On a wing and a prayer …

On a wing and a prayer …

Yes, you’re seeing that right. This inventor has strapped on a wooden, built-up wing and turbine jet and is taking a little test-flight to check things out. He appears to be using  an RC surface radio for control. You can see his wing and power pack in the taxi test video, and then the first test-flight video below. At least he has a helmet on; it’s always good to put safety first!

On a wing and a prayer ...

And the taxi tests here (with a greatly improved view of his wing/power pack):

 

A portion of the wing, before covering:

On a wing and a prayer ...

Updated: July 20, 2015 — 10:10 AM

13 Comments

  1. How does he control yaw?
    I hope he does not drop his transmitter if he ever get this thing in the air.
    Looks like something we will be reading about in the news.

  2. He’s gonna die a horrible death. Probably sooner rather than later.

  3. He is crazy!! But I hope he achieves his goal. He seems to have plenty of power. Be interesting to know what kind of turbine he is using…………

  4. This is about the best way I can think of to break your neck.

  5. This is a disaster in the making. I have been a professional Aero Engineer since 1965 and a modeler all my life. His lack of directional stability and control is going to result in terrible flight qualities if he ever gets it off the ground. The modern flying wings, stealth bomber, etc. don’t have vertical tails – but – they have been carefully crafted based on wind tunnel data. The airfoils are exacting. Hanging a human body under a square format wing doesn’t hack it. If he is deadly serious about this he should make a small RC model and see if it is possible to control it. He can use Gyros to add artificial stabilization to it to see if it helps. But as I see it I am totally afraid of what is going to happen. Please be careful…….

  6. Drop th transmitter? Man, would that suck!

  7. Sorry but this looks like a total set-up. couple good shots and videos of the “invention”, some test runs…then a video where it works comes out! but in reality it will be a model that looks like what we’ve been watching. doesn’t really have anything to do with RC aircraft in my opinion.

  8. The best we can hope for is that this guy will never reproduce! You just can’t fix stupid. If he ever gets this thing in the air he is going to die a horrible fiery death.

  9. Another great candidate for the darwin awards (http://www.darwinawards.com/). And then we will be surpriced why they restrict the sales of turbine engines.

  10. Any of you guys ever hear of the “Jet Man”? He has already done this for several years now. The biggest difference is he jumps out of a plane or helicopter. The last version of that one has 4 small turbines on it. This guy looks to have one of the large turbines and plans to take off and fly. Considering the lack of details in the article, it is difficult to know any real information about his final setup.

  11. Yves Rossy has been doing this for a few years and his flying wing is much much better in design and function. This guy should get in touch with Yves and pick his brain before he gets hurt.

  12. Ever see the TV show “1000 ways to die”? This guy is going to up their ratings.

  13. It appears this guy knows just enough to get himself killed in a very creative and probably spectacular way! Let me count the ways: Control by a surface radio that can be dropped, is not rated for manned flight and as a matter of fact it is not even rated for model aircraft flight. Using an RF link to control this thing is insane. Even 2.4 GHz radios have had inflight failures. Radios loose binding, reset and reboot due to power glitches etc. using the radio he is using, I seriously doubt he has any redundancy. If that doesn’t do him in using a flying wing that is at best of very questionable design and construction should do the trick. Flying this as an RC only model would no doubt prove challenging at best. Tying yourself to it and betting your life on flying it is insane! This looks so much like something from all the Pre Wright Brothers black and white Magnificent Men & Their Flying Machines movies. Most of them ended badly as well!

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