Airplane toys with retracts?

flyingcheesehead

flyingcheesehead

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iMooniac
So my son LOVES airplanes, but right now he seems to be obsessed with landing gear, and he talks about putting down the gear on all of his toy airplanes - You can never start teaching GUMPS checks too early, I guess, though I can't specifically take credit for this, it's just something he picked up on from flying with me. He'll even "put his gear down" when he's flying his hand.

Every airplane toy we have has fixed gear. Is there such a thing as a toy airplane with retracts?

He's 2 1/2 years old, so I'm not looking for an RC model or anything, just a toy that can take some abuse.
 
Wow... I had that exact airplane when I was a kid. I always remembered to put the gear down, except landing on my sister's bed (kooties!)
 
Ebay "Tonka Hand Commander
1
" for one of my old favorites when I was a kid.
 
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Ugh. So there's lots of broken Hubley toys out there... And some nice new Fisher-Price ones, but:

Screen Shot 2019-07-15 at 9.47.05 PM.png

BOYS can play out their favorite airplane adventure? Seriously, Fisher-Price? It's 2019, and we learned how to fly airplanes without using our d*cks a long time ago. :mad:

I'd have bought one of these in a heartbeat, but... Maybe not. I'd hate to have a little girl next and have toys that were incompatible with her reproductive system. :rolleyes:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Ugh. So there's lots of broken Hubley toys out there... And some nice new Fisher-Price ones, but:

View attachment 75939

BOYS can play out their favorite airplane adventure? Seriously, Fisher-Price? It's 2019, and we learned how to fly airplanes without using our d*cks a long time ago. :mad:

I'd have bought one of these in a heartbeat, but... Maybe not. I'd hate to have a little girl next and have toys that were incompatible with her reproductive system. :rolleyes:
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Sort of amazing that they would still market it that way, though I think it is more due to ignorance than any sort of malfeasance. But there are still plenty examples of the latter to rail against.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Ugh. So there's lots of broken Hubley toys out there... And some nice new Fisher-Price ones, but:

View attachment 75939

BOYS can play out their favorite airplane adventure? Seriously, Fisher-Price? It's 2019, and we learned how to fly airplanes without using our d*cks a long time ago. :mad:

I'd have bought one of these in a heartbeat, but... Maybe not. I'd hate to have a little girl next and have toys that were incompatible with her reproductive system. :rolleyes:
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The horror! What's next? NFL teams only drafting men?

You market to who's gonna buy it. 6% is the number right now. You market to the 94% not 6%. Most girls I'd say around 19 out of 20 or so, do not care to play with "boys" toys. Even watching my buddy with his girl who plays soccer and basketball, guess what she WANTS to play with at home. It ain't Tonka trucks, and with her mom being super liberal, she definitely made it her daughter's choice on what to play with.
 
EdFred said:
The horror! What's next? NFL teams only drafting men?

You market to who's gonna buy it. 6% is the number right now. You market to the 94% not 6%. Most girls I'd say around 19 out of 20 or so, do not care to play with "boys" toys. Even watching my buddy with his girl who plays soccer and basketball, guess what she WANTS to play with at home. It ain't Tonka trucks, and with her mom being super liberal, she definitely made it her daughter's choice on what to play with.
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Yep. I don't force my daughter to do anything, but she just isn't "into" the airplanes that much even though we have plenty of toys.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Yep. I don't force my daughter to do anything, but she just isn't "into" the airplanes that much even though we have plenty of toys.
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And the funny thing with that is that their daughter was pulling for Trump in the last election. Not because she has any sort of political affiliation but because SHE wants to be the first female president and was VERY upset (to the point of crying) leading up to the election with all the predictions. Maybe in 2044...

So it isn't like it's a girls can't do that prejudice. It's just what she (and the vast vast majority of girls) likes.
 
A good dad project for ya would be taking some cardboard boxes making an airplane such as this.

upload_2019-7-17_10-18-31.jpeg

Cut out a space in bottom for legs and add fabric "suspenders" so he can run around.

