What an awesome project to be a part of. You did a fantastic job getting this beautiful bird in the air and busting the record. It was great to meet you out in Denver and help with the project. Congratulations on a job well done. I have a feeling we are not done with this. 😉
Josh, That's a fantastic accomplishment. You guys did an excellent job! Its so nice to see real engineering at work, and I hope everyone watching appreciates the amount of T, and E time it takes to make something of this magnitude happen. Excellent video, and great job! Vince
Great video.This reminds me of a contest I won at my junior high school free flight glider contest.All my school class launched there gliders with the wind and only flew a few feet before landing,me on the other hand,launched my glider into the wind,it went straight up than leveled out than soard across the parking lot high above the light poles and eventually landing in my future high school parking lot,a good 20 minute walk to retrieve my glider.I won the contest for gliding distance and altitude all this earned me a free chocolate milkshake.I really enjoyed it Since than I earned my private pilots certificate and mechanic A&P certificate and to this day I enjoy flying radio control model airplanes.Its been my love since I was 2 years old.Seeing videos like this are very inspiring to me and it's great to see young people doing it.Keep up the great work.I want my gravestone to have a model airplane purched above it.
@@HobiCerdas that is a very real concern we have and is part of the reason for the move back to a somewhat smaller airplane for subsequent record attempts. I'm extremely concerned about the amount of energy this rubber can store when fully wound.
whoa what an accomplishment! If anyone in the modern era is equipped to break those records I would definitely say it would be you. Your depth of knoledge in free flight and rubber power is beyond reproach.
Dethermalizer absolutely essential. Anyone questioning that does not understand thermal soaring. In Minden, Nevada I flew a GroB 103 glider to 17,400 feet and stayed aloft for 3 hours and 45 minutes. I only came down because I was freezing (not dressed appropriately, who knew?). I could have flown a lot higher (yes I was on oxygen) but the cumulus cloud base was popping at 17,000 and that held me down. I was climbing about 1,000’/minute. Never underestimate thermal lift!
In 1958 I lost a .049 FF of my own design for 3 months but somebody found it in the woods 30 miles from me and brought it back. No dethermalizer, I never expected it to fly that well.
I did that with a p30 class on my first flight and my first build of one I just wounded up about a hundred times by hand just to give it a test flight and it caught a thermal and I never got it back😂
Holy cow my heart sank when I saw that wingtip go in.... I don't know how you repaired that so fast, well done! And congrats on some awesome flights!! Here's to bringing records home!!!
Josh is a wizard with those planes. I couldn't believe how quickly he repaired it too. Huge thanks to Bernie and his great workshop. I am disappointed I didn't get to see his shop. I was up for +20 hours that day due to travel and had to go back to the hotel and get some sleep that evening.
Congratulations on such a magnificent beast! 🦅 There's a lot of lessons that can be drawn from this, and I am sure you will be back in the fray for those FAI records.
@@joshuawfinn This project is so exciting! Seeing that amount of rubber in the opening shots says it's serious. And you are the guy (with your team, of course) to go get the records!
Congratulations!! Awesome project and absolutely love bringing any record to the USA! Thought I saw you wearing the Paw hat in the flying small sailplane video. MY son is currently at Clemson playing football. Keep up the good work!
Yessir! GO TIGERS! I spent 9 years in Tiger Town on my engineering studies. Loved it up there. I had access to a 1000 acre field for testing planes. Many great memories there!
Loved this video. Amazing effort!! Reminded me of my vet and airline pilot dad in New Zealand, back in the 1950's with his Wakefield rubber powered gliders. I recall as a kid watching some of them in thermals never to be seen again.....Thank you for sharing!!! Congratulations!!!
Congrats Josh..........a far cry from a north pacific Sleek Streek....LOL thoroughly enjoyed your build and even more so watching it fly.........I started FF in 1963 and of course wanted to build the biggest D powered FF ships..........Never thought I would see such a model like this though which is truly art. Utterly fabulous!
Mike, you should definitely try a Super D sometime! I have 3 of them and they're absolutely wonderful. Mother of Pearl is a real sweetheart, as is the Astrostar.
Josh, it’s taking quite a while for my goose bumps to go down. That was beyond exciting, absolutely incredible, and simply beautiful! I can’t wait to see more of this in the future maybe in person! 👍 😊
Wow, I’m mindblown! Just shows what rubber is capable of if there’s enough of it (and a damn good plane design!) 🎉 big congrats. Thanks again for the help with my somewhat less impressive 12 second flight model haha 😂
I wonder if a DT is necessary 7 feet from earth? The flight was quite graceful and looked to be slow motion, cruising like it was indoors. If these catch on I fear a rubber shortage.
We have purely used the DT for obstacle avoidance. That was its main goal from the start, as well as aborting a flight attempt should the model begin drifting toward sensitive airspace. In terms of rubber, you would be stunned by how much is produced and consumed. It's absolutely mind boggling. This thing uses a lot, but it's not even a drop in the bucket.
Glad I finally got to watch the latest (and hopefully not last) record attempt video! CONGRATULATIONS on getting the world's largest rubber powered free flight model airplane to fly successfully! It's such a huge and majestic thing to behold. It was difficult to watch it crash, but very reassuring to see it it fly well after the repairs. Such a beautiful plane that was portrayed well in the video. Please post updates!
