What an absolutely amazing sight. That turn at 2:30, it's incredible how small the turning radius is, it's going that slow. I could watch that plane soar all day. Thank you for posting this video.
I'm surprised the rear end of the fuselage was an open skeleton instead of being covered like the wings and tail. Wouldn't that significantly interfere with the airflow?
It does, but this airplane is so light that it would also upset the balance, even a little weight that far back has a huge effect on where the center of mass is.
"The lasting memory is not of flight in the modern sense of acceleration, power and performance. It is of how impossibly slow this aeroplane flies, and how absolutely improbable it is that such a machine can actually levitate above the ground."
It was also two teenagers who, some 50 years earlier, came up with the idea of flying machines and the aerodynamics of wings in the first place:
The brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal were watching the storks take flight in the meadows of Mecklenburg in the 1850s. And it made them think, “We could do that, too, if we only had wings like that”.
Of course, Otto died in a crash of one of his motorless flying machines in 1891, I believe. But the Wright brothers saw the eulogy in the paper… and the rest is history.
I'm trying to imagine what a bunch of teenagers could do today to get a similar sense of accomplishment. Note that they weren't even doing particularly well at grade school.
My greatgrandmother (born in 1891) left grade school in 6th grade for similar reasons. The real reason she was taken out was "money". (This was rural Indiana about 1903.) She finished her own education through what you might call a master's program by studying her brothers' texts. It was an unwise person who assume her lack of formal education meant anything about her intelligence or informal education.
It is so unfortunate that flying has such a credentialist mafia holding it back from more widespread use. Imagine if motorcycles had even half the regulations to ride as single seater aircraft do. Such a ridiculous state of affairs.
Depends on the aircraft, current ultralights that you don't need to drop $100,000 to get licensed for can only weigh 250 lbs, while motorcycles don't really have a limit and can weight over 1,000 lbs, approaching the weight of a Cessna 152. And when you account for crash scenarios, yeah the rider is at risk in both, but the motorcycle is far more likely to be in and around other people and vehicles during a crash, while a plane is 99% of the time over clear land and even an emergency landing is unlikely to put other people at risk.
It ain't a perfect comparison, both have problems, but it is far easier to get a license to drive a truck hauling 20+ tons than to get a license to fly a 500 pound plane, and motorcycle licenses is basically a signature and a couple bucks away.
A 200kg Kawasaki H2R can go close to 400kph on a two lane road. It is not going to cause any less damage than a single seater falling out of the sky somewhere randomly.
I don't know about other places but it doesn't look that hard and complicated to get a license to fly a sub 300kg aircraft in Europe. I believe we still call them ULM.
Please volunteer then to let inexperienced, unqualified pilots with poorly-maintained vehicles practice flying over your domicile first. This is why flying cars would never and can never work.
Here is one in flight, very recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRYdpoOakAY
Very, very cool. Two things I noticed:
- This is a real rotary engine, where the pistons and cylinders rotate about the crankshaft, and are attached to the propeller
- The pilot had to keep a constant down angle on the elevator to keep it flying level; was the C.G. right?
What an absolutely amazing sight. That turn at 2:30, it's incredible how small the turning radius is, it's going that slow. I could watch that plane soar all day. Thank you for posting this video.
Oh, I just realized why it has that very tight turning radius, but only when turning right.
It's the gyroscopic procession of the majority of engine's mass spinning, in that crazy rotary (not radial) engine!
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Yes, the turning radius is quite something. It appears that the entire vertical stabilizer is a control surface.
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I'm surprised the rear end of the fuselage was an open skeleton instead of being covered like the wings and tail. Wouldn't that significantly interfere with the airflow?
It does, but this airplane is so light that it would also upset the balance, even a little weight that far back has a huge effect on where the center of mass is.
"The lasting memory is not of flight in the modern sense of acceleration, power and performance. It is of how impossibly slow this aeroplane flies, and how absolutely improbable it is that such a machine can actually levitate above the ground."
https://speedreaders.info/32045-the-vandersarl-bleriot-a-cen...
It was also two teenagers who, some 50 years earlier, came up with the idea of flying machines and the aerodynamics of wings in the first place:
The brothers Otto and Gustav Lilienthal were watching the storks take flight in the meadows of Mecklenburg in the 1850s. And it made them think, “We could do that, too, if we only had wings like that”.
Of course, Otto died in a crash of one of his motorless flying machines in 1891, I believe. But the Wright brothers saw the eulogy in the paper… and the rest is history.
George Cayley would beg to differ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cayley
(or Leonardo da Vinci, for that matter)
There was also the dude in Brazil and another in France
Reminded me of this book: https://archive.org/details/borednothingtodo0000spie
And the magnificent movie "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes)
Released 1965
> Set in 1910, the film follows a fictitious air race from London to Paris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Magnificent_Men_in_Their...
Trailer: https://youtu.be/LPlRxXmQ8xM
The Shuttleworth Collection in England has some of the aircraft from that film in flying condition.
They also have a working Blériot XI — the world’s oldest flying aircraft:
https://www.shuttleworth.org/discover/collection/aircraft/bl...
If the weather is good they fly these for the public every summer. It is a wonderful show.
This was one of my favorite movies growing up. It made me want to get into aerospace stuff. This and star wars.
I'm trying to imagine what a bunch of teenagers could do today to get a similar sense of accomplishment. Note that they weren't even doing particularly well at grade school.
My greatgrandmother (born in 1891) left grade school in 6th grade for similar reasons. The real reason she was taken out was "money". (This was rural Indiana about 1903.) She finished her own education through what you might call a master's program by studying her brothers' texts. It was an unwise person who assume her lack of formal education meant anything about her intelligence or informal education.
I have a typing diploma and a driving license so I can relate, though I was born a little bit later.
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To be fair building an aeroplane today would still be a pretty good sense of accomplishment, although they'd probably get arrested afterwards.
And there's building a (non-replica) plane out of cardboard: https://youtu.be/CTEYcDU91p8
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It is so unfortunate that flying has such a credentialist mafia holding it back from more widespread use. Imagine if motorcycles had even half the regulations to ride as single seater aircraft do. Such a ridiculous state of affairs.
You don’t think there are any noteworthy differences between a motorcycle and an aircraft in the sort of damage it can do and where?
Depends on the aircraft, current ultralights that you don't need to drop $100,000 to get licensed for can only weigh 250 lbs, while motorcycles don't really have a limit and can weight over 1,000 lbs, approaching the weight of a Cessna 152. And when you account for crash scenarios, yeah the rider is at risk in both, but the motorcycle is far more likely to be in and around other people and vehicles during a crash, while a plane is 99% of the time over clear land and even an emergency landing is unlikely to put other people at risk.
It ain't a perfect comparison, both have problems, but it is far easier to get a license to drive a truck hauling 20+ tons than to get a license to fly a 500 pound plane, and motorcycle licenses is basically a signature and a couple bucks away.
A 200kg Kawasaki H2R can go close to 400kph on a two lane road. It is not going to cause any less damage than a single seater falling out of the sky somewhere randomly.
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Some people thought there weren't. They are not here to tell their tale anymore.
I don't know about other places but it doesn't look that hard and complicated to get a license to fly a sub 300kg aircraft in Europe. I believe we still call them ULM.
It is even easier to fly a powered paraglider.
This qualifies as a microlight:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42
And it flies pretty good. Not cheap though, 40 to 50K.
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Please volunteer then to let inexperienced, unqualified pilots with poorly-maintained vehicles practice flying over your domicile first. This is why flying cars would never and can never work.