"Smithers, I've designed a new plane! I call it the Spruce Moose, and it will carry 200 passengers from New York's Idlewild Airport to the Belgian Congo in 17 minutes!" - Charles Montgomery Burns.
Reminds me of the time in 1903 when Charles Lindbergh flew the Wright flyer 15 miles on a thimble full of corn oil, single handedly winning the civil war. I pieced American history together. Mostly from the Simpsons. 😉
@@crazybarryfam I can't speak for any other countries but here in Canada that niche is filled by float planes, mostly bush planes. A properly kitted out Twin Beaver is a very nice bit of kit to vacation in, I'm told. Makes sense since we have a stupefying amount of the world's total fresh water and a completely unreasonable percentage of all the lakes on the planet. Ice age, y'know. Cheers from E. Ontario!
After the first successful powered airplanes were produced. Before that, there were lots of gliders, observation kites and other heavier-than-air machines, but engine development was lagging behind. Helicopters were known to be a valid concept for a long time, but they had to wait even longer before suitable engines were available.
@@jirivorobel942 Eh, the sheer audacity of the J-1000's design was still impressive and way ahead of its time. Gliders are all well and good, _cute_ even, but putting an engine on an aircraft changes just about everything. Now you need to worry about the weight of the engine, the weight of the fuel, how to balance the craft properly with this added weight, how to balance the craft _without_ the fuel weight too (because it fluctuates). How is the craft going to handle and perform, as well? Gliders _all_ move relatively slowly, but with powered aviation comes much, much greater speeds. So now we need well-trained pilots capable of handling these beasts of the air, not to mention more resilient material to build them from. _Engines change everything._ Just ask ships, yo.
It was the time of dreaming indeed. Kinda sad that the reality took over, and he ended up making Ju-52 instead. Whats interesting is that dreaming of unorthodox things isn't completely over - after all Tu-404 was a recent design, and unlike with Bel Geddes's flying cruise ship fantasy, you can be sure that if those people made it into models and presented around, they were prepared to produce it and were convinced that it's a working and viable design.
@@josephschultz3301 whilst putting engines on aircraft did allow speeds to rapidly increase, the earliest craft were slower than some of the gliders of the day and C of G problems with the small fuel tanks was not a great issue, as aircraft got larger and faster all these issues would appear but as they developed so did the pilots abilities, having said that how would a modern pilot being used to a modern cockpit fare when presented with a pioneer plane, whose flight envelope was dubious at the best of times!.
Or 23 years if, as seems likely, Gustave Whitehead undertook controlled, powered flight in August 1901. (The Wright brothers were much better self-publicists.)
One of the big problems with the "Cruise Ship in the Air" designs was if the plane ran into turbulence, the Grand Piano in the lounge could end up in your lap.
Then there is the distinct possibility of hitting a log or a dug-out canoe that could wreck one's landing. A RAF Sunderland crewed by Australians did make an emergency grass landing, having thrown anything moveable (and not human) out...it had been peppered with flak from a U-Boat.
Back in 1958 we emigrated to Australia by ship and the canteen tables were bolted to the floor,A lip around the table to prevent your meal from sliding of
Very psyched for the new series. Though watching these always makes me a little sad... there's an alternate universe out there where P&O cruises are onboard massive flying cruiseliners, and commercial flights are all VTOL, but our universe decided to opt for 'sane' choices.
I like to believe that on some Alien Planet in another Galaxy, these magnificent enormous airplanes are flying aloft with a more favorable atmosphere and propulsion system to enable the safe flight of these heavy beasts.
@@marcussoininen2084 and sometimes it's the political situation that dictates regardless, where companies get pigeon holed to produce one type of product, similar to actors being typecast, Bruce Willis in a romantic comedy anyone?.😊.
Norman Bel Geddes was a noted industrial designer with an imagination to match Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright! .. He started as a scene designer for the theater and went on to design some of the wildest and most imaginative cars, interstate highway, transportation, and airplane concepts ever imagined! .. (BTW, he was also the father of noted 40s, 50s actress, Barbara Bel Geddes.) ... His 'Airliner Number 4' with all of its passenger cabins, lounges, gyms, dining and dance halls, baths, and more!, all fitted onto its single wing-fuselage, and its two massive pontoons - along with two external planes (in hangers!) for emergencies, on top of the fuselage! - is the WILDEST, MOST FANTASTIC plane concept EVER Imagined! ... This plane was mostly designed to be a flying ocean liner, flying between Chicago and London, for a leisure flight of between 30 and 40 hours! ... (Oh, Lord ... please have some Sci Fi channel develop a retro-Art Deco series on it!)
An excellent summation of Norman Bel Geddes' life! I wonder if the amazing 'Airliner Number 4" seaplane he designed could be made into a working R/C model?