Wandering Eagle is gonna get up there.. All the signs are right this time, you don't have to try so very hard, if you live in this world, you're feelin' the change of the guard! Yes Sir, Wandering Eagle's about to smash the records. What's extra nice about the early lo altitude tests, incl initial test glides is that we get to see the 'ground effect'.. You need a large airframe to observe this, and airframes of this type don't come any larger than this one! I'm really enjoying the progress of this excellent project, and I forsee great things! Just be sure to double check the tracking tech pre flight.. It would be such a shame to have this majestic bird simply fly away. Thanks to all involved at J&H Aerospace and Windcatcher RC. Really impressive, and this is going to get better and better. ⭐👍
Thank you so much! Please send this to me at joshuawfinn@gmail.com and if you would like, I can include it in the article I'm writing for Free Flight Digest.
@@joshuawfinn yes, he didn’t tell me he was going, but I haven’t seen him for ages. He looks like he had some fun. What’s next on the world record breaking list?
Yes they are. You can buy hard copies through my website or get the 3 view and airfoils from the 2022 Symposium article when it was rubber model of the year.
Thinner air is not helpful, but the cold also reduces the energy capacity of the rubber. Internal combustion engines will develop less power in thinner air, but that does not afffect rubber. The airplane has to fly faster in thinner air. The propeller must turn faster, reducing the motor run time, reducing duration.
I hit the dethermalizer transmitter to keep it from hitting the pole, forgetting that the torque from the prop would roll it as soon as the wing stalled.
A lot of rubber flyers in the UK use a 'soap bubble' thermal detector plus a model windsock before launching. Looking at the Colorado skyline, the cloudscape seems to indicate quite a lot of wind-shear effect possibly affecting thermal formation.
It depends on the day. We've seen thermals that were literally miles across out there. It just varies. It's one of the top two sites in North America for strength of thermals. The fly porta potty video was filmed maybe 10 miles from there.
If you ever want to make a trek over to Utah I habe a West desert dry lake bed that produces some beautiful lift,really big right off the deck and just blooms larger passing 500.feet agl. Its a fun spot to fly and might produce some interesting results for you. Good luck this is a great project!!!
I didn't watch all of this, kind of skipped through. I am curious as to how much pull/tension there was on the wound up rubber band. I built many 'sacrificial victims' to the wind gods curing my days as a hang glider pilot. Anywhere from 4 inch to 24 inch wind spans. This looks to have been a fun project.....
At the peak loads we reached, probably 50 lb at full stretch and 25-30 during transfer of rubber to the prop shaft. I'll need a gantry to handle the loads if we pursue winding it harder.
Thanks! Not nearly as much as I expected. My dad was in the first graduating class from KU in their aeronautical engineering program. This would have been about 1945 or so. I have always been fascinated with anything that flies, but more so gliders. No motors to mess with.... @@joshuawfinn
thanks for your reply Joshua, I was just curious as I have built model aircraft from plans , and balsa wood is very expensive to buy here in England, when I started modelling in the 19,70,s at age 11 , balsawood seemed much more affordable, well done joshua ,
This is an R&D project with tremendous overhead. The cost of the materials to make the plane are a small fraction of the total. The cost of the next plane will be less and the more he makes, the unit cost will go down. The Wright brothers estimated that they spent a total of about $1,000 to get the 1903 machine to fly. Bringing that forward at a 1.04 per annumm inflation gets $110,662.56.
We had discussions about that, so far haven't found a low elevation site that doesn't present major retrieval issues should we actually get the plane up to record altitude. The search continues...
@@nzsaltflatsracer8054 are there any that don't have restricted access and airspace issues? Blackrock used to be the ideal plane for this stuff but that's all but closed now.
@@joshuawfinn Sevier dry lake in Utah is one I know that is off road & aircraft legal for sure. It's brine dirt but won't create the thermals that normal dirt will in the summer heat. Knolls recreation area off I-80 is open to everything & has a large dirt flat & sand dunes where people fly PPG's & Ultralights. Some Googling should be able to find what's useable in Nevada.
We continue to learn everyday and it is something in modelling that I would like study more is whether we scale the model or scale the physics. Not everything behaves in a linear fashion and and the margins of stability, speed & strength will require careful picking around. After all engineering is about getting the right compromises. I first thought of this with steam powered models and then scale speed as things like mach numbers are where they are and the transistion gets farther away the smaller the scale. The torsion problem is an interesting one and I started thinking about contra rotating rubber bands to balance the torque/torsion in the fuselage with a gear box for the propellor. This could reduce the torsional load overall although prop reaction would still figure in. Looking forward to this bird catching a thermal although the seasons are now moving against us until the spring, at least for us northern hemis.
@joshuawfinn Hey! Life has gotten in the way some, but I have a 3D printer now and some nice Eclipson designs. I should have a sleek sport jet up soon.
When I was a kid in the 70's I built dozens of planes similar to that design from scratch, covered in tissue but never bigger then 30", the thing was every one of my builds flew superb, I think the Wandering Eagle is the most awesome of all, the colors are pure respect for are awesome country USA. Beautiful video!!!!!!!! P/S think there's any chance of a kit version???????
