Anyone deranged enough to try this?

wrote in message ...
On Mar 7, 3:27 pm, "Blueskies" wrote:
"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in .com...

http://packmag.net/index.php?option=...ery2&Itemid=28
&page=inline&id=44&catid=4&limitstart=17

When I was a kid, the was a ride at Buckeye lake amusement park. It was like one of those spin around swing rides
where
the riders are in swings and whole thing spins and the riders swing out as it goes faster and faster. This thing was
basically a little fuselage with a 'rudder' you could deflect right and left as you spun around. If you really got it
right you could almost do a wingover as it spun around. Not a very good description, but it was a blast for a 9 year
old
kid! "They don't make them like that anymore" ;-)

They have something close at Knoebels Amusement Park in Elysburg, PA,
but it looks more like a boat than an airplane.

http://www.knoebels.com/images/rides/Flyer.jpg

That is pretty close, but the old ones I remember didn't actually have a rudder, the control surface was in the front,
so a canard-rudder-like thing?

May need to go check out that place in PA.

In the 1932 "Flying and Gilder Manual" there's an article and plans
for a "penguin" that is said to suitable for boys. It's the same sort
of thing. I think the idea of a air sled on skiis is not quite as
useful today because there's less ice, but the idea of an airboat
that's an S6B without wings is something I find curiously attractive.

One thing that puts everyone off is the obvious danger of the idea.
To the men and boys who looked at the plans and who may have built it,
there was a lot less danger. To be safe, bystanders need only stay
away from it. We, as a society, seem to have lost that ability to
avoid danger. There's a place for a study of the changes over time
in the perception of danger.