I know I am late to the party commenting on this, but I made a model of Norman Bel Geddes' Airliner No 4 for Microsoft Flight Simulator. You could look around the cockpit (which I did not finish fleshing out), look out the tail and see one of the planes stored in the tip of the floats, down the wing, and the control room in the wing on top. What he failed to mention is the wing on top was supposed to contain extra engines in addition to the ones actually being used, and they could be swapped out in flight using a built-in railway! I tried to picture all of this in my model of the control room, with the extra engines sitting there. Like most flying boats, the pilot would have probably telegraphed the control room what speed he wanted, and they would have adjusted the individual engines to suit. There would have been to major issues with his original design. When a flying boat is attempting to take off, the drag of the water on the hull tends to make the nose want to porpoise down. Most large flying boats countered this by having the wings with engines set way back, on smaller ones, the engines were angled upwards to try and counteract the rotating tendency when the throttle was advanced. Having the wing with the engines so far forward and so high up would have made it even worst on Airliner #4, which is probably why he moved it to the back in a later design. A bigger issue that could not be solved so easily is the fact that as the airplane banked, the passenger cabins on the tips would rise and fall by tens, even hundreds of feet at the tips. One could imagine trying to walk down the promenade deck when a bank begins; and having to hang on for dear life to keep from tumbling down the deck to the other wingtip. Still, it was fun imagining how it all would have worked had it been built. I "flew" it once from Chicago to Plymouth, though it left it to fly on its own over the Atlantic while I slept and did other things during the day. I never released it because I could not finish the cockpit to my liking; but you can see it here: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4440172976955 Some other calculations I came up with were: * 20 engines of 1,900 HP each; one third were envisioned to be running during cruise. A similar German DB603 engine had a specific fuel consumption of 0.474. At a cruise setting of 1,160 HP and a 45-hour flight; I came up with 1,044,00 HP/hr, and 82,202 gallons consumed during flight. (It was to be refueled in flight over Newfoundland.) 0.054 gallons per passenger mile. I roughly calculated the volume of the broad bottoms of each float, since that most likely would be the location of the tanks. In my final weight calculations, I came up with the following: * 152,200 lbs of humans on board * 9,132 lbs food * 129,120 lbs of water (based on 35 gallons per person the entire flight) * 10,000 lbs other payload and fluids * 662,600 pound empty weight * 1,275,300 max weight, leaving 312,248 lbs, or 51,868 gallons; 25,934 gallons per float, with arial refueling over Newfoundland. I could see pumps lifting the fuel to surge tanks in the auxiliary wing pylons, where individual pumps pumped it out to the each engine. The freshwater tanks could also be in each pylon, providing a head of water pressure for the passenger spaces.
The Aircraft in the thumbnail strongly remind me of the "Titanium Turkey", a giant flying wing airliner featured in an episode of Disney's Talespin cartoon. :)
Puts me in mind of every other Jules Verne story, which depended on a hither-to unforeseen new source of energy to make the revolutionary vehicle actually work.
Verne's generation, and pretty much every generation up to the end of the Second World War (and maybe a bit beyond?) knew in their hearts that there was still much to discover, and at least to the layman it didn't seem beyond reason (at least to them) that SOMETHING (TM) would come along to make it work.
Wow! Some of these I knew about, others are completely off the charts "crazy", but fascinating. The behemoth flying ocean liner takes 1st prize on this list, although the supersonic VTOL at the very end is a serious contender. What is truly remarkable is how early some of these concepts were dreamed up, and in some cases, actually constructed and flown. The Junkers J1000 was truly way ahead of its time. Thanks for compiling and posting this.
100% of Artist renditions are always so lofty. As a Kid with free yearly access to Miami's Auto Show made me realize that as good as many looked ,some cars were Concept and never to be seen again. Very interesting Birds .TY for the peeks.
The P.146 looks like something straight out of Thunderbirds, or maybe Stingray. Edit: I stopped the video to post that, only to continue the video a moment later, and was happy to hear you say exact same thing. Wild!
It's surprising Saunders-Roe lasted as long as it did as a company as they never really had any successes. Still if I had Bezos money rather than Blue Origin I would totally be funding the building of stuff like the Saunders-Roe Queen as a one-off just to see if it would work!
This channel is pure gold, I'm so glad I discovered it! Mustard and Paper Skies used to be like this. I hope you can keep bringing unique and interesting content in the future.
Also Dark Skies does same style content. Curious Droid also covers aerospace from a engineering standpoint. What happened to Mustard and Paper Skies besides upping their 3D modeling render game? There's only so many obscure planes to cover and only so many recently found documents.
I think of all the videos I’ve watched on this channel, this has to be among my top 5. I love learning about real planes, but you give these fanciful dream birds deference and respect that really makes them come alive in a way where we can almost see the reasoning behind what, to us, seems absolutely ludicrous. Well done!
About hypothetical military aircraft, I think several insane (and impractical) asymmertical aircraft design that were never left the drawing board (asides from the already covered BV 141) deserve mention.
I was in the first grade in 1961. My grandfather who saved everything gave us a set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s from around 1921. I wasn’t old enough to read them but I remember looking through them before Dad threw them away. There was an article that I think was about traveling to the moon in the future. It had a drawing of a giant biplane. It looked like it was fabric covered like airplanes of that day. It had a fuselage the size of an ocean liner and a wingspan that was at least quarter of a mile wide with dozens of little motors mounted along the wings. Even as a 6-year-old kid, I thought they were crazy and I wondered if they were really that ignorant about space.
