The Childrens Museum of Indianapolis - Sled

Flexible Flyer is a toy and recreational equipment brand, best known for the sled of the same name, a steerable wooden sled with steel runners.

Operation

Flexible Flyers are flexible both in design and usage. Riders may sit upright on the sled or lie on their stomachs, allowing the possibility to descend a snowy slope feet-first or head-first. To steer the sled, riders may either push on the wooden cross piece with their hands or feet, or pull on the rope attached to the wooden cross-piece. Shifting the cross-piece one way or the other causes the flexible rails to bend, turning the sled.

History

Samuel Leeds Allen

patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

the Flexible Flyer in 1889 in Cinnaminson, New Jersey using local children and adults to test prototypes. Allen's company flourished by selling these speedy and yet controllable sleds at a time when others were still producing

toboggans A toboggan is a simple sled traditionally used by children. It is also a traditional form of transport used by the Innu and Cree of northern Canada. In modern times, it is used on snow to carry one or more people (often children) down a hil ...

and "gooseneck" sleds. Allen began producing sleds in his farm equipment factory to keep his workers busy even when it was not the farm season. He developed many prototypes before he created the Flexible Flyer. The sleds did not sell well until he began marketing them to the toy departments of department stores. In 1915, around 120,000 Flexible Fliers were sold, and almost 2,000 Flexible Flyers were sold in one day. In 1968, Leisure Group of Los Angeles, California bought the S. L. Allen Company. Leisure Group continued to produce Flexible Flyers in Medina, Ohio. In 1973, a group of private investors bought Leisure Group's toy division and started manufacturing the sleds under the name "Blazon Flexible Flyer" in West Point, Mississippi. In 1993, Roadmaster purchased the rights to production and moved production to Olney, Illinois, and in 1998, production was moved to China. , Flexible Flyers are mostly made in China and some are made in South Paris, Maine by Paricon, Inc.

Examples

File:Flexible Flyer on Tree.jpg, Flexible Flyer leaning against a tree File:Flexible Flyers in Snow.jpg, Flexible Flyers in the snow File:Boy on snow sled, 1945.jpg, Boy on a Flexible Flyer, 1945

References

External links

About Paricon SledsU.S. Patent 408,681Biographical information about Samuel L. Allen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flexible Flyer American inventions Sledding Sports equipment Sliding vehicles