Anyone ever fly one of these?

[Jeepnik]

Yep, moving from a glider to powered flight was quite an upgrade.

But then I discovered rockets. They were supposed to be recoverable and reusable. "IF" the parachute deployed. Even if the chute did deploy sometimes they were just plain lost.

 

[g5m]

Went through many of them. Initially only a few pennies each.

 

[MaxMan]

I remember the bi.plane gliders they had a Fokker D 7 and a English SE 5

 

[KIR]

Happy to bring back good memories for so many of you...

 

[Tensaw]

So much fun! Once just before a thunder storm rolled in the wind was really blowing. I launched mine and it flew about 50 yards with a strong tail wind.

 

[MHtractorguy]

Well, how long did it fly?

The winning flight was a minute and12 seconds inside a gym. My son and his partner had problems. It was a timed comp. They had 5 minutes to launch twice. Best time was the keeper. His partner seemed to think winding the band backward was more comfortable. When they let it go, we all heard the BZZZZZZZZ if the little wire skipping over the cog on the prop. Nose dive twice for no score. I do not believe he speaks to her anymore.

 

[turd]

Had a few of each powered and glider, but what was the most fun was folding paper airplanes and flying them when the teacher was at the blackboard with back turned to the class. Several of us got pretty good at designing and folding them. Not origami perhaps, but fun!

 

[wwb]

Okay.... who remembers strapping a Jetex engine to a balsa glider?

 

[BearBiologist]

Yep!!! Most of the above

 

[bedfordboy]

I loved those things.

Quite memorable was an especially long flight. We had a HS football practice field across the street that was ideal for all kinds of childhood activities. Launched that little balsa wood flyer and the breeze caught it perfectly. It flew halfway down the field, a miracle of aviation for a 10 year old boy.

Memory has stuck for 50 years, I'd give a Kennedy Half Dollar for another memory like that.

Know what you mean, I once bought one in town after school, brought it home and put it together. We lived on top of a mountain, one throw and over the ridge it went never to be seen again, watched it for the first couple hundred yards before it went out of sight… never forget that as long as I live.
Yes'm would definitely be worth a Kennedy half, maybe even a few mercury dimes and a couple buffalo nickels to see it again.

 

[SamV]

My parents had a small grocery store. We always had small toys for sale. Nothing expensive, pretty basic items for the early 1960s. Balsa planes, kites, rubber balls, various cap guns, water guns, coloring books, etc.
Plus items like smoking monkeys, plastic toy soldiers with parachutes, jacks, marbles, and ?? I am not sure if my parents ever made any profit from those items, as I went through them pretty much nonstop. Balsa planes were probably tied with cap guns when I was little. So many rolls of caps!

 

[blume357]

They were fun to play with. I think they were $.19 when we used to have them. I knew a kid in school that used to make amazing paper planes. One time in the school auditorium he threw one of his planes and it did a triple loop. The loops were impressive but the final resting place is something that I can still picture today. The study hall monitor was reading a paperback book and not paying attention to what was happening in the auditorium. The plane looped under his paperback and the nose of the plane lodged itself about 2 inches up the monitors nose. He jumped up with a surprised scream and he had to pull the plane out of his nose which started to bleed profusely. The look on his face with that paper plane stuck in his nose was priceless!

now that was funny and it gave me my first laugh of the day, THANKS!

 

[freakindawgen]

Had a few of each powered and glider, but what was the most fun was folding paper airplanes and flying them when the teacher was at the blackboard with back turned to the class. Several of us got pretty good at designing and folding them. Not origami perhaps, but fun!

Two of us in class did that and got caught. It was the last class of the day so teacher made us stay late. Set the trashcan about 5 ft from the blackboard and sat us in back of room. Said you get three in the can you can go.
I had track and had 30 mins to get out on the field. So we both made stupid planes that didn't hardly fly. Got closer to track deadline I made proper paper airplanes and made my 3. Outta here!

 

[wproct]

Back in the 1950;s the owner of a grocery store filled a large glass jar, probably around 2 gallons, with marbles. Then you would guess how many marbles was in it, write it with your name on a slip of paper and put it in a box. After 2 weeks whoever guessed the closest to the number got to keep the marbles. I won. I fairly quickly found that they made excellent ammo for a slingshot. Me and my friends got hours of enjoyment out of shooting those marbles.

 

[protoolman]

Yup, flew hours and hours of those balsa planes. Broke rubber bands on the powered ones had us pestering everyone to get new bands.

 

[Actnbill]

Yep.....had a few as a kid....and after reading the package....I thought Wakefield Mass must be the happiest place on Earth....
Still in business today...

Paul K. Guillow, Inc.

www.guillow.com

 

[Fox Mike]

Like this one?

 

[Rclark]

Had a few myself. Lead me to building tissue and balsa rubber powered, and then into the R/C world of model aircraft which I still do. Also grew up with model rockets. A few years ago I even qualified for Level 1 Hi-Power... But let it lapse (no NAR membership). Still build rockets though and keep tabs on the rocketry world.

 

[ole442]

Yes.... hours of fun with both the glider and rubber band powered one. Much better than effing around with a cell phone and playing numb nuts games or surfing the trash on Tic Tok IMO!

 

[gnappi]

As a kid I probably had every wood plane ever made and the rubber band "engine" models were the best.

Flight became an obsession of sorts as I started making folded "jet" planes and throwing them in class when the nun's back was turned, when caught it was not a good thing