@@theobserver9131 I believe that I would have to agree with you on that one! Some of those "mature" bodies do not seem to have brains that developed after the toddler years.
I've always loved Air Liner #4. Norman Bel Geddes was an industrial designer and a very influential one. He was not an engineer and it shows. This and other projects are in his design manifesto Horizons (1932) is in the public domain, though look for a one with good scans since it was more a coffee-table book.
As designed it probably wouldn't have been stable, but if that could be managed it might actually work as a flying cruise ship. It's so large that it could get usable altitude from ground effect. Speed would of course be terrible, but if the whole point is to get your passengers to spend their money in bars and shops that's not a disadvantage! 😀
Great channel and super research! I've always loved these wacky projects and have a few books on secret projects of the Luftwaffe and RAF, so seeing these really ticked my boxes - looking forward to future episodes, thanks Rex!
It’s hilarious to see all these early designs with the knowledge that eventually what won out was a pointy tube with wings and not some sort of flying triangular monstrosity.
If only these things were more explored in video games. Instead of surviving aboard a space ship, imagine aboard a flying cruise ship in full 30s deco. It's like bioshock levels of crazy.
10:20 can see where the inspiration for "The High Country" came from, supposedly a vast flying craft that has been in the air since the 1940s, where it has been upgraded and built on up to the present day. And houses a time machine. Fascinating Sci-Fi novel.
10:50 Wait, airliner No 4 had a theoretical top speed of 150 MPH?!? That’s roughly 130 knots. An empty Boeing 747 with full flaps STALLS at that speed. That’s granted that it could fly and be stable at all. With all that thrust so high above the center of drag, i can only imagine the craft front flipping endlessly.
Many flying boats had and today still have such silly looking above the wing engines. See the successful Savoua Marchetti S55 of the 30s, along with numerous successful planes like the Walrus, and several Dornier flying boats. The Do-18, and 24.
@@JFrazer4303 See, the thing is, those planes also all had conventional designs, with main wings mounted close to the center of mass, and a long fuselage which mounted the stabilizers. Those planes did, and do, suffer from thrust-induced nose down pitch when the pilots fire-wall the throttles, especially at low airspeeds. This theoretical plane was effectively a flying wing. Conventional planes are stable because having the vertical and horizontal stabilizers on the tailplane, far from the center of mass, gives them leverage to keep the nose straight into the air flow. Shorten that fuselage close to the main wings, and there wont be enough leverage to be effective.
Great collection of featured aircraft for dreamers! Between model airplane package artwork, comic book art, and sci-fi movie models, lots of aviation fantasy was provoking thought and awe in public dreamer's circles. It's hard to imagine an airplane that weighed more than a Big-Boy locomotive.
Wouldn't it have been a thrill to fly on board one of these flying cruise liners! Especially the one with the huge observation deck in the rear or the one with passenger cabins in the wings!
Airliner #4 - from the plans you showed, also had 2 airplane hangars, with aircraft depicted with folded wings... surprised mention wasn't made of this...
Love the channel, keep up the great work! These what-if's are wonderful. I've seen more of these types of drawings in old pre-war and post-war issues of 'The Aeroplane' and such, so a good trawl through there could yield some more. Interesting how the giant bombers in the movie of HG Wells' 'Things to Come' looks somewhat reminiscent of the Airliner No. 4.
I've only ever seen the huge Bel meddes design featured in a reprinted boys comic from the 1950's. It always reminded me of the Dalek flying saucer from the Peter Cushing movie sequel. Another intriguing design was an airliner derived from the Avro Vulcan that looked decidedly less futuristic than the delta wing bomber.
It's absolutely fascinating seeing some of the planes you show in your videos. They're so strange and beautiful. The alt.Universe of their reality is a marvellous place ! Its "The Fifth Element" made real.
13:15 "...something straight out of Thunderbirds..." any 'airport scene' in Thunderbirds is great for repeated freezing frames and spotting which model-kit jet-fighter front ends and wings etc have been glued onto which airliner fuselages : ) Which was obviously how 'planes were going to be by 2000 or so ...
Really enjoyed this video, thanks. I'm also convinced that sometime there has to be a sort-of retro sci-fi series that features a world where all these designs came to fruition. I'd love it, and hope I'm not the only one. Studio Ghibli, where are you? Maybe a follow-on to 'Things to Come'? NB, side note, I'm sure I saw some of those illustrations in old Eagle Annuals. You too?
I used to draw designs for gigantic flying wing passenger craft when I was a kid. This had to be the source material, which I don't remember. They all had promenades.
Great research. Norman Bell-Geddes was an amazing dreamer for all kinds of designs, in the 1920s/30s ... architecture, liners, cars, and aircraft. I have his book published in 1932. His daughter was the actress Barbara Bell-Geddes.
