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I always recount the story of the Hovercraft Christmas.
There was one toy I wanted for Christmas. We were firmly middle class growing up, so it wasn't like I had all the toys, but I was old enough to know that my parents were footing the bill and getting an RC hovercraft was going to mean I only get one present that year.
Iirc it was called the Typhoon, or maybe the Typhoon II.
The commecials showed it zipping across land and water, jumping off ramps, bouncing off a lake, etc. It was the coolest fucking thing ever. I begged my parents for it, and would not shut up for months about getting an RC hovercraft.
Christmas comes, and wonderous joy, I got the hovercraft! Life is good, but the battery needs to charge. Shit, OK, we plug it in and let it charge all day while we go do the normal Christmas family visits. Everyone I talked to that day got a lesson in how hovercrafts work, and how it can travel on a pocket of air to move across land AND water.
We got home late that night. It was probably after 10pm, way past everyone's bedtime, including my parents who had been up all night making the Christmas magic happen for my younger siblings who still believed. But I put my fucking foot down. I had waited for months to get my hovercraft. I had waited all day for the battery to charge. I would not wait another god damned minute to go zipping around the backyard. So, my dad and I put coats on over our pajamas, went out to the driveway, and fired that bad boy up.
I can still perfectly remember the sound of the fans turning on, and the little rubber skirt inflating. Sure enough, the hovercraft was floating on a pocket of air! But the driveway was on a mild incline, so the hovercraft started to drift sideways. Then I hit the throttle and... nothing. Just the sound of the fans spinning, but no motion.
Bzzzzz. BZZZZZZ. Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz. The fans spun impotently against the inertia of the hovercraft. It wouldn't move at all, except to sadly drift towards the gutter. My dad gave it a little nudge with his foot, and it got stuck on a tiny stone chip.
I learned a lot about physics from that one night, but I learned even more about advertising.
Thinking back on all the RC cars, planes, and yes, hovercraft, commercials that I saw as a kid, I think they ought to have been sued for false advertising. Realistically though they probably had some disclaimer read (at 8x speed) at the end of the commercial that absolved them of any false advertising by saying the commercial was merely depicting the fantasy of the toy and not the actual use of it.
Are there any old ads you can link to on YouTube for this thing? I wanna see!
Here is the Typhoon II
All lies. The fans couldn't push the thing without a polished smooth surface. You see it spinning? Think about where the fans are, because that's the only steering it had.
Kid I knew 25 years ago had one. Actually kinda worked on an indoor pool, which was neat, but definitely didn't work for shit on the sidewalk. Basically, it didn't work at all in any sort of wind and barely worked on anything rougher than linoleum
I got burned by this too. I feel your pain.
Dad figured out that if we hosed the concrete driveway, it made a better seal, and handeled bumps and impetfections better.
It was a glorious 3 minutes before the water started to seep in to the concrete quickly. The Typhoon nosedived and tore its skirt.
0/10 would not hovercraft again.
Maaaan I remember these ads! Thanks for sharing.
Man, what a bummer. My equivalent to this was an RC car called the "Skydriver". But it absolutely lived up to my expectations. That thing was frickin awesome.
Duke Caboom nods approvingly