The Little World

Walter, the toy industry is the lifeblood of the Little World. We often forget that what we adult modellers make is toys. Oh, we call them scale models and we join clubs and have exhibitions and spend scandalous amounts of money on the kits…but they are toys in the end. The sad thing for adults is that we make the toys but then we do not play with them.

Maybe we’re too proud. Maybe we’ve lost imagination. Maybe we know just how fragile and expensive they are. The liucky ones amongst us oldsters are the ones who build Lego and Meccano or who run model trains or trucks – we get to put a bit of life into our creations.

Well, Walter, sometimes the toy industry takes something of a wrong turn. They might make horrible dolls or toys that fall apart and cut their owners. They might make toys that are disreputable. And occasionally they make toys that ere just never destined to work. The 1950’s toy helicopter was just one of those.

They were common in all toy stores and the big department stores sold them at Christmas. The basic tinplate fuselage contained a driveshaft up to the rotor blades and a gear that made them turn as fast as possible. In the handpiece there was another train of gears that multiplied the turning speed of the crank handle. The connection was a bowden cable – an internal flexible wire in a coiled outer sleeve. Kind of like a bike speedometer.

The idea was you cranked the handle and the helicopter was supposed to rise and hover in the air – then you steered it wherever you wanted. In reality, no child had the arm or wrist strength to get that handle turning for any length of time. You might crank furiously until your wrist hurt but it never went higher than 10 centimetres from the floor and just as likely curved back and hit you.

As a toy, it was an invitation to disappointment.

Now, it might be possible to get a toy helicopter hovering with an electric motor, but trailing wires would add a great deal of weight. Free drones are possible but not in a scale configuration. And big drones bring a whole new world of responsibility.

But do not despair, Walter. There are always big model trucks…