Take some chalk and mark up the driveway or sidewalk as a runway.
 
AggieMike88 said:
A good dad project for ya would be taking some cardboard boxes making an airplane such as this.

View attachment 75991
Cut out a space in bottom for legs and add fabric "suspenders" so he can run around.
Take some chalk and mark up the driveway or sidewalk as a runway.
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Mine was a helicopter. My Dad worked for Hiller when i was born...
 
I had one of these as a kid.

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Then later, one of the Mattel Vertibird sets.

upload_2019-7-17_10-54-40.jpeg
 
EdFred said:
You market to who's gonna buy it.
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<sigh> Think just a little bigger. This kind of marketing does more than just target a demographic for sales. It sends a message to everyone, that gets received by everyone, regardless of whether they are the "target" audience or not. Girls who don't want the toy "learn" that girls who do are weird and other. Boys who do want the toy "learn" that aviation is reserved specially for them. Seen it. Been there. Do you seriously think that is harmless?
 
kath said:
<sigh> Think just a little bigger. This kind of marketing does more than just target a demographic for sales. It sends a message to everyone, that gets received by everyone, regardless of whether they are the "target" audience or not. Girls who don't want the toy "learn" that girls who do are weird and other. Boys who do want the toy "learn" that aviation is reserved specially for them. Seen it. Been there. Do you seriously think that is harmless?
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Yep. I do. It's a SJW movement that has to make everything a boy is interested in, to be an interest to girls too - even if 95% of girls want nothing to do with it. But you don't see people bitching and moaning that they aren't marketing Barbies towards boys, or "my first makeup kit" to boys, or any of the 43,769 products that girls play with that boys don't want to play with. Kids have an interest in what kids are going to have an interest in. We didn't watch TV as kids, and I was 3 years older than my sister. So there was a bunch of boy toys that she could have played with. She didn't. She, by her own choice, with no marketing or pushing by the parents (my mom was/is a Tomboy) wanted to play with dolls, dolls, and more dolls. Same thing with my buddies kid, and 90%+ of girls out there. There's a bell curve of something that's coded into our brains where 90% of one gender are going to be interested in certain things, and 90% of the other gender aren't. But holy end of the world batman if we acknowledge that boys and girls are different. Yeah, some girls want to wrench on things, and some boys want to be hairdressers. But for this push to try to make everyone the same, I don't get. Then again, when I was little, I was the first to "cross the lines" and went over to play at a girls house!! Must have been 2nd or 3rd grade. Got teased for it, didn't care that I wasn't" supposed to." Went over there multiple times.

80/20 rule of business.
 
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EdFred said:
But you don't see people bitching and moaning that they aren't marketing Barbies towards boys
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Of course you do. That you haven't heard these complaints, or recognized them as such when you've heard it, is (in itself) telling something about you or your cultural environment. Not meaning to be accusatory here... just saying I've heard plenty of complaints, they're there.

EdFred said:
There's a bell curve of something that's coded into our brains where 90% of one gender are going to be interested in certain things, and 90% of the other gender aren't. But holy end of the world batman if we acknowledge that boys and girls are different.
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I will acknowledge things that are backed by data. But it takes decades for childhood culture to work its way into adult behavior; the number of (say) female pilots in the aviation community today was shaped by what the culture was like when we were kids. So the 6% number from the airmen database today carries decades of complexity with it and can't be used to measure an inherent human trait. You don't know this number and neither do I.

I suspect you're right and there *is* a natural skew. I've got as much anecdotal "my friends' kids / my niece or nephew / my own family" kinds of stories about kids-today and dolls and trucks as anyone else. Plus, I've lived this. A kid can come to understand that she's "different from the other girls" at a very young age; I did. Doesn't make the harm done by irresponsible messaging any less real.

EdFred said:
But for this push to try to make everyone the same, I don't get.
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Then you misunderstand the "push" completely. It's a push to keep the doors open. Not to control traffic.
 