Hey Joshua, don't you think that a little bit of torsional flex in the aft fuselage is actually a good thing? If the lifting horizontal stab tilts slightly away from the edge of thermal, it will cause a yawing moment turning the aircraft *into* the thermal. Great video! How about a visit to the Lost Hills Model Free Flight field in California's Central Valley in the Spring when the air is cool, the density altitude is manageable, and the thermals are booming? BTW, keep working on your 'body english' to remotely control the aircraft using telekinesis. 😉
Main thing is the up and down bending of the tailboom attachment, which is changing the incidence in flight. We talked about Lost Hills but the orchards are a problem. Current discussions are surrounding Utah, Nevada, and southern Arizona as possible locations. There's also another site in Colorado that might work well.
Congratulations, when I see massive rc models I personally would rather just fly the real thing from inside. But this really means something a massive stick and balsa plane is something every kid thinks of when they fly the first time. Have you considered being at Kill Devil on Dec. 17th to celebrate 120 years?
Yes! That's the same thought I have, huge freeflight planes are just a whole other thing and so inspiring to watch. Didn't know they were doing anything at Kittyhawk. I wish I could come, unfortunately I'm booked that week. 😢
It would also be nice to know who has delivered the balsa. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of good balsa as most of it is used to produce the blades for wind turbines.
Looks like you've got a real shot at bagging some records with this one! Have you guys considered using a couple smoke generators upwind to better assess thermal conditions? Smoke systems on ag planes work great to determine wind direction better than streamers and detecting low level thermals that affect our application. I've watched smoke lay on the ground on one edge of a field and a quarter mile away it's already heading for the stratosphere...
@@joshuawfinn If you'd like a handheld unit that could be powered from a small portable generator, I'd suggest the "rocket" from pea soup. It uses the same non-toxic water based smoke juice that fog machines use, but it's an industrial version meant to simulate smoke for firefighters and whatnot. Not what I'd consider cheap, but maybe you could swing a sponsorship or something? In our planes, we simply pump smoker oil straight into the exhaust using a Compro smoker system. It's the same type of system that aerobatic planes and skywriters use, but it can also be used on virtually any engine...car, truck, ATV, generator, lawnmower, etc. Rather than spending a ton of money on a STC'd certified part, you can make one of your own with a cheap 12V fuel pump, a gas can plumbed with a small hose going to the pump, and then a small nozzle in the exhaust to pump the oil into. If installing in a vehicle, inject the oil past the cat converter and any O2 sensors to prevent damage. It'll pass through the muffler and beyond indefinitely with no ill effect. Flip a switch to turn the smoke on, and as long as you're pumping oil into the exhaust it'll keep on generating smoke. You could drive a vehicle upwind back and forth so you'll have a "wall" of smoke to visualize any thermals or dead air heading your way. Wait until you see a particularly high column of smoke heading you way and launch into it. Alternatively, go to harbor freight and pick up a few of the cheapest pull start engines for pumps/generators, or source them used locally, rig them up with a little smoke system, line a few upwind of you, and just let them run for a while until you see a good thermal heading your way. A little engine like that can be rigged up with a pump up chemical sprayer and a brass hose barb pinched down to use as a nozzle, total cost might be $30-40 plus the engine. Kitplanes has an article about how to build your own "$250 smoke system" that you could use to get an idea of what you might need to rig up a vehicle for that purpose. It doesn't have to be to the same standards and you could probably make something comparable for under $100. You'd benefit from more oil capacity though, since my 1.5gal tank doesn't last all that long even when I'm using it sparingly in short little bursts. A fuel tank for a small boat might be just the ticket to fill with oil and toss in the bed of a truck. You get best results from a fine mist going into the hottest part of the exhaust. The more oil you pump in, the thicker the smoke will be. The finer the mist, the better it'll burn, and same goes with hotter exhaust...if you get those two down, the smoke will hang longer. Using proper smoker oil will give you the best results as far as smoke quality, clear and light oil generally does best. I've used what's called "ultra clean spindle oil" in my smoker and it's nearly as good as name brand smoker oil. However, I've also seen tractors injecting straight diesel into their exhaust to produce some good clouds of smoke too, it just doesn't work so well on turbine engines flying at 170mph. I believe the military injects diesel into their tank exhausts to create a smokescreen for assaults and whatnot, so maybe it's worth experimenting with. If all that sounds like too much work or expense, you can get smoke canisters online that are way better than the little fourth of july smoke bombs. Try surplus and airsoft stores, they'll either carry them or tell you where to find them. Get a few volunteers to light them up and keep an eye on them to make sure they don't start a grass fire. Cheap and easy solution for the most part. Another idea with some potential is using battery powered leaf blowers and a couple pounds of flour for each, point them up and feed a scoop of flour into the intake. Not sure how well that would hang but it might be long enough to visual air currents, dust from driving down dirt roads can hang in the air for a long time and makes temperature inversions easy to spot. Certainly sounds fun enough to experiment with at any rate. Good luck!
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper thank you for the detailed information. I'm going to file that away and get started looking at what option will work best for me. This is greatly preferable to the traditional methods of using bubbles or cattail fluffies which can only be seen at short distances.
Pirelli is still the best rubber strip. Why isn't it climbing? I would double strands and put that peg half distance forward like a Coup d'Hiver? Will climb then oh less dia prop too - Nice glide ✔️😊
We never maxed out the torque. Winding to 150+ in-oz in hot weather at high elevation is brutal. The motor can take 270 in-oz but I just couldn't wind that hard. As you noted, the glide is beyond amazing, less than 1 ft/sec and flatter than anything else out there.
