Awesome Airplanes

We’ve seen some big remote-controlled airplanes, but this tiny flyer sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. Joe Malinchak built this minuscule R/C tri-plane with a 1.5″ wingspan. It weighs just one gram, and in addition to its tiny motor, it has a working rudder mechanism for steering. Watch it fly at the 3-minute mark.

After taking a soaking in a water gun fight, maker Handy Geng decided he and his kids needed to step up their game. So he got to work building a ridiculous motorcycle that looks like a fighter jet and loaded it with high-power water guns and wing gunner seats for his kids. The other children don’t stand a chance.

This 5000-passenger nuclear-powered flying cruise ship would have numerous observation decks and a massive entertainment area with a shopping mall, theaters, restaurants, and swimming pools. Concept artist Tony Holmsten came up with the idea, while Hashem Al-Ghaili animated and expanded on the design.

Etsy seller PlanePieces makes all kinds of home accessories and decor from used airplane parts. These aluminum tea light candle holders got their start as pistons from a Continental Motors engine from a Piper J-3 Cub, a single-engine airplane that dates back to the 1940s. Makes a great gift for an aviation enthusiast.

This pure-electric jet plane can take off and land without a runway. The Lilium Jet can transition from hover to airplane mode once airborne, using a proprietary Ducted Electric Vectored Thrust Jet that can transition between vertical and horizontal. The aircraft shown in the video is their 5th-generation test vehicle.

If you’re going to take a tour of Ohio’s National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, it might as well be from the air, right? Well, thanks to NURK FPV, we can take a first-person drone flight through the museum’s awesome collection of aviation marvels without having to leave home.

While taking an ultralight for a scenic flight, pilot Romain Jantot and his passenger were greeted by an unexpected companion. Apparently, this cat decided to crawl inside the airplane’s wing before take-off and got a free flight out of the deal. The kitty seemed relatively unphased by the wind and altitude.

Aviation buffs, decorate your space with these playful cylindrical ottomans from Airportag. One looks like the engine from a jet airplane, while the other looks like landing gear. Each one has a washable polyester cover wrapped around a zippered insert filled with polystyrene beads. They measure 13″ across by 20.5″ high.

ViralVideoLab shows off a 3D-printed glider which is able to remain airborne when its frame is covered with a film of water and dish soap. The surface tension creates a temporary wing covering and provides the proper amount of resistance to keep it aloft. Here’s an alternative design with a different wing structure.

Filmmaker Dustin Farrell captured this awe-inspiring footage of an F-22 Raptor aircraft as it was piloted through the skies by Maj. Joshua “Cabo” Gunderson. The 1000 FPS Phantom Flex4K slow-motion video shows every minute detail of the wake turbulence left behind by the fighter and its powerful jets.

Airportag makes lots of fun products inspired by by airports and aviation. Among our favorites are their rugs, including a top-down airport map, a long and skinny runway runner, and a round one that looks like a jet engine. Each one is printed on a soft woven polyester chenille and is easy to clean.

Rolls-Royce shared this brief, but fascinating look at the process of building one of its Pearl 15 jet engines at their factory in Germany. Each engine is assembled by hand by a team of skilled mechanics out of thousands of individual components. This particular engine was later attached to a Bombardier Global 6500 business jet.

The flight between Scotland’s Papa Westray and Westray islands is incredibly short, covering a distance of 2 kilometers in less than 90 seconds. But it does actually serve a purpose. Tom Scott took flight, and let San Denby from Wendover Productions narrate instead of annoying people on the flight with his own explanation.

Most airplanes do just fine with one to four engines. But that didn’t stop the guys at FliteTest, their pal Peter Sripol, and a team of volunteers from building a remote-controlled plane with 25 engines on each of its wings. The massive foam and cardboard plane has a wingspan of 30 feet. We’re amazed it could lift its own weight.

RC aircraft enthusiast Troy McMillan spent countless hours planning, designing, 3D printing, and assembling a scale model of a jumbo jet. Here, he shares the time-consuming build process, its maiden flight, and tragic demise after a battery failure rendered his flight controller useless.

We’ve caught glimpses inside of airplane cockpits, mostly when boarding or deplaning. In this video from Bjornpilot, he takes us on a tour of the flight crew rest quarters, the avionics bay, and part of the cargo hold of an Airbus 350 jumbo jet. The sheer amount of computer equipment and wiring down there is incredible.

Built for the Russian Air Force by Rostvertol, the Mil Mi-26 is an enormous helicopter designed for heavy lifting. With a maximum takeoff weight of more than 123,000 pounds, pilots show off the copter’s skills by lifting a Tupolev 134 jet. There’s an awesome photo of another Mi-26 doing the same on Twitter.

When we think of how trains get their locomotion, it’s typically from diesel engines, electric motors, or maybe steam power. But there was a time when train builders thought they could make railroad cars go faster by fitting them with airplane engines. Curious Droid has the story behind these forgotten relics.

Developed by North American Aviation back in the late 1950s for the U.S. Air Force and NASA, the X-15 was an experimental aircraft that could achieve speeds up to Mach 6.7. Real Engineering delves into the history of this rocket-powered plane, and the innovations and technologies that allowed it fly at insane speeds and altitudes.

Aviation enthusiast Viktor built a custom machine that can make identical copies of paramotor propellers. Area28 shared this video that shows how it works by the form of the original, much like one of those machines they use to copy keys. Skip to 6:10 for the money shot.

(Gore) You never want to stand directly in front of a jet engine, as its powerful vortex could suck you right into it. CG animator atomic marvel used a physics simulation to toss a particle-based digital body into an Airbus jet engine. We’re not sure about its accuracy, but the results are much like those Will It Blend? videos.

Scientists needing to access Antarctica’s Troll Research Station used to have to travel by boat and on foot to access their outpost. These days, airplanes make the trip easier, but there’s nothing easy about the preparation needed to land a jumbo jet on a runway built on the slick blue ice of a glacier. Flightradar24 explains.

Airplane enthusiast Peter Sripol’s followers gave him a challenge: Could he build an airplane that’s entirely propelled by PC cooling fans? After testing a few different fans and configurations, he came up with a lightweight design he was satisfied with. We wonder if it could be scaled up with more fans and batteries.