I have yet to see a push saying "we need more boys doing (traditionally girl) jobs." Or a push to get boys into the girl scouts, but it did go the other direction. There is a push to emasculate everything and everyone with this whole "Penis bad, vaginas good!" I've been seeing for the past 15 years or so. And if we go any further the thread will get locked.

But I'm still not going to market my product to people that have little to no interest in it, or a very small segment. Diminishing returns and all that.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Ebay "Tonka Hand Commander" for one of my old favorites when I was a kid.
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Thank you for remembering the name! I played with mine until there was nothing left, and I was just thinking I'd like to get one for my kids, but I couldn't find it without the name.
 
RyanShort1 said:
Ebay "Tonka Hand Commander" for one of my old favorites when I was a kid.
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Awesome!! I had a yellow one. I literally wore it out. I had to put a rubberband on the retract lever to keep the wheels up during flight (attached around the vert stab). No way was I flying around a twin with the gear hanging down.
 
kath said:
Girls who don't want the toy "learn" that girls who do are weird and other. Boys who do want the toy "learn" that aviation is reserved specially for them. Seen it. Been there. Do you seriously think that is harmless?
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I don't think it's as harmful as some are making it out to be. There's a difference between positively marketing towards a group of people you think would naturally be interested in a product and intentionally excluding others and people are making that out to be sinister. If I want to market to 10-14 year olds that does NOT mean I hate 15 year olds, just that I'm targeting a particular segment of the population.
Jim K said:
Thank you for remembering the name! I played with mine until there was nothing left, and I was just thinking I'd like to get one for my kids, but I couldn't find it without the name.
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That's 'cause I used to have one - or played in a Sunday School or something that had one, and I found and bought one for my kiddo a few months back. They REALLY don't make 'em like they used, too. Now don't y'all go start bidding wars. I might want to buy another.
 
Pugs said:
Not retractable I think but they do come with a snap together runway. I'd have been all over it at his age!

https://www.diecastairplane.com/store/p/1913-Beechcraft-Bonanza-Blue/White-Approx-5.html
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Did that one get geared up, or does it just not have any gear to begin with? ;)

AggieMike88 said:
A good dad project for ya would be taking some cardboard boxes making an airplane such as this.

View attachment 75991

Cut out a space in bottom for legs and add fabric "suspenders" so he can run around.
Click to expand...

Oh, he already runs around pretending he's an airplane. Always a swept "wing" (arm) one though. ;) That is a cool thing to do with a box though!

Take some chalk and mark up the driveway or sidewalk as a runway.
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Oooh, I have elaborate plans for this.

First, we're going to get the driveway repaved. Probably not this year or next, but it won't be too awful long.

Next, we're going to paint a runway on it. (My wife doesn't know this part yet. :rofl:)

Finally, we're going to use some glow in the dark paint to make runway lights... That way it'll look like a runway both during the day and at night! (Maybe I need to put a yellow X on it... :( )

AggieMike88 said:
I had one of these as a kid.

View attachment 75992
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So did I! He's got an updated one with wing-mounted engines that talks and makes jet noises in his huge collection of airplane toys. :)
 
Separating this in case someone decides it's political :rolleyes: but frankly, this is an aviation issue.

EdFred said:
You market to who's gonna buy it. 6% is the number right now. You market to the 94% not 6%.
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Ah, but is it the chicken or the egg? Girls learn at a young age that they are supposed to be princesses (which bugs the hell out of my NASA-engineer sister when she's trying to buy stuff for her daughter). Boys can be pilots, but not girls... And that gets ingrained, so the girls do what society expects them to, which is not to fly, and so we have only 6% of the pilot population being women.

Now, imagine how many more pilots we would have if that 6% was 50%, and how much cheaper it'd be to fly with a larger market.

EdFred said:
Yep. I do. It's a SJW movement that has to make everything a boy is interested in, to be an interest to girls too - even if 95% of girls want nothing to do with it.
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Nope. I don't want Fisher-Price to market specifically to girls... I want them to NOT market only to boys. There's a big difference there. It's not about forcing something on girls, it's about leaving the doors open for everyone.