Your channel is so well researched and so brilliantly presented I must offer my humble appreciation salute. Salute, sir. Your service is much appreciated even here in the northeastern hills of India, Aizawl.
One thinks that maybe some of these early designers might have been smoking something other than tobacco.Great video,looking forward to more of this series.
Recently been bingeing this - your commentary delivery is great; just the right mix of informative and dryly witty. Keep it up! Also that Saro Queen looks like something designed by Gerry Anderson...
I've never been able to say this about a plane before, but... Does the J1000 make anyone else feel queasy? Seriously... My brain is screaming at me that something is wrong with it. I can't process it... Regardless... VERY cool video. Keep it up! -Vic
Amazing.. Although I am in love with DC3, wich is my master aroplane by it's sucess until presnt time, the design or concept, the advanced qualities for it's time and the overall aspect ratio of the aircraft. I like also very much flying boats and theire long journey flights much more than regional ones as my secondary passion of the aeroplanes, this Saunders-Roe Queen concept is impressive!! I imagine the old times trancontinental airways! The adventure that should have been to fly in those times!! Very nice job on the research!! Thank you
I always felt the same way about the sea planes. The time of the Pan Am Clippers and other sea planes and companies could possibly be called the "romantic" time of air travel because of sense of adventure and pioneering travel to new exotic destinations that those planes opened up. To be a pilot or crew of a seaplane in those times had to of been an exciting job.
@@ronfullerton3162 a documentary with a former Empire flying boat passenger mentioned the pilot detouring to fly round the Great pyramid for the passengers to see it, not something you would get today methinks, I think the thirties must have been an incredible time to be aviating. The Saro Duchess had a cousin in the American Martin seamaster bomber, faster, more payload, and greater range than a B52, but the airforce didn't like the idea of wet feet😊, it may have helped had Boeing made it or am I being a bit cynical?.
@@CrusaderSports250 That is some really great information you brought up. Especially the circling of interesting points, wouldn't that be such a wonderful addition to the flight. Thank you for those interesting looks into the early era of commercial flight. That makes one wish they had a time machine to go back and actually experience it. Thanks again.
You'll know that both J.1000 and Saunders Roa Queen inspired the ML-422 Pegasus Flying Boat, a long range Airliner which by the looks of it is expected to be a cruise ship cause of how it looked, the ML-422 Pegasus might have 3 variants, the original, the Airborne Glider and Troop Transport, and a Bomber
If I was writing a thesis for an aeronautical engineering PHD, I would use this 'Airliner #4' as a subject. Proving whether or not this thing could even fly would be a huge study in engineering. Having failed at that, I'd just utilize the Soviet tactic of copying my classmate's paper.
I see at 0:37 you've also captured the SR.A/1 flying boat fighter: another answer to a question that was no longer relevant. Looking at the Griffith (hopefully it would have been more reliable and less inclined to kill you than its TVR namesake) I wonder if those rear pods could have inspired Gerry Anderson's precurser to Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5?
Wasn't the _Airliner No. 4_ even featured in an episode of TaleSpin when Baloo got deceived into flying to some island because his very special gyroscoping compass or something similar was required to build a megalomanic airplane there? It's been 25 years and I have seen this episode exactly one as a child, but I'm almost certain to recognize the design. Furthermore the show is set exactly at the right time for this inspiration to make sense.
13:15 it reminds me of the police cruisers in *Ultraman* 14:05 I never understood why the "lifting body" concept never got off the ground. 17:10 looks nothing like the Pejite gunship from *Nausicaa*
I remember the Princesses but never saw the Short Shetland and those two were big. All those Conways could have thrusted the wings ahead of the fuselage while it was still trying to unstick from the oggin.
Any way I could get the blueprints and plans for the Airliner No.4, Rex? I would love to make a model R/C aircraft and see how/if it flies based on it.
Oh wow, the Airliner #4 was a 'real' aircraft. I had always assumed it had been invented from whole cloth for the old TailSpin cartoon as the 'Titanium Turkey'.
If someone remembers cartoon "Tail Spin" there was an aircraft that closely resembles No.4, so you could say it got its moment in some cultural adaptation
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"Smithers, I've designed a new plane! I call it the Spruce Moose, and it will carry 200 passengers from New York's Idlewild Airport to the Belgian Congo in 17 minutes!" - Charles Montgomery Burns.
GET IN! Sir I don't think,I said get in...that is a great scene haha.
Is this comment too late for the 1630 autogyro to the Prussian Embassy in Siam?
Who else watched that episode?
@@emjackson2289only by just under 500 years. If you run, you may just catch the next suborbital transfer
Reminds me of the time in 1903 when Charles Lindbergh flew the Wright flyer 15 miles on a thimble full of corn oil, single handedly winning the civil war. I pieced American history together. Mostly from the Simpsons. 😉
Hope you enjoyed this 'hypothetical' video, regular historical content will resume next time ;)
Thanks for sharing this - it was fun to watch and I learned a lot!
It's great video.. I haven't heard many of these concept airliners, especially Airliner Number 4...
