I had several of those old diecast airplanes in that photo above. Seeing them brought a few back to memory.

And that link to the 1979 Estes catalog... Oh boy. Those rockets looked so futuristic to me when I was 9 years old. I drooled over them, having never actually seen one fly. Eventually bought a kit, and it was something with multi-part angular balsa wings, which ensured I would never complete a flight worthy model.

And finally got to see someone else fly a model rocket. It was over in 1 second, then the parachute carried the model way off into the trees. Nothing like the glory of my imagination. I never thought about model rockets again.

Round about 1960, there were little bags of assorted airplanes,
moulded in coloured polyethylene, that you could buy for less
than a buck. I can't remember the details, a plastic bag of maybe
15 planes, each no more than 1.5" largest dimension, in a variety
of colours. There must have been over 100 different kinds, and they
were packed effectively randomly, so you would always find some
new ones in the bags, which you could inspect before buying. They
were simple moulded parts, so no biplanes, but other than that
pretty much any type was there, though they mainly featured military;
and each one had the name, and couple of interesting facts, either
country, or LxW, or year of introduction written under the wing. They
were all the rage for a little while, and we learned the names and
shapes of a lot of aircraft from them. I think they were around for
quite a few years after that... Ah, see, everything reappears on the
net:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N442Ou9FiNo/VK...Miniatures.jpg

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/ODI5WDExMjg=/z/niIAAOxyThVTYctx/$_57.JPG

I forgot about this one. My oldest brother had it but I confiscated the board pieces and played with them.

Ha ha, I had that game. Loop and Barrel Roll cards, what fun.

Current score:


Nieuport 28 1

Albatros D.V 0

Too bad about your experience with the rockets - I had tons of fun with them. Building them was fun, then to see something I built fly was cool. And the flights could last only a few seconds, but when they "woosh" off the ground, and then go up a couple hundred feet with a white trail of smoke, it was just cool to watch. You're anxiously awaiting the parachute deployment, and when that works, you have to chase them down.

And of course things could get interesting when something went wrong, which happened plenty of times. That added to the excitement - would it work? Would I recover it? I remember one rocket I launched that used a D-sized engine - the largest available in retail at the time - and it went waaaay up, and then the parachute deployed. Well, the parachute was connected to the nose cone, and the nose cone was connected to the body of the rocket by a rubber band. The rubber band broke, so the bulk of the rocket just fell straight down, while the nose cone drifted for over a mile.

One of my first rockets I painted gray because it's the only color of spray paint I had. It launched but didn't go straight up, and shot off to one direction, so we all ran in the direction it went, trying to find it. We looked and looked and couldn't find it, then realized a gray post we had been ignoring was the rocket stuck in the ground, nose first. Luckily, it didn't hit anyone

Had the "Flying Aces" cockpit, shot many an imaginary plane down with that thing.

Also had the Flying Aces Attack Carrier with two Corsairs and the Night Rescue Chutes Away.

Wow, what a blast from the past. I had those as a kid. Probably been at at least 40 years since I saw those. loved playing with them.

Aviation toys from my youth... Hmmm...

I had a crazy uncle Leo give me one of these:


Gosh, it seems like centuries ago...

You should've asked him for the painting of that girl with the duckface... heard it's worth more than 200 bucks now!

Seems like just the thing to get you out when
you've been buried by sand dunes...

Still have this (was actually my older brothers before being handed down, 80s child here) but we still use them. I usually use my Bounty Hunter Leia or Bespin Luke Skywalker figures as the parachutists! Still getting there moneys worth today with my daughter and nephew....

I also have my 80s GI Joe jets/helos but I don't let the kids play with those yet (couple more years).

Lots of Schuco toys, one of those:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6AJfOZXm7s

Also hundreds of Airfix and Revell WW1 and WW2 models, then SciFi ..

I hated the Airfix B17, while it was such a nice package and (real) plane, the Airfix plastic quality was unbelievably sub-par (it did not fit, it did not glue).
Like a lot of english things made at the time ..

My favorite one was the Dareplane. I absolutely loved it!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7NtM56mOc

You could also do loops, stalls and other stuff.

I had a die cast 1/35 scale ME-109 and spitfire.

Never saw that one. Lol, it would have never been allowed in the house though.


Wheels

I had something like the Dareplane. It was Snoopy vs. the Red Baron toy. It was like the Vetibird, but it had Snoopy on his flying dog house. Wore the thing out.

Slot car tracks, Hot Wheel tracks, push rod hockey games, model airplanes, etc.. We had great toys.

It was never allowed outside my bedroom, where it fit perfectly. The one in this video looks spacier than it actually was. Maybe it's camera optics or something like that...

Another video of this unfortunately rare toy...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfmKtavne4