Did they whistle?
Not that I recall. If they whistled, that would mean there was drag somewhere in the design it didn’t need to be.
We used to make our own versions out of folded notebook paper. Just made one in class and sailed it across the room. The students were less than impressed.
I always thought the most dangerous playground item was the seesaw. I hated getting on and off those – you really had to trust the other kid not to do something stupid.
I’m amazed how quickly people here found that toy. I should start a thread for this toy I used to have – one of those wheels that you spun up using a zip tie thing. I think it was made by Samsonite for some reason. I played with it all the time, until it got run over by a truck.
Still my favorite paper airplane!
Something like this?
That’s awesome, but it was just the wheel, maybe three inches across, soft, hollow rubber.
I remember them being called a TooBee
We used to do a version that started with the paper folded diagonally at the start … ended up looking vaguely like a pope’s mitre.
There’s a sentence you don’t see often.
Haha! Yeah, seriously.
I know what you are talking about but I forget the name of it…
I cannot figure out search terms that will find it. Grrr!
ETA: It was basically this:
But, back in the 70s and, I think, made by Samsonite.
The one I had was more like this, but I could never get it to go as far as they do in this video. It did need the side arm motion to make it fly.
The see-saw: “The fat kid’s revenge.”
Hahaha! Unfortunately, I was a twig.
That, and gorilla strength apparently.
That’s a different toy. The Turbo-Tube was made in the 60s and it was a flop, and quickly forgotten. (Except by Czarcasm, apparently.)
The Toobee was an attempt to recreate it in the 80s.
Another attempt to recreate it was the “Zoom Tube” around the same time.
That’s the one I used to make.
That’s what I was thinking of; like ½ of a topless aluminum can. I may still have one (or two) in the basement
Given what I believe to be Czarcasm’s approximate age and that he remembered it being metal, I bet he’s remembering the Toobee. I had a few of those as a kid too. The metal was so light that it was pretty much impossible to hurt someone with them.
Of course, being cheap, we’d also make our own by cutting soda cans. Those worked just as well, but you definitely could (and did) hurt yourself on the cut edge.