"Bob Chilcoat" wrote in message
...
You airplane geeks will love this. My son bought his three-year-old an
Air Hogs "Twin Fury" plane at Toys-R-Us on sale for $12.95 Saturday.
This is a twin-engined pneumatically powered toy airplane that is very,
very clever. Here's a link to a picture of it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...#more-pictures

What is really clever is the design of the motors. These are tiny little
pneumatic motors with only three moving parts each, designed for them by a
consulting firm: http://www.rehkemper.com/airmotor.html The original Air
Hogs pneumatic motor apparently cost 50 cents to make. These new motors
are more efficient and cost 8 cents (!) to make.

When pumped up to the recommended pressure (50 strokes on the supplied
pump) the motors run for roughly 10-15 seconds, initially giving enough
thrust to almost lift the plane on its props. Amazing amount of thrust.
Gareth set his off the first time and claims that it climbed to nearly 300
feet and flew around for a couple of minutes. The second time it ended up
in a high tree and could not be recovered. No problem; at @ $12.95 he
bought another one. Now that he knows how far it can fly, he's going to
be more careful about where he launches it.

Yesterday I bought one too, only for me.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

Bob,
If you really want to get some air time out of those .. fill it's tank with
butane from one of the cans they use for butane lighters. It goes in as a
liquid and turns to gas at a rate that keeps em running a really long time
I bought my son a car like that years ago and we "discovered" that a
little butane would make it run for blocks on a single fill.

Glenn