Awesome Flying

Drone pilot Captain Vanover takes us on a thrilling acrobatic flight through the woods of Oregon with the Portland FPV crew. Be aware, though – the tumbles, rolls, and spins through the trees might make you dizzy. Watch in 4K if you can.

JLaserVideo has been trying for years to build a version of Iron Man’s armor that could actually fly. After a major failure, he’s finally achieved that dream. He started out with a pair of custom electric jets but settled on a ridiculous number of smaller electric motors. And when the suit isn’t being worn, its parts fly to him.

The Chicago Cubs enlisted the drone experts at Sky Candy Studios to take us on a unique aerial tour of Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The flight starts out over the Red Line elevated train, zooming through Murphy’s Bleachers, around the park, into the stands, through the scoreboard, along the ivy, and into the Cubs’ modern clubhouse.

A typical rubber band airplane is maybe a foot long. Project Air took the idea of a rubber band-powered plane and supersized it to create a lightweight foam board and carbon fiber flyer with an 11-foot wingspan. The trickiest part was getting its eight propellers to all start at the same time.

The Death Star trench run scene in Star Wars is one of the best action sequences ever – and it was created with practical effects. Star Wars fan Petr N replicated the scene by taking his FPV X-Wing drone for a treacherous flight through a drainage ditch. He’s also got a speeder bike.

A paramotor is a single-person flying machine with a parachute wing to keep it aloft and a large fan to propel it. Aviation buff Peter Sripol wanted to see if it was possible to create a version powered by a bunch of individual drone motors instead, and as you can see from the thumbnail, he succeeded. It’s insanely loud, though.

Electromagnets can be very powerful. They’ve even been used to get roller coasters and trains rolling and to launch fighter jets. Tom Stanton made a miniature system of homebrew linear synchronous motors which use electromagnetism to propel a small sled and launch various items including a hot dog and a paper airplane.

Peter Sripol teamed up with FliteTest to build a massive R/C airplane out of foam. After launching the 34-foot-wide plane to the skies, the plane participated in the annual FliteFest battle royale, where hundreds of model airplanes compete until only one remains. Not enough time to watch the build? Skip right to the battle.

Released in 1952, the de Havilland Comet was the world’s first commercial jetliner. Sadly, engineers did not know at that point that a seemingly innocuous feature – square windows – would doom the pioneering plane and many people’s lives. Real Engineering explains the physics, and how we ended up with oval windows.

Pilot Stefan Langer takes us on a fly-along in his single-seat glider, as he gets tugged along a runway and uses winds to carry his plane into the mountains of Austria. Around the 12-minute mark, he reaches the edge of the alpine range, eventually passing over the ski resorts of the Kitzsteinhorn and Hintertuxer glaciers.

Flying through the air is one of the most common powers wielded by superheroes and supervillains. Insider takes a look at the history of flying characters in TV and movies, and how improvements in special effects and stunt techniques have led to more and more believable flight on screen.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a manta ray?!? Robotics company Festo turned up at a convention with this unique and amazing metallic drone that moves through the air like it’s swimming underwater. It can be seen flying alongside a pair of chrome dolphins in this video.

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Wingsuit flyer Jeb Corliss has flown into some very tight places. He recently dropped into the Italian Dolomites, where he zoomed into an area known as the Death Star Run. Though Jeb didn’t use The Force, and there wasn’t a vulnerability in the mountain’s thermal exhaust port. Here’s a 360º view of the same location.

While floating through the air on a paraglider, this man was joined by another air traveler – a big old vulture. The bird took a moment to rest its wings in mid-air, landing on the glider’s frame and checking out the pilot’s feet. Astute viewers will notice the leather band on the vulture’s leg, so it was probably trained to do this.

For aviation safety reasons, there are strict limits on how high you can fly a drone. But the guys at IronMan FPV got special permission from local authorities to take their DJI FPV drone to an altitude of 4500 meters – or nearly 15,000 feet. They put it into a freefall at around 3:13 to save battery on the way back down.

Tom Scott took to the skies to fly with a gaggle of geese. Thanks to microlight pilot Christian of FlywithBirds, they became unofficial members of the flock and got close enough to touch them by flying at the same speed. Not only are the geese unafraid of his aircraft, they treat Christian as a member of their family.

Jet packs might seem like a novelty, but this video from Gravity shows how their jet suits could save lives. With poor visibility that would ground helicopters, Company founder Richard Browning flew to the summit of a 3100-foot mountain to simulate a rescue mission, getting a medic on the scene in less than 4 minutes.

There’s nothing funny about in-flight safety. Except for the in-flight safety spoof Ryan Reynolds made for British Airways, now serving Aviation American Gin. “I’ve tried every gin on the planet, and it is, hands down, the best,” says Reynolds. “Also, I don’t recommend trying every gin on the planet; just stick with this one.”

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.

We already know that the view from a helicopter’s spinning rotor can be incredibly dizzying. That’s why we’re happy that Chuck Aaron Aerobatics recorded this blade spin POV at 240 fps, then slowed it to 30 fps, giving us a more digestible look at what a helicopter blade sees as it takes to the skies.

We’re still waiting for the jetpacks that sci-fi stories promised, but flying cars are here. AirCar Prototype 1 has received a Certificate of Airworthiness with production models due in 2023. The push of a button transforms the two-seater between car and aircraft modes in three minutes.

We’ve seen an eye-popping top-down perspective of the Pyramids of Giza before. Now witness this world wonder from a different angle, as Red Bull athletes Fred Fugen, Vincent Cotte, and Mike Swanson fly incredibly close to the Pyramid of Khafre thanks to their streamlined new wingsuits.