Only with a lot of financial backing. The Rubber Bandit project would have done it but they could never figure out how to mitigate the risk of a rubber motor failure and then the funding dried up.
This has no real altiude rise. It holds up good though. I am working on a plane of 8 feet in wingspan with an unusual davis airfoil. If it flies it should rog as well It is a stand off quarter scale bush plane with features that are unique plus a radio controlled rudder.
That'll be cool. Our two main obstacles to getting a strong climb have been my weak arms and the roughly 10k ft density altitude we were flying at. The plane did get a good 200 ft up on a couple flights so I figure that's well out of ground effect though.
Fantastic! 5 minutes, still air, easily. You are flying with close to apogee torque. Knowing that allows selection of rubber cross section for maximum still air time; apogee torque = average torque on the motor unwind curve. You will need to put in about five times as much torque. Need a winder with 5x more gearing, may need a winder with lever arms for two man operation, maybe two to hold while a third cranks. The propeller is much too small. The blade angle distribution likely could be improved. Every comercially purchased prop I have measured has been badly pitched. If you knew the revolution rate and airspeed, you could calculate the advance angle and atack angle at each radius. Ideally the attack angle would be uniformly the attack angle of maximum L/D across the radius. These things can be measured.
I figure about the same. The thin air at 5k ft elevation makes it kinda tough. We only had a few hours of conditions suitable for really going at it and small misjudgements made that less productive than I'd hoped, however it still looks great in the air and that's what most people care about.
3 blades is always less efficient than 2. You only use more than two if prop diameter is restricted by other factors such as landing gear length or ultra high speed flight where two blades would go transonic. The toroidal blades have proven extremely inefficient, which is not unexpected. It's an attempt to get something for nothing.
What an awesome project to be a part of. You did a fantastic job getting this beautiful bird in the air and busting the record. It was great to meet you out in Denver and help with the project.
Congratulations on a job well done. I have a feeling we are not done with this. 😉
Josh,
That's a fantastic accomplishment. You guys did an excellent job! Its so nice to see real engineering at work, and I hope everyone watching appreciates the amount of T, and E time it takes to make something of this magnitude happen.
Excellent video, and great job!
Vince
Well done and congratulations. Keep at it and bring those records home! You all can do it.
Great video.This reminds me of a contest I won at my junior high school free flight glider contest.All my school class launched there gliders with the wind and only flew a few feet before landing,me on the other hand,launched my glider into the wind,it went straight up than leveled out than soard across the parking lot high above the light poles and eventually landing in my future high school parking lot,a good 20 minute walk to retrieve my glider.I won the contest for gliding distance and altitude all this earned me a free chocolate milkshake.I really enjoyed it Since than I earned my private pilots certificate and mechanic A&P certificate and to this day I enjoy flying radio control model airplanes.Its been my love since I was 2 years old.Seeing videos like this are very inspiring to me and it's great to see young people doing it.Keep up the great work.I want my gravestone to have a model airplane purched above it.
That's awesome! Similar experiences on my end. :)
I am totally rooting for you. DO IT!
Congratulation Josh 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉. Beautiful flight. Thats is what we call fly ❤❤❤
Thank you! You're an inspiration too!
Be carefull on hand winding manual. Those rubber with a lots of loops really dangerous when its broke. Keep on goin 💪🏼. Salute ❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉
@@HobiCerdas that is a very real concern we have and is part of the reason for the move back to a somewhat smaller airplane for subsequent record attempts. I'm extremely concerned about the amount of energy this rubber can store when fully wound.
Congratulations on this! I've got my Model Aviation sitting here with Hope on the cover. You two are having a well deserved great year.
Thank you! Yes this is definitely an incredible year for us!
Two thumbs up, great job! -Mike and Richie
whoa what an accomplishment! If anyone in the modern era is equipped to break those records I would definitely say it would be you. Your depth of knoledge in free flight and rubber power is beyond reproach.
Thank you! A long road ahead, but we're going for it!
Dethermalizer absolutely essential. Anyone questioning that does not understand thermal soaring. In Minden, Nevada I flew a GroB 103 glider to 17,400 feet and stayed aloft for 3 hours and 45 minutes. I only came down because I was freezing (not dressed appropriately, who knew?). I could have flown a lot higher (yes I was on oxygen) but the cumulus cloud base was popping at 17,000 and that held me down.
I was climbing about 1,000’/minute. Never underestimate thermal lift!
That sounds like a fun adventure!
This was a great video. I love watching your videos and see how you build and tune these planes. They are awesome.
What a fantastic airplane! I have total confidence in your ability to break whatever record you decide to go for. Well done, all!
Thank you so much Pat!
In 1958 I lost a .049 FF of my own design for 3 months but somebody found it in the woods 30 miles from me and brought it back. No dethermalizer, I never expected it to fly that well.
Thats cool. There have been many stories like that. Free Flight is awesome!
I did that with a p30 class on my first flight and my first build of one I just wounded up about a hundred times by hand just to give it a test flight and it caught a thermal and I never got it back😂
Absolutely brilliant, Josh !!! Loved it !!!
Fabulous feat of aeromodelling Joshua!
♡ Great Inspirational video, God Bless the Wandering Eagle Family ♡
Holy cow my heart sank when I saw that wingtip go in.... I don't know how you repaired that so fast, well done!
And congrats on some awesome flights!! Here's to bringing records home!!!
