Friday, May 6, 2016

Oh, So You're Wanting Some Blowaway?? (video)

How about a 1/3-scale Me 262 RC aircraft equipped with jet turbines and onboard cams.



Caution:  extremely high-pitch sound due to the jet turbines which spin up to over 100K rpms at maximum power.


There is significant time before it flies for putting the wings back on it after travel, etc.  Flight preparation for this monster must be one formidable undertaking but consider the result ... whew, amazing.

You can't play this game except for big, big bucks and I have no interest in trying it but I was curious as to what it takes.

The biggest single cost has got to be the jet turbines as I located some this morning which retail new for somewhat less than five thousand dollars each.  I have not investigated the retractible landing gear but equipment of that nature is de rigueur with this crowd.  Regardless of the cost of that kit, this aircraft is already one high-ticket piece of merchandise and it's not even wired yet.  Who knows what the electronics must cost.

Hopefully it did blow you away but those turbines will sure blow something away for sure since the ones I saw this morning developed fifty-four pounds of thrust each.


If the Me-262 one didn't do it for you, perhaps this one will since it presents a smorgasbord of Giant RC aircraft at what must be an old military airstrip at RAF Cosford.




The video should start at 8:13 with the Vulcan bomber, my personal favorite since I saw a low-level flyover by one when I was a wee lad and I was there with Doc and my parents.  There were four more sibs but most were virtual at that point.  That flyover was an incredible thing to behold and it sure impressed at least one wee lad.

If you back up the video from the Vulcan, you will find the DeHavilland Comet, considered by many to be the most beautiful aircraft ever built.  Unfortunately, due to metal fatigue, it had a habit of blowing up at high altitude and this deterred the tourist trade, at least by a hundred or so people each time.

The cause was discovered quickly and remedied but the public never regained any trust in the aircraft and it was retired not long after.

Note:  most of this stuff is off the top of my head as the love of elegant aircraft comes down from my ol' Dad.  I won't keep firing them out here but another on that list is the Lockheed Constellation.  That bird may have been the last of the big four-engine turboprops as the Boeing 707 came out around about that time and that was the end of turboprops.  In some ways, it's a bit sad.

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