Bloody right, it has right cheered me up in fact, more of this escapism I say!!
You know with so many people still living close to the water, it is surprising flying boats haven't found a niche or made any sort of comeback.
@@crazybarryfam I can't speak for any other countries but here in Canada that niche is filled by float planes, mostly bush planes. A properly kitted out Twin Beaver is a very nice bit of kit to vacation in, I'm told. Makes sense since we have a stupefying amount of the world's total fresh water and a completely unreasonable percentage of all the lakes on the planet. Ice age, y'know.
Cheers from E. Ontario!
The j-1000 is insane considering it was designed only 21 years after airplanes were invented.
After the first successful powered airplanes were produced. Before that, there were lots of gliders, observation kites and other heavier-than-air machines, but engine development was lagging behind. Helicopters were known to be a valid concept for a long time, but they had to wait even longer before suitable engines were available.
@@jirivorobel942 Eh, the sheer audacity of the J-1000's design was still impressive and way ahead of its time.
Gliders are all well and good, _cute_ even, but putting an engine on an aircraft changes just about everything. Now you need to worry about the weight of the engine, the weight of the fuel, how to balance the craft properly with this added weight, how to balance the craft _without_ the fuel weight too (because it fluctuates). How is the craft going to handle and perform, as well? Gliders _all_ move relatively slowly, but with powered aviation comes much, much greater speeds. So now we need well-trained pilots capable of handling these beasts of the air, not to mention more resilient material to build them from.
_Engines change everything._ Just ask ships, yo.
It was the time of dreaming indeed. Kinda sad that the reality took over, and he ended up making Ju-52 instead.
Whats interesting is that dreaming of unorthodox things isn't completely over - after all Tu-404 was a recent design, and unlike with Bel Geddes's flying cruise ship fantasy, you can be sure that if those people made it into models and presented around, they were prepared to produce it and were convinced that it's a working and viable design.
@@josephschultz3301 whilst putting engines on aircraft did allow speeds to rapidly increase, the earliest craft were slower than some of the gliders of the day and C of G problems with the small fuel tanks was not a great issue, as aircraft got larger and faster all these issues would appear but as they developed so did the pilots abilities, having said that how would a modern pilot being used to a modern cockpit fare when presented with a pioneer plane, whose flight envelope was dubious at the best of times!.
Or 23 years if, as seems likely, Gustave Whitehead undertook controlled, powered flight in August 1901.
(The Wright brothers were much better self-publicists.)
Always love the 1930's aircraft designs.
yeah they're so cool. I wish I could have an original Piper J3
They were certainly ambitious considering the stuff that was going on in the world at the time.
@@nightshadow848 i always love looking at crazy aircraft like these
After seeing these aircraft designs of past aviation professionals, now I see the viability of my 5 year old nephew’s aircraft designs…
One of the big problems with the "Cruise Ship in the Air" designs was if the plane ran into turbulence, the Grand Piano in the lounge could end up in your lap.
Then there is the distinct possibility of hitting a log or a dug-out canoe that could wreck one's landing. A RAF Sunderland crewed by Australians did make an emergency grass landing, having thrown anything moveable (and not human) out...it had been peppered with flak from a U-Boat.
Back in 1958 we emigrated to Australia by ship and the canteen tables were bolted to the floor,A lip around the table to prevent your meal from sliding of
In fairness, that applied equally to ocean liners; I've heard accounts of the crew on the QE2 having to lash down the piano.
Less of a problem then dealing with modern restrictions.
Imagine all the injuries on the dancefloor too haha
The flying boats were GORGEOUS!
Danke!
Very psyched for the new series. Though watching these always makes me a little sad... there's an alternate universe out there where P&O cruises are onboard massive flying cruiseliners, and commercial flights are all VTOL, but our universe decided to opt for 'sane' choices.
it's darwinian. Only the best win. Those other designs are pure trash.
I like to believe that on some Alien Planet in another Galaxy, these magnificent enormous airplanes are flying aloft with a more favorable atmosphere and propulsion system to enable the safe flight of these heavy beasts.
@@carlosandleon That's not how it works. The "good enough not to warrant further development at this time" win. The best is always over the horizon.
@@marcussoininen2084 Yeah but that clearly doesn't apply to these designs lol
@@marcussoininen2084 and sometimes it's the political situation that dictates regardless, where companies get pigeon holed to produce one type of product, similar to actors being typecast, Bruce Willis in a romantic comedy anyone?.😊.
Norman Bel Geddes was a noted industrial designer with an imagination to match Antoni Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright! .. He started as a scene designer for the theater and went on to design some of the wildest and most imaginative cars, interstate highway, transportation, and airplane concepts ever imagined! .. (BTW, he was also the father of noted 40s, 50s actress, Barbara Bel Geddes.) ... His 'Airliner Number 4' with all of its passenger cabins, lounges, gyms, dining and dance halls, baths, and more!, all fitted onto its single wing-fuselage, and its two massive pontoons - along with two external planes (in hangers!) for emergencies, on top of the fuselage! - is the WILDEST, MOST FANTASTIC plane concept EVER Imagined! ... This plane was mostly designed to be a flying ocean liner, flying between Chicago and London, for a leisure flight of between 30 and 40 hours! ... (Oh, Lord ... please have some Sci Fi channel develop a retro-Art Deco series on it!)
