Friday, October 17, 2008

Chocks away: The 1914 Aerothrust.

In the early 1900s. Aerothrust engines were built in Chicago and then LaPointe, Ill between 1913 and 1919 and was was better known for its line of "Your Fishin' Pal" outboard motors.
Priced at $50.00 each and weighing a little under 50 lbs the Areothrust engines were sold to the consumer under the pretext that it could turn any canoe, snow sled-or in this case bicycle-into and efficient pusher prop machine. But in reality they had the effect of a really big fan but with very little pushing power given the noise. The dangerous little 4-stroke beasts ranged from 1.5 to 3 hp.
Pict via: roberts tech

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wonder why these didn't catch on, I can't see any problem with having a giant slicing machine moving around unprotected in public :)