Josh is a wizard with those planes. I couldn't believe how quickly he repaired it too. Huge thanks to Bernie and his great workshop. I am disappointed I didn't get to see his shop. I was up for +20 hours that day due to travel and had to go back to the hotel and get some sleep that evening.
LOL! ... 'home', how very american.
Thanks so much Ben! We definitely got some drama in there to keep things spicy!
Great, look forward for your retries.
Great work and what a beautiful plane. The record will be yours!👍🙂
Congratulations on such a magnificent beast! 🦅
There's a lot of lessons that can be drawn from this, and I am sure you will be back in the fray for those FAI records.
Yes. Much research lies ahead. We're going for it!
@@joshuawfinn This project is so exciting! Seeing that amount of rubber in the opening shots says it's serious. And you are the guy (with your team, of course) to go get the records!
Simply freaking amazing! Awesome work! Inspiring!
Thank you!
Amazing job Josh! I gotta feeling you are going to crush those records!
Just incredible! Very well done!
Worth the wait isn't it?
Yes!
Felicidades Joshua y gracias por tu constancia
Magnificent, Josh! Sorry for your loss of the Dawn Patrol, but what a way to go!
Agreed. It was magnificent. A replacement will be made!
Nice work Josh!
Congratulations!! Awesome project and absolutely love bringing any record to the USA! Thought I saw you wearing the Paw hat in the flying small sailplane video. MY son is currently at Clemson playing football. Keep up the good work!
Yessir! GO TIGERS! I spent 9 years in Tiger Town on my engineering studies. Loved it up there. I had access to a 1000 acre field for testing planes. Many great memories there!
Excellent design! I was shocked when it started climbing out of ground effect and was still going up for literal minutes.
Yeah it was epic to be there watching it!
Loved this video. Amazing effort!! Reminded me of my vet and airline pilot dad in New Zealand, back in the 1950's with his Wakefield rubber powered gliders. I recall as a kid watching some of them in thermals never to be seen again.....Thank you for sharing!!! Congratulations!!!
Wakefields are awesome. I love the old stories of people flying the traditional ones.
Fabulous! I can’t wait for the follow-up.
All the best from across the pond.🫡
Outstanding, well done
Congrats Josh..........a far cry from a north pacific Sleek Streek....LOL
thoroughly enjoyed your build and even more so watching it fly.........I started FF in 1963 and of course wanted to build the biggest D powered FF ships..........Never thought I would see such a model like this though which is truly art.
Utterly fabulous!
Mike, you should definitely try a Super D sometime! I have 3 of them and they're absolutely wonderful. Mother of Pearl is a real sweetheart, as is the Astrostar.
Beautiful project, congratulations
Josh, it’s taking quite a while for my goose bumps to go down. That was beyond exciting, absolutely incredible, and simply beautiful! I can’t wait to see more of this in the future maybe in person! 👍 😊
It's definitely the ultimate insane project. We've had a ton of fun with it!
Great project! Great job! Thanks! :)
Amazing.....
Gotta get pretty wild to keep up with your exploits!
Very well done!
Wow nice work Josh and team!
Excellent!!
(subscribed!)
Josh I had no idea about your background, great story. This thing is a beast and it flies well! Congratulations.
Thank you John! It's been a wild ride and I'm very excited by it.
@@joshuawfinn I need to get into flying the models again. I have a ton of built ones in the basement.
Great job guys👍 Like life, always ups and downs…but you will persevere! Thermals and records await 😃
Wow, I’m mindblown! Just shows what rubber is capable of if there’s enough of it (and a damn good plane design!) 🎉 big congrats. Thanks again for the help with my somewhat less impressive 12 second flight model haha 😂
And thanks for all you do for the hobby. Been watching your channel for years. You are an inspiration to us too.
I wonder if a DT is necessary 7 feet from earth? The flight was quite graceful and looked to be slow motion, cruising like it was indoors. If these catch on I fear a rubber shortage.
We have purely used the DT for obstacle avoidance. That was its main goal from the start, as well as aborting a flight attempt should the model begin drifting toward sensitive airspace.
In terms of rubber, you would be stunned by how much is produced and consumed. It's absolutely mind boggling. This thing uses a lot, but it's not even a drop in the bucket.
We can only hope there is a rubber shortage because that many people got involved in the hobby. 😁
@@WindCatcherRC yes!!!
I was thinking, you need a safer place to fly, without obstacles. That pole crash was avoidable.
Glad I finally got to watch the latest (and hopefully not last) record attempt video! CONGRATULATIONS on getting the world's largest rubber powered free flight model airplane to fly successfully! It's such a huge and majestic thing to behold. It was difficult to watch it crash, but very reassuring to see it it fly well after the repairs. Such a beautiful plane that was portrayed well in the video. Please post updates!
Thank you! Lots of adventures ahead!
Josh,
When you’re standing next to the Wondering Eagle, I’m reminded of the movie, Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
Hahahaha! It makes me feel like the incredible shrinking man!
@@joshuawfinn it was so funny to see how small it made you look. Great video by the way! 👍🇺🇸😎
Wandering Eagle is gonna get up there.. All the signs are right this time, you don't have to try so very hard, if you live in this world, you're feelin' the change of the guard! Yes Sir, Wandering Eagle's about to smash the records.
What's extra nice about the early lo altitude tests, incl initial test glides is that we get to see the 'ground effect'.. You need a large airframe to observe this, and airframes of this type don't come any larger than this one!
