Really Cool Toy (aviation, and a tiny bit of metal, content)

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)