EdFred said:
I have yet to see a push saying "we need more boys doing (traditionally girl) jobs."
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Because we don't need to. When men started becoming nurses, they just did it. Some guys probably called them "gay" or other names... But nobody got in their way and said "Men can't do that".

But I'm still not going to market my product to people that have little to no interest in it, or a very small segment. Diminishing returns and all that.
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Again, I'm not asking them to market to girls. I'm merely asking that they don't only market to boys. If they changed the word "boys" to "kids", it'd be fine and I would have no objections whatsoever.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Nope. I don't want Fisher-Price to market specifically to girls... I want them to NOT market only to boys. There's a big difference there. It's not about forcing something on girls, it's about leaving the doors open for everyone.

Again, I'm not asking them to market to girls. I'm merely asking that they don't only market to boys. If they changed the word "boys" to "kids", it'd be fine and I would have no objections whatsoever.
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Yeah, not so much. If I know that 90% of the Clan Tartan fabric market is people of Scottish descent, I’m not hating on the rest of the world, I’m just marketing to the people I think are most likely to buy my wares. Same goes for Barbies, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s fine. I don’t get mad when I don’t see people trying to sell them to my son. In this case, using the word “boys” is probably supposed to trigger mom to think “yeah, little Johnny really does love seeing that airplane fly over in the morning and I ought to buy that for him” or something like that...

You are ascribing negative motivation or ignorance to their choice instead of accepting that they are appealing to the VAST majority of their market and that’s your problem, not theirs. Do they have a problem selling to girls? Probably not, but it’s less relevant, and therefore less appealing. Good marketing is all about being relevant to the people you expect to purchase your product, and frankly it’s also got to be efficient. Again, a clan tartan company would probably be wasting their marketing dollars on some South American village but that’s not a slam on those people.
 
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EdFred said:
Yep. I do. It's a SJW movement that has to make everything a boy is interested in, to be an interest to girls too - even if 95% of girls want nothing to do with it. But you don't see people bitching and moaning that they aren't marketing Barbies towards boys, or "my first makeup kit" to boys, or any of the 43,769 products that girls play with that boys don't want to play with. Kids have an interest in what kids are going to have an interest in. We didn't watch TV as kids, and I was 3 years older than my sister. So there was a bunch of boy toys that she could have played with. She didn't. She, by her own choice, with no marketing or pushing by the parents (my mom was/is a Tomboy) wanted to play with dolls, dolls, and more dolls. Same thing with my buddies kid, and 90%+ of girls out there. There's a bell curve of something that's coded into our brains where 90% of one gender are going to be interested in certain things, and 90% of the other gender aren't. But holy end of the world batman if we acknowledge that boys and girls are different. Yeah, some girls want to wrench on things, and some boys want to be hairdressers. But for this push to try to make everyone the same, I don't get. Then again, when I was little, I was the first to "cross the lines" and went over to play at a girls house!! Must have been 2nd or 3rd grade. Got teased for it, didn't care that I wasn't" supposed to." Went over there multiple times.

80/20 rule of business.
Click to expand...

EdFred said:
I have yet to see a push saying "we need more boys doing (traditionally girl) jobs." Or a push to get boys into the girl scouts, but it did go the other direction. There is a push to emasculate everything and everyone with this whole "Penis bad, vaginas good!" I've been seeing for the past 15 years or so. And if we go any further the thread will get locked.

But I'm still not going to market my product to people that have little to no interest in it, or a very small segment. Diminishing returns and all that.
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When our kids were growing up our son was "all boy" and our daughter was "all girl". There was never any question about it. That's not to say that our daughter didn't like boy stuff. Heck, she greatly preferred camping the Boy Scout way rather than the Girl Scout way. Much more fun. But, she was definitely a girl. They're 42 and 39 now, and clearly settled into their adulthood, but that's the way it was.
 