An excellent summation of Norman Bel Geddes' life! I wonder if the amazing 'Airliner Number 4" seaplane he designed could be made into a working R/C model?
@@gizmonicman9879 what scale?, even in seventy second it would be huge, just so wish it is possible 😊.
He was also the father of Barbara Bel Geddes.
I know I am late to the party commenting on this, but I made a model of Norman Bel Geddes' Airliner No 4 for Microsoft Flight Simulator. You could look around the cockpit (which I did not finish fleshing out), look out the tail and see one of the planes stored in the tip of the floats, down the wing, and the control room in the wing on top.
What he failed to mention is the wing on top was supposed to contain extra engines in addition to the ones actually being used, and they could be swapped out in flight using a built-in railway! I tried to picture all of this in my model of the control room, with the extra engines sitting there. Like most flying boats, the pilot would have probably telegraphed the control room what speed he wanted, and they would have adjusted the individual engines to suit.
There would have been to major issues with his original design. When a flying boat is attempting to take off, the drag of the water on the hull tends to make the nose want to porpoise down. Most large flying boats countered this by having the wings with engines set way back, on smaller ones, the engines were angled upwards to try and counteract the rotating tendency when the throttle was advanced. Having the wing with the engines so far forward and so high up would have made it even worst on Airliner #4, which is probably why he moved it to the back in a later design.
A bigger issue that could not be solved so easily is the fact that as the airplane banked, the passenger cabins on the tips would rise and fall by tens, even hundreds of feet at the tips. One could imagine trying to walk down the promenade deck when a bank begins; and having to hang on for dear life to keep from tumbling down the deck to the other wingtip.
Still, it was fun imagining how it all would have worked had it been built. I "flew" it once from Chicago to Plymouth, though it left it to fly on its own over the Atlantic while I slept and did other things during the day. I never released it because I could not finish the cockpit to my liking; but you can see it here:
facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4440172976955
Some other calculations I came up with were:
* 20 engines of 1,900 HP each; one third were envisioned to be running during cruise. A similar German DB603 engine had a specific fuel consumption of 0.474. At a cruise setting of 1,160 HP and a 45-hour flight; I came up with 1,044,00 HP/hr, and 82,202 gallons consumed during flight. (It was to be refueled in flight over Newfoundland.) 0.054 gallons per passenger mile.
I roughly calculated the volume of the broad bottoms of each float, since that most likely would be the location of the tanks. In my final weight calculations, I came up with the following:
* 152,200 lbs of humans on board
* 9,132 lbs food
* 129,120 lbs of water (based on 35 gallons per person the entire flight)
* 10,000 lbs other payload and fluids
* 662,600 pound empty weight
* 1,275,300 max weight, leaving 312,248 lbs, or 51,868 gallons; 25,934 gallons per float, with arial refueling over Newfoundland.
I could see pumps lifting the fuel to surge tanks in the auxiliary wing pylons, where individual pumps pumped it out to the each engine. The freshwater tanks could also be in each pylon, providing a head of water pressure for the passenger spaces.
The Aircraft in the thumbnail strongly remind me of the "Titanium Turkey", a giant flying wing airliner featured in an episode of Disney's Talespin cartoon. :)
I was just gonna say this lol!
I remembered that too. I had to look up an image and it's almost identical!
No doubt Tailspin animators were mining for ideas.
Definitely based on that aircraft!
Incorrect the one on tailspin was called the spruce goose
Puts me in mind of every other Jules Verne story, which depended on a hither-to unforeseen new source of energy to make the revolutionary vehicle actually work.
Verne's generation, and pretty much every generation up to the end of the Second World War (and maybe a bit beyond?) knew in their hearts that there was still much to discover, and at least to the layman it didn't seem beyond reason (at least to them) that SOMETHING (TM) would come along to make it work.
Granted, back in the '30s, a state of the art huge aircraft engine barely put out 700 hp...
Wow! Some of these I knew about, others are completely off the charts "crazy", but fascinating. The behemoth flying ocean liner takes 1st prize on this list, although the supersonic VTOL at the very end is a serious contender. What is truly remarkable is how early some of these concepts were dreamed up, and in some cases, actually constructed and flown. The Junkers J1000 was truly way ahead of its time. Thanks for compiling and posting this.
100% of Artist renditions are always so lofty. As a Kid with free yearly access to Miami's Auto Show made me realize that as good as many looked ,some cars were Concept and never to be seen again. Very interesting Birds .TY for the peeks.
The P.146 looks like something straight out of Thunderbirds, or maybe Stingray. Edit: I stopped the video to post that, only to continue the video a moment later, and was happy to hear you say exact same thing. Wild!
I love the Princess, Duchess and Queen series - fabulous aircraft!
"...and an inclination for sanity"
The dry humour of your videos is just brilliant!
