Do you like to tinker? Do you have a creative streak that needs more than the occasional sketch to satisfy? Then do we have an idea for you…and you can even see an attempt or two made in this video! Think about a leaf blower for a second. What is it, really? It’s a jet engine that uses thrust to send the leaves your oak tree dumps by the metric ton into neat little piles that you can bag up easily enough. It’s also a device that can irritate your neighbor into a fury over the noise, the fast way to freak out your pets, and with a little bit of handiwork, some remote-control airplane servo motors, enough understanding of aerodynamics to make appropriate wings and control surfaces, and some plain old weight reduction, you can actually turn the leaf blower that the HOA keeps bitching about year after year into a remote control aircraft.

Do these guys make it? Well…kind of. It does fly, for sure. But could it be better? One of the neat things popping up in the comments involves the mechanical work one can do to the engine to hop it up to add more power to overcome a power-to-weight ratio that is still pretty bad, even after the first round of modifications. This would be an interesting follow-up project, or maybe something one of you would like to try?