I'm really enjoying the progress of this excellent project, and I forsee great things! Just be sure to double check the tracking tech pre flight.. It would be such a shame to have this majestic bird simply fly away.
Thanks to all involved at J&H Aerospace and Windcatcher RC. Really impressive, and this is going to get better and better. ⭐👍
Thank you so much! Please send this to me at joshuawfinn@gmail.com and if you would like, I can include it in the article I'm writing for Free Flight Digest.
Steely Dan fan……
Josh. That’s a great model you made mate. Well done. Regards Matthew Taudevin
Thank you Matthew! Great to hear from you! I saw your dad recently went to Canada to hang out with the group up there. Looked ridiculously fun.
@@joshuawfinn yes, he didn’t tell me he was going, but I haven’t seen him for ages. He looks like he had some fun. What’s next on the world record breaking list?
Nice polyhedral on the wing to give it roll stability. It looks well-made and stable in all flight regimes. 🏆
YOUR PLANE IS AMAZING. AS A KID I BUILT RUBBER POWERED WAR BIRDS THAT TOOK OFF FROM A STRIP AND FLEW OVER A VALLEY. AUSTRALIA.
Congratulations! That's an incredible airplane that you have developed!
Thank you!
Any plans available for Dawn Patrol? or can you share the airfoil type? THX
Yes they are. You can buy hard copies through my website or get the 3 view and airfoils from the 2022 Symposium article when it was rubber model of the year.
Awesome!!
Here’s to the Dawn Patrol. One of the most beautiful test glides I’ve ever seen. You will be missed
I've got another one under construction!
Congratulations. Amazing project.
Do you think the Colorado altitude is a positive or a negative?
Thinner air is not helpful, but the cold also reduces the energy capacity of the rubber. Internal combustion engines will develop less power in thinner air, but that does not afffect rubber. The airplane has to fly faster in thinner air. The propeller must turn faster, reducing the motor run time, reducing duration.
Yeah the altitude definitely cut climb performance.
Did the wing catch the updraft created by the tent/vehicle and the elevator did not?
I hit the dethermalizer transmitter to keep it from hitting the pole, forgetting that the torque from the prop would roll it as soon as the wing stalled.
@@joshuawfinn - Ah! Bummer. It sure looked scary though when it was heading right for those structures.
A lot of rubber flyers in the UK use a 'soap bubble' thermal detector plus a model windsock before launching. Looking at the Colorado skyline, the cloudscape seems to indicate quite a lot of wind-shear effect possibly affecting thermal formation.
It depends on the day. We've seen thermals that were literally miles across out there. It just varies. It's one of the top two sites in North America for strength of thermals. The fly porta potty video was filmed maybe 10 miles from there.
Amazing Josh!
Congratulations josuwa
amazing! i new you'd make the record. grate looking model to
If you ever want to make a trek over to Utah I habe a West desert dry lake bed that produces some beautiful lift,really big right off the deck and just blooms larger passing 500.feet agl. Its a fun spot to fly and might produce some interesting results for you. Good luck this is a great project!!!
Please shoot me an email at joshuawfinn@gmail.com and we can talk that over further. I definitely want to give that some consideration.
I didn't watch all of this, kind of skipped through. I am curious as to how much pull/tension there was on the wound up rubber band. I built many 'sacrificial victims' to the wind gods curing my days as a hang glider pilot. Anywhere from 4 inch to 24 inch wind spans. This looks to have been a fun project.....
At the peak loads we reached, probably 50 lb at full stretch and 25-30 during transfer of rubber to the prop shaft. I'll need a gantry to handle the loads if we pursue winding it harder.
Thanks! Not nearly as much as I expected. My dad was in the first graduating class from KU in their aeronautical engineering program. This would have been about 1945 or so. I have always been fascinated with anything that flies, but more so gliders. No motors to mess with.... @@joshuawfinn
materials have come a long way. I remember using glycerin and green soap for rubber lube and silk for covering.
Yeah having mylar, monokote, and polyspan involved helps a lot. The amount of rubber lube consumed by this project is staggering.
Great flight! I thought it was going to climb a bit, bu it seems to have just enough power to stay level.
hi Joshua, well done, but just wondered, how much it actually costed to build this giant model aircraft? 👍👍 from Tony from England,
I didn't monitor exact costs but the airframe probably totaled about $1k. Graded balsa is expensive.
thanks for your reply Joshua, I was just curious as I have built model aircraft from plans , and balsa wood is very expensive to buy here in England, when I started modelling in the 19,70,s at age 11 , balsawood seemed much more affordable, well done joshua ,
This is an R&D project with tremendous overhead. The cost of the materials to make the plane are a small fraction of the total. The cost of the next plane will be less and the more he makes, the unit cost will go down. The Wright brothers estimated that they spent a total of about $1,000 to get the 1903 machine to fly. Bringing that forward at a 1.04 per annumm inflation gets $110,662.56.
Requesting more videos about this awesome plane!!!
This is pretty cool! Wouldn't it be more desirable to find another location with a lot less DA?
We had discussions about that, so far haven't found a low elevation site that doesn't present major retrieval issues should we actually get the plane up to record altitude. The search continues...
@@joshuawfinn The dry lake beds in Nevada would be good for you guys for the space & thermal activity.