RyanShort1 said:
In this case, using the word “boys” is probably supposed to trigger mom to think “yeah, little Johnny really does love seeing that airplane fly over in the morning and I ought to buy that for him” or something like that...
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Thank you for making my point for me. The campaign deliberately avoids triggering mom to inspire this for her *daughter*. As a result, daughters get disproportionate opportunity.

Edit: or dad.

RyanShort1 said:
Do they have a problem selling to girls? Probably not, but it’s less relevant, and therefore less appealing.
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Look... I know that this emotionless and cue-less text format in which we communicate here can be fraught with tonal pitfalls... but you just used the words "less relevant" and "less appealing" to describe girls, in particular girls in aviation. Yes, I know, you're about to assure us that you're using those words to talk about corporate financial decisions, and not a human child's inherent worth... and so I know not to take it personally or threatening. But maybe I should. Think of the harm such statements/attitudes could have, when it comes *repeatedly* from all around, from individuals and corporations both, on someone young and impressionable who is still trying to figure out how society works and what her role in it might be. Words have power. Think about how yours sound.

You say "boys are the vast majority of the market" as if that's a foregone conclusion, and that this is OK. It's not. And it's not.

Edit: I'm sorry for the thread drift, @flyingcheesehead. Usually I keep quiet about these things, but sometimes I just have to speak up.
I had one of those plastic Space Shuttles, with the cargo bay door that would open and the little plastic astronaut that you could attach to a plastic "tether". But I don't think it had retractable gear.
 
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You are reading me with an agenda, not for what I actually said. That’s ok.

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It so happens that I typically do give equal opportunities to my kids and to others’ kids. I just don’t get uptight when I see marketing that’s targeted accurately to normal statistical interest and I certainly don’t ascribe ill to those who do; because I just don’t think it is all that harmful in the long run and generally speaking trying to fix those who don’t understand isn’t worth the time as compared to doing something positive on a personal level.
 
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If the box is that offensive, toss out the box after you buy it.

I'm not out trying to sell my product to the Amish for a reason.

Why aren't ****ed off that every Oil of Olay commercial has a female in it?
 
RyanShort1 said:
If I know that 90% of the Clan Tartan fabric market is people of Scottish descent, I’m not hating on the rest of the world, I’m just marketing to the people I think are most likely to buy my wares.
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What if you could, say, market to the Scots *and* the Irish, for the EXACT SAME PRICE? You would market to the larger group, and you would make more sales, even if the Irish don't buy as much Tartan fabric as the Scots on a per capita basis.

Do they have a problem selling to girls? Probably not, but it’s less relevant, and therefore less appealing.
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It's less relevant because Peggy Sue isn't into airplanes, because her mom never bought her any, because the box said it was for boys... And round and round and round we go.

kath said:
You say "boys are the vast majority of the market" as if that's a foregone conclusion, and that this is OK. It's not. And it's not.
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This.

Edit: I'm sorry for the thread drift, @flyingcheesehead. Usually I keep quiet about these things, but sometimes I just have to speak up.
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No worries, I started it... And I'm glad you're giving your input, because it's difficult for us as men to understand this problem because we've never experienced it ourselves.

OkieFlyer said:
I don't think I've ever heard a parent advocate for advertizers to try to influence their child more.
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:rofl: You win the thread!

But since I don't have a daughter... At least, not yet... I'm not doing that either. ;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
What if you could, say, market to the Scots *and* the Irish, for the EXACT SAME PRICE? You would market to the larger group, and you would make more sales, even if the Irish don't buy as much Tartan fabric as the Scots on a per capita basis.
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And that's a good argument... and I'm ok with that.
It's less relevant because Peggy Sue isn't into airplanes, because her mom never bought her any, because the box said it was for boys... And round and round and round we go.
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That, we don't actually know. With all the analytics available these days, what if they DID do a marketing campaign for girls and airplanes and found that they lost money on advertising, or had less than x% click through rate and just made a decision to spend their $$$ where it was effective?

Again, I'm fine with my daughter having toy airplanes (She does) and I do think there are better ways to market that are inclusive, but judging their marketing strategy as harmful is a place I don't think we should go.
 
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