Ah I'm so glad you covered the Saunders-Roe flying boats, some of their plans were just...absurd.
It's surprising Saunders-Roe lasted as long as it did as a company as they never really had any successes. Still if I had Bezos money rather than Blue Origin I would totally be funding the building of stuff like the Saunders-Roe Queen as a one-off just to see if it would work!
Still, I'd be willing to give my left kidney to see the SARO Queen fly!
Great work, really appreciate your hard graft in locating rare images of these aircraft. Can't wait for the next episode.
Sometimes you just wish they were built out of sheer cool factor
I love Airliner No.4. it's so wonderfully ridiculous!
The fact that it would have a librarian kills me.
Would love to live in a world where this kind of madness made it into reality
Truly a flightship - the concept Claude Dornier was aiming for with the Do X (the biggest plane of its era, yet much, much smaller than this).
This channel is pure gold, I'm so glad I discovered it!
Mustard and Paper Skies used to be like this.
I hope you can keep bringing unique and interesting content in the future.
And there’s Found and Explained too! All pretty good channels…
Also Dark Skies does same style content. Curious Droid also covers aerospace from a engineering standpoint. What happened to Mustard and Paper Skies besides upping their 3D modeling render game? There's only so many obscure planes to cover and only so many recently found documents.
drachinifel
@@EricHamm dark skies has so many errors tho, they and their other channels are not on this level.
@@davidmok108 Found and Explained has too much made up bullshit to take seriously. It's more click bait than fact.
Some of these designs must have been seen by Gene Roddenberry when he was creating the Star Trek universe. The monster Geddes sea plane for one.
I was thinking that some of these designs look more like (sci-fi) space craft when I read your comment!
Certainly. Several of these designs were still doing the rounds in the 1980s, in books and magazine articles with very similar themes to this video.
I think of all the videos I’ve watched on this channel, this has to be among my top 5. I love learning about real planes, but you give these fanciful dream birds deference and respect that really makes them come alive in a way where we can almost see the reasoning behind what, to us, seems absolutely ludicrous.
Well done!
You said it exactly!
About hypothetical military aircraft, I think several insane (and impractical) asymmertical aircraft design that were never left the drawing board (asides from the already covered BV 141) deserve mention.
Or not so hypothetical - look up the Junkers G38 airliner that was rebuilt as a bomber by the Japanese as the Mitsubishi as the Ki-20…
I was in the first grade in 1961. My grandfather who saved everything gave us a set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s from around 1921. I wasn’t old enough to read them but I remember looking through them before Dad threw them away. There was an article that I think was about traveling to the moon in the future. It had a drawing of a giant biplane. It looked like it was fabric covered like airplanes of that day. It had a fuselage the size of an ocean liner and a wingspan that was at least quarter of a mile wide with dozens of little motors mounted along the wings. Even as a 6-year-old kid, I thought they were crazy and I wondered if they were really that ignorant about space.
Fun comment! But the part that really stuck with me is your father throwing out old set of encyclopedia. It pains me to read that.
Apparently your understanding of the universe and physics was more advanced at six years old than that of many adults today.
@@theobserver9131 I believe that I would have to agree with you on that one! Some of those "mature" bodies do not seem to have brains that developed after the toddler years.
@@theobserver9131 Besides being 40 years old, they had been stored in his garage and some had been wet and they all smelled musty.
I love how these past few episodes have been dedicated to absolute *behemoths*
I've always loved Air Liner #4. Norman Bel Geddes was an industrial designer and a very influential one. He was not an engineer and it shows. This and other projects are in his design manifesto Horizons (1932) is in the public domain, though look for a one with good scans since it was more a coffee-table book.
His daughter wasn't bad looking either.
As designed it probably wouldn't have been stable, but if that could be managed it might actually work as a flying cruise ship. It's so large that it could get usable altitude from ground effect. Speed would of course be terrible, but if the whole point is to get your passengers to spend their money in bars and shops that's not a disadvantage! 😀
The J 1000 would make a really nice luxury space-liner.
Great channel and super research! I've always loved these wacky projects and have a few books on secret projects of the Luftwaffe and RAF, so seeing these really ticked my boxes - looking forward to future episodes, thanks Rex!
I love the aircraft of the 30’s, especially the flying boats.
It’s hilarious to see all these early designs with the knowledge that eventually what won out was a pointy tube with wings and not some sort of flying triangular monstrosity.
This channel is gold! So happy i found it
If only these things were more explored in video games. Instead of surviving aboard a space ship, imagine aboard a flying cruise ship in full 30s deco. It's like bioshock levels of crazy.
10:20 can see where the inspiration for "The High Country" came from, supposedly a vast flying craft that has been in the air since the 1940s, where it has been upgraded and built on up to the present day. And houses a time machine.
Fascinating Sci-Fi novel.
This was an interesting detour Rex, thank you. _Thunderbirds are go!_
10:50
Wait, airliner No 4 had a theoretical top speed of 150 MPH?!? That’s roughly 130 knots. An empty Boeing 747 with full flaps STALLS at that speed. That’s granted that it could fly and be stable at all. With all that thrust so high above the center of drag, i can only imagine the craft front flipping endlessly.