@@nzsaltflatsracer8054 are there any that don't have restricted access and airspace issues? Blackrock used to be the ideal plane for this stuff but that's all but closed now.
@@joshuawfinn Sevier dry lake in Utah is one I know that is off road & aircraft legal for sure. It's brine dirt but won't create the thermals that normal dirt will in the summer heat. Knolls recreation area off I-80 is open to everything & has a large dirt flat & sand dunes where people fly PPG's & Ultralights. Some Googling should be able to find what's useable in Nevada.
We continue to learn everyday and it is something in modelling that I would like study more is whether we scale the model or scale the physics. Not everything behaves in a linear fashion and and the margins of stability, speed & strength will require careful picking around. After all engineering is about getting the right compromises. I first thought of this with steam powered models and then scale speed as things like mach numbers are where they are and the transistion gets farther away the smaller the scale. The torsion problem is an interesting one and I started thinking about contra rotating rubber bands to balance the torque/torsion in the fuselage with a gear box for the propellor. This could reduce the torsional load overall although prop reaction would still figure in.
Looking forward to this bird catching a thermal although the seasons are now moving against us until the spring, at least for us northern hemis.
You are correct that further attempts will wait until next year, but development work will continue. I'm hoping to do some test flying as well.
"Happy little right hand circles"....is that a Bob Ross reference? 😁😁😁
Oh you know it!
Congratulations!
Very cool guys!
Hey long time no see! How's flying been for ya?
@joshuawfinn Hey! Life has gotten in the way some, but I have a 3D printer now and some nice Eclipson designs. I should have a sleek sport jet up soon.
What triggers it to pitch up just before touching down?
That's me hitting the dethermalizer to avoid hitting a pole.
Fabulous....
What is the wing loading?
Where can I read about the 1964 USSR records? Google doesn't bring up much.
When I was a kid in the 70's I built dozens of planes similar to that design from scratch, covered in tissue but never bigger then 30", the thing was every one of my builds flew superb, I think the Wandering Eagle is the most awesome of all, the colors are pure respect for are awesome country USA.
Beautiful video!!!!!!!!
P/S think there's any chance of a kit version???????
Awesome!
Very impressive
*WOW!!* wow *WOW!!* wow *WOW!!* wow *WOW!!* wow *WOW!!*
Glad you enjoyed the video. 😀
Hey Joshua, don't you think that a little bit of torsional flex in the aft fuselage is actually a good thing? If the lifting horizontal stab tilts slightly away from the edge of thermal, it will cause a yawing moment turning the aircraft *into* the thermal. Great video! How about a visit to the Lost Hills Model Free Flight field in California's Central Valley in the Spring when the air is cool, the density altitude is manageable, and the thermals are booming? BTW, keep working on your 'body english' to remotely control the aircraft using telekinesis. 😉
Main thing is the up and down bending of the tailboom attachment, which is changing the incidence in flight.
We talked about Lost Hills but the orchards are a problem. Current discussions are surrounding Utah, Nevada, and southern Arizona as possible locations. There's also another site in Colorado that might work well.
and legend has it .. dawn patrol is still up there ..
I thought I saw it fly over Michigan a few days later....😂
Very exciting and congratulations! Rudolph
wow congrats 🥰
Congratulations, when I see massive rc models I personally would rather just fly the real thing from inside. But this really means something a massive stick and balsa plane is something every kid thinks of when they fly the first time. Have you considered being at Kill Devil on Dec. 17th to celebrate 120 years?
Yes! That's the same thought I have, huge freeflight planes are just a whole other thing and so inspiring to watch.
Didn't know they were doing anything at Kittyhawk. I wish I could come, unfortunately I'm booked that week. 😢
Exciting 😊
How much rubber there goes? like in gm, as i'm European use metric units...
Roughly 800g.
It would also be nice to know who has delivered the balsa. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of good balsa as most of it is used to produce the blades for wind turbines.
Here in the US we have almost a dozen reliable balsa suppliers. Best price/value ratio comes from Specialized, MAP, AK Model, and Balsa Depot.
"Balsa Overcast", nice.
very cool guys!
Looks like you've got a real shot at bagging some records with this one!
Have you guys considered using a couple smoke generators upwind to better assess thermal conditions?
Smoke systems on ag planes work great to determine wind direction better than streamers and detecting low level thermals that affect our application.
I've watched smoke lay on the ground on one edge of a field and a quarter mile away it's already heading for the stratosphere...
This is a good idea. Do you have any suggestions of where to get such smoke generators? I'd really like to do some studies like this.
@@joshuawfinn If you'd like a handheld unit that could be powered from a small portable generator, I'd suggest the "rocket" from pea soup. It uses the same non-toxic water based smoke juice that fog machines use, but it's an industrial version meant to simulate smoke for firefighters and whatnot. Not what I'd consider cheap, but maybe you could swing a sponsorship or something?
