crushing of components into floury powder follows, then adequate mixing, and ideally wet-pressing and corning. Source: an extremely mis…

The thing sold in grocery stores is usually CaNO3 though and not KNO3.

The potassium salt is sold for curing meat from a fair few somewhat specialist providers in kilogram amounts, or in small bags from a fair few shops catering to Eastern Europeans.

Its actually quite fun to read the labels on stuff when browsing shops, you find all kinds of bizarre shit.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#166

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

WalterBright wrote: post #26
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #19

The 70s really were another country - see also: chemistry sets. These are pale and anodyne things now with a mere handful of bland household-level chemicals - assuming you can even find one in a toy shop at all. But as a lad these were both readily available and full of dozens of intriguing substances that would send a modern health and safety wonk into apoplexy. Who among us did not incinerate all of the supplied ma…

The German Kosmos sets were the best.

The really old ones from the 50s and 60s were magic, and they still made passable ones into the 90s. But there is nothing like that anymore, it simply doesn't exist. I suspect that market is now tinkering with Raspberry Pis?

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#167

Post by phkahler »

nigamanth wrote: post #151
greenbit wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sure were different times. I recall in the mid 1970s, as a kid no less, being able to go into a pharmacy and buy sulfur or KNO3 w/o any trouble at all. However it wasn't more than a couple years later, when a request for phosphorus was met with an icy "do I need to call your mother" stare, that my budding career as a chemist came to an end. Besides, the Radio Shack across the street had this computer set up for…

Life was so safe back then, I remember not even locking the door in the mid 80s LOL. The door to my house was open, and we were sure no-one would enter.

>> The door to my house was open, and we were sure no-one would enter.

Except close friends, who could just walk in. Sometimes after a quick knock.

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#168

Post by le-mark »

Doxin wrote: post #160
WalterBright wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those helicopters were very difficult to fly, or so I've been told, as they were unstable. The modern electric copters cheat because they use a computer to stabilize them.

It's possible to build a passively stabilized helicopter and a lot of modern model helicopters use that method. You can even get away with two axis control!

Does anyone have more info on this?

Re: Fun, danger, and 70s airplane toys

#170

Post by nigamanth »

asdff wrote: post #156
nigamanth wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life was so safe back then, I remember not even locking the door in the mid 80s LOL. The door to my house was open, and we were sure no-one would enter.

I know a family that continues to do this. They say if someone breaks in they'd rather not have to replace a window on top of it all.

For real? Where does that family live? (asking just to know whether the area is safe/not)

There are parts of the world (Compton, for instance) where crime rates are so high houses get broken into no matter what.

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