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Largest Wing Span on a Remote Controlled Airplane
16K views
Dec 12, 2024
James Whomsley, the brains behind Project Air, has created this 19 ft wingspan on a remote-controlled airplane.
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this airplane is going to be the largest
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RC plane I've ever built it's going to
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have loads of wing area loads of lift
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and it's going to be very
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lightweight engineering YouTuber James
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is attempting to build a glider fitted
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with a powerful solid fuel engine which
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is usually intended for large model
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rockets James plans are inspired by 1950
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J X design of a small glider powered by
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a Long Barn rocket motor 3 2 1
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wow James is experimenting with
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different Wing shapes and tail designs
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to figure out which will work best to
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successfully launch the glider before he
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adds the rocket the final aim is to
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manually launch the craft then remotely
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fire the rocket engine to gain height
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before the craft returns safely to the
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ground and if that didn't sound
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complicated enough his aircraft has to
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be over 8 ft to become the new record
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holder probably the simplest rocket play
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I'll ever
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make melted the Wings off back to the
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workshop James is using a different glue
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and has created a slightly different
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Wing shape he is now ready for the next
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round of
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tests look at
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that oo very nice safety glasses on now
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[Music]
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oh look at
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that that's working
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beautifully very very nice oh it's doing
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aerobatics and everything
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woo oh oh it's going into the other
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field oh dear hope that didn't take out
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a sheep or
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anything right we've learned quite a lot
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from that prototype now what we need to
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do is go back to the workshop and figure
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out how to scale it up to make it giant
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size James's main problem is making a
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design which is light but also strong
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enough to fly the design is using
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lightweight carbon fiber tubes as well
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as light ply and Bolter wood to make a
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traditional Wing structure the aim is to
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create a wingspan of 19
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[Music]
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ft you should name it the albatross why
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cuz they have a big wingspan just
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discovered we had too many Wing ribs so
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I've removed one it's the problem with
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winging it with the wing structure
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completed it is time to move on to the
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next step big the entire Wing is being
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recovered in a lightweight material to
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hopefully make the wing stronger he is
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carefully assembling each element
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together completing the
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wing next step is the tail panels built
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similar to the wings and arranged in a
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vtail position following closely to the
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design of the original jet X prototype
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next James builds the midle which will
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hold any electrical components needed
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for the remote controlling of The
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Craft taada out at last right let's go
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and see if it flies the wind is so
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powerful right so we've already
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discovered that a few things are not as
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strong as we want it to be but this test
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is all going to be about just seeing
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whether the thing actually
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[Music]
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flies
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oh yes that was about two well 2/10 of a
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second of
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flight
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whoa oh oh no oh no oh God
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oh oh no oh
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[Music]
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no well it did something back to the
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drawing board James had made a stronger
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connector for the tail despite it still
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looking a little unstable James has
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decided to power on and wire up the
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design for its first official test
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flight release
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[Music]
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well we thought that might happen the
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Wing's intact ah yep the Wing's okay I
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think we need to make it stronger
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sacrifice the weight make it stronger
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that was uh I fear quite inevitable with
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this new conclusion James goes back to
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his Workshop to make it stronger and
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more stable for the next
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flight yes
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oh yes
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finally what a relief no problems
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whatsoever with everything going
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smoothly James is taking a lot of
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practice
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flights yeah yeah yeah
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throw now time to add the rocket
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James is recycling an old carbon fiber
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model rocket which will be a very strong
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[Music]
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option right well we've finally got
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everything ready for the first test
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flight with the rocket engines we've put
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tin foil all over the uh the tail so
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that it doesn't get scorched off Emma's
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been doing all of the igniters and all
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the soldering and doing all of the final
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wiring on the the systems inside the
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aircraft I'm very nervous this has taken
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so long this is the biggest airplane
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I've ever built that's what all of this
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is about though it's about pushing the
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boundaries and to challenge yourself in
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an engineering way and meet the goals
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that you set out at the beginning of the
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project you need to remember to drive at
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5 m
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hour so we are going to do two test
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flights the first one's going to be the
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smaller rocket size and then the second
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rocket engine is the massive one which
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is uh going to be quite might
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spectacular hopefully so if the first
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one works then we'll
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progress plugging igniter in we're going
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to aim for sort of those trees over
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there yep saf going you got it yeah yeah
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good point of of
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contact okay and then we're going to
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start walking
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forwards
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okay yeah keep going keep going keep
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going keep going keep going keep going
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keep going now
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[Music]
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yes okay coming down going to try and
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land it in the other
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field establishing Glide slope
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that worked so well that work better
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than I thought it was going to actually
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oh my goodness so we've gone about 188 M
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away yeah what a spectacular
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flight going to feel this in my
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shoulders tomorrow okay ready walk
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forward run run run run run run
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[Music]
7:44
[Music]
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run Bring It Around coming in for a
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landing
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oh
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yes that was brilliant that was
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absolutely fantastic can't actually
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believe that
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works and James has successfully broken
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the record with the largest wingspan
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being 5.9 m
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[Music]
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