In our planes, we simply pump smoker oil straight into the exhaust using a Compro smoker system. It's the same type of system that aerobatic planes and skywriters use, but it can also be used on virtually any engine...car, truck, ATV, generator, lawnmower, etc. Rather than spending a ton of money on a STC'd certified part, you can make one of your own with a cheap 12V fuel pump, a gas can plumbed with a small hose going to the pump, and then a small nozzle in the exhaust to pump the oil into. If installing in a vehicle, inject the oil past the cat converter and any O2 sensors to prevent damage. It'll pass through the muffler and beyond indefinitely with no ill effect. Flip a switch to turn the smoke on, and as long as you're pumping oil into the exhaust it'll keep on generating smoke. You could drive a vehicle upwind back and forth so you'll have a "wall" of smoke to visualize any thermals or dead air heading your way. Wait until you see a particularly high column of smoke heading you way and launch into it. Alternatively, go to harbor freight and pick up a few of the cheapest pull start engines for pumps/generators, or source them used locally, rig them up with a little smoke system, line a few upwind of you, and just let them run for a while until you see a good thermal heading your way. A little engine like that can be rigged up with a pump up chemical sprayer and a brass hose barb pinched down to use as a nozzle, total cost might be $30-40 plus the engine.
Kitplanes has an article about how to build your own "$250 smoke system" that you could use to get an idea of what you might need to rig up a vehicle for that purpose. It doesn't have to be to the same standards and you could probably make something comparable for under $100. You'd benefit from more oil capacity though, since my 1.5gal tank doesn't last all that long even when I'm using it sparingly in short little bursts. A fuel tank for a small boat might be just the ticket to fill with oil and toss in the bed of a truck. You get best results from a fine mist going into the hottest part of the exhaust. The more oil you pump in, the thicker the smoke will be. The finer the mist, the better it'll burn, and same goes with hotter exhaust...if you get those two down, the smoke will hang longer. Using proper smoker oil will give you the best results as far as smoke quality, clear and light oil generally does best. I've used what's called "ultra clean spindle oil" in my smoker and it's nearly as good as name brand smoker oil. However, I've also seen tractors injecting straight diesel into their exhaust to produce some good clouds of smoke too, it just doesn't work so well on turbine engines flying at 170mph. I believe the military injects diesel into their tank exhausts to create a smokescreen for assaults and whatnot, so maybe it's worth experimenting with.
If all that sounds like too much work or expense, you can get smoke canisters online that are way better than the little fourth of july smoke bombs. Try surplus and airsoft stores, they'll either carry them or tell you where to find them. Get a few volunteers to light them up and keep an eye on them to make sure they don't start a grass fire. Cheap and easy solution for the most part. Another idea with some potential is using battery powered leaf blowers and a couple pounds of flour for each, point them up and feed a scoop of flour into the intake. Not sure how well that would hang but it might be long enough to visual air currents, dust from driving down dirt roads can hang in the air for a long time and makes temperature inversions easy to spot. Certainly sounds fun enough to experiment with at any rate. Good luck!
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper thank you for the detailed information. I'm going to file that away and get started looking at what option will work best for me. This is greatly preferable to the traditional methods of using bubbles or cattail fluffies which can only be seen at short distances.
... WOAH!… THIS KID KNOWS HIS ONIONS INDEED 🏴🖖 6:10
Pirelli is still the best rubber strip. Why isn't it climbing? I would double strands and put that peg half distance forward like a Coup d'Hiver? Will climb then oh less dia prop too - Nice glide ✔️😊
We never maxed out the torque. Winding to 150+ in-oz in hot weather at high elevation is brutal. The motor can take 270 in-oz but I just couldn't wind that hard. As you noted, the glide is beyond amazing, less than 1 ft/sec and flatter than anything else out there.
Can you make a video on how to wind rubber motors?
Check some of my Science Olympiad trimming videos, I talk about winding and do some demos in there.
All right!!!👌
👍🏻👍🏻
Amazing ….but you’re still bonkers
I thought it was obvious that I've been bonkers for a long time! 😉
Amazing! Do you think we will see a human piloted rubber powered aircraft in the future?
Only with a lot of financial backing. The Rubber Bandit project would have done it but they could never figure out how to mitigate the risk of a rubber motor failure and then the funding dried up.
This has no real altiude rise.
It holds up good though.
I am working on a plane of 8 feet in wingspan with an unusual davis airfoil.
If it flies it should rog as well
It is a stand off quarter scale bush plane with features that are unique plus a radio controlled rudder.
That'll be cool. Our two main obstacles to getting a strong climb have been my weak arms and the roughly 10k ft density altitude we were flying at. The plane did get a good 200 ft up on a couple flights so I figure that's well out of ground effect though.
epic!
Fantastic! 5 minutes, still air, easily. You are flying with close to apogee torque. Knowing that allows selection of rubber cross section for maximum still air time; apogee torque = average torque on the motor unwind curve. You will need to put in about five times as much torque. Need a winder with 5x more gearing, may need a winder with lever arms for two man operation, maybe two to hold while a third cranks. The propeller is much too small. The blade angle distribution likely could be improved. Every comercially purchased prop I have measured has been badly pitched. If you knew the revolution rate and airspeed, you could calculate the advance angle and atack angle at each radius. Ideally the attack angle would be uniformly the attack angle of maximum L/D across the radius. These things can be measured.
I figure about the same. The thin air at 5k ft elevation makes it kinda tough. We only had a few hours of conditions suitable for really going at it and small misjudgements made that less productive than I'd hoped, however it still looks great in the air and that's what most people care about.
Ever consider power comparisons with 3 blade prop or a toroidal blade?
3 blades is always less efficient than 2. You only use more than two if prop diameter is restricted by other factors such as landing gear length or ultra high speed flight where two blades would go transonic. The toroidal blades have proven extremely inefficient, which is not unexpected. It's an attempt to get something for nothing.