5 ms·
Something not mentioned is that these things were pretty messy. At least mine was. It burned a mixture of oil and gasoline, and the plane got coated with a film
by wrp 4y ago
Something not mentioned is that these things were pretty messy. At least mine was. It burned a mixture of oil and gasoline, and the plane got coated with a film of oil.
I only used mine a few times. I found it rather tedious just spinning around in place. Much more exiting were the model rockets that used solid fuel engines.
- WalterBright 4y agoMy dad wouldn't let me have the rockets. Sadly, by the time I was old enough to just get one, I had lost interest.
- wrp 4y agoThere was a concern about starting fires when they came down. I heard the rocket club at my school had to notify the fire department beforehand. I just remembered I also had a gas engine helicopter. Much more fun since it was free-flying. It would go pretty much straight up then rotor down when it ran out of gas. Couldn't do it on a windy day.
- WalterBright 4y agoThose 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.
- Doxin 4y agoIt'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!
- le-mark 4y agoDoes anyone have more info on this?
- kqr 4y agoI was going to say. Helicopters are difficult to fly, period! It's not just those -- also the big ones.
- dTal 4y agoLarge 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.
- robotguy 4y agoI 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."
- fxtentacle 4y agoBack in the day, you were allowed to bring ESTES toy rockets in hand luggage... I'd guess today they'll put you into prison just for bringing them to the airport.
- denton-scratch 4y agoKids at school used to buy cheap Jetex rocket engines, and mount them on little balsa gliders or Dinky cars. They went fast! [Edit] https://jetex.org/index.php/the-jetex-heyday https://jetex.org/index.php/the-jetex-heyday