A Chance to Unwind

Dean Sigler Sustainable Aviation 4 Comments

Would you believe that there were once at least two rubber-band powered airplanes intended to carry people?  The Rubber Bandit and the RB-1 were attempts at truly flexible flight in the 1980s and ‘90s, and each elicited a brief kerfuffle in the press. Rubber Bandit was a well-designed effort to cruise the length of a runway on the thrust provided by twisted rubber bands.  Its motive power was cranked by a pickup-mounted winch that put hundreds of turns on the model-airplane-like craft’s motive source. Dave Barry was taken by the concept, and interviewed George Heaven, the plane’s designer in an August 3, 1997 column titled, “The Rubber Band Man.”  He talked about Stuff that Guys do, such as dropping bowling balls from airplanes on junked cars.  He explained that Guys, hearing about such things, responded with, “Cool!”  Women tended to say, “Why?”  Barry noted that, “Because guys like to do stuff… this explains both the Space Shuttle and mailbox vandalism.” …