Flexible Flyer

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A Flexible Flyer sled, from 1936, within the permanent collection of The Children's Museum of
Indianapolis.

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.

Contents

1 Operation

2 History

3 Examples

4 References

5 External links

Operation

Flexible Fliers 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.[1]

History

Flexible Flyer ad from the early 1900s

Samuel Leeds Allen patented the Flexible Flyer in 1889[2] in Cinnaminson, New Jersey using local
children and adults to test prototypes.[3] Allen's company flourished by selling these speedy and yet
controllable sleds at a time when others were still producing toboggans and "gooseneck" sleds.[4]

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. As of 2012, Flexible Flyers are
mostly made in China and some are made in South Paris, Maine[5] by Paricon, Inc.[6]

Examples

Flexible Flyer leaning against a tree

Flexible Flyers in the snow

Boy on a Flexible Flyer, 1945

References

Samuel Leeds Allen patents the Flexible Flyer - Today in Philadelphia History
"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2011-02-23.

Hatala, Greg (January 7, 2014). "Made in Jersey: Flexible Flyer - The sled from south Jersey". The Star-
Ledger. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Bernard Mergen (1995). "Past play: relics, memory, and history". In Pellegrini, Anthony D. (ed.). The
future of play theory: a multidisciplinary inquiry into the contributions of Brian Sutton-Smith. SUNY
Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-7914-2641-8.

"Flexible Flyer, king of sleds, slides on". The Boston Globe. 25 December 2011.

"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2014-01-12. Retrieved 2014-01-07.

External links

About Paricon Sleds

U.S. Patent 408,681

Biographical information about Samuel L. Allen

Categories: American inventionsSleddingSports equipmentSliding vehicles

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This page was last edited on 1 January 2022, at 16:01 (UTC).

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