Many flying boats had and today still have such silly looking above the wing engines.
See the successful Savoua Marchetti S55 of the 30s, along with numerous successful planes like the Walrus, and several Dornier flying boats. The Do-18, and 24.
@@JFrazer4303
See, the thing is, those planes also all had conventional designs, with main wings mounted close to the center of mass, and a long fuselage which mounted the stabilizers. Those planes did, and do, suffer from thrust-induced nose down pitch when the pilots fire-wall the throttles, especially at low airspeeds. This theoretical plane was effectively a flying wing. Conventional planes are stable because having the vertical and horizontal stabilizers on the tailplane, far from the center of mass, gives them leverage to keep the nose straight into the air flow. Shorten that fuselage close to the main wings, and there wont be enough leverage to be effective.
@bobkile9734 which is why in a later redesign, he moved the auxiliary wing further back; it is shown @8:05 and @8:23.
"Something straight out of Thunderbirds." A Fellow Anderson fan.
Delightful! Hard work. Thank you for your time.
Airliner number 4 was resurrected in the Disney Cartoon, "Tailspin". It was the brainchild of Howard Huge, and called the Titanium Turkey..
*Thanks!*
As airplanes were thought to replace ocean liners, early designs were flying ocean liners.
For an aviation nut this channel is heaven. Thank you.
Great collection of featured aircraft for dreamers! Between model airplane package artwork, comic book art, and sci-fi movie models, lots of aviation fantasy was provoking thought and awe in public dreamer's circles. It's hard to imagine an airplane that weighed more than a Big-Boy locomotive.
I can't wait for the next video!!!
My Grandfather was a (Royal Navy) marine engineer and ended up working on Vickers flying boats in the 1920’s in Montreal.
At minute 10, I notice on the bottom, it's marked "hangars." I assume they expected mail and supply planes n such to dock mid flight? Great video
Good spot. I wonder if that is what they intended. Or maybe it was too carry a sort of shuttle service when they arrived at places.
Another commenter mentioned that it would store 2 planes on board 'for emergencies'.
In some weird prospect, I actually love the design.
Bel Geddes had a certain flare. Wouldn't mind having a model of both ship and air liner. I'd drive the heck out of that car.
It's great to see these old designs I read about in the 80s, and some new to me too. :)
I love odd aircrafts and the calm narration so subbed and waiting for more videos.
Wouldn't it have been a thrill to fly on board one of these flying cruise liners! Especially the one with the huge observation deck in the rear or the one with passenger cabins in the wings!
The wing of the Duchess does look a bit like that of the Handley Page Victor with its scimitar curve and engines in the wing roots.
Airliner #4 - from the plans you showed, also had 2 airplane hangars, with aircraft depicted with folded wings... surprised mention wasn't made of this...
"The Dutchess" was beautiful!
Wonder-filled!
I would love to see some of these aircraft built now, with todays materials and engineering applied.
Love the channel, keep up the great work! These what-if's are wonderful. I've seen more of these types of drawings in old pre-war and post-war issues of 'The Aeroplane' and such, so a good trawl through there could yield some more. Interesting how the giant bombers in the movie of HG Wells' 'Things to Come' looks somewhat reminiscent of the Airliner No. 4.
I've only ever seen the huge Bel meddes design featured in a reprinted boys comic from the 1950's. It always reminded me of the Dalek flying saucer from the Peter Cushing movie sequel. Another intriguing design was an airliner derived from the Avro Vulcan that looked decidedly less futuristic than the delta wing bomber.
Hugo Junkers was quite a visionary and seems underrated today.
I found your channel by accident but WOW.. I'm hooked. My father was in the RAF and he would have loved this too. Jeep up the great work
It's absolutely fascinating seeing some of the planes you show in your videos. They're so strange and beautiful. The alt.Universe of their reality is a marvellous place ! Its "The Fifth Element" made real.
looking forward to the next update already，Geddes is very much an icon of the time and still inspires us；love Griffith‘s vision too
The SARO flying boats look beautiful! What a sight they would have been! Imagine seeing the SARO Queen flying overhead!?
OMG...a lot of these designs relied on VTOL technology; for the time, that's just phenomenal¡☆!
13:15 "...something straight out of Thunderbirds..." any 'airport scene' in Thunderbirds is great for repeated freezing frames and spotting which model-kit jet-fighter front ends and wings etc have been glued onto which airliner fuselages : ) Which was obviously how 'planes were going to be by 2000 or so ...
Really enjoyed this video, thanks. I'm also convinced that sometime there has to be a sort-of retro sci-fi series that features a world where all these designs came to fruition. I'd love it, and hope I'm not the only one. Studio Ghibli, where are you? Maybe a follow-on to 'Things to Come'?
NB, side note, I'm sure I saw some of those illustrations in old Eagle Annuals. You too?
I used to draw designs for gigantic flying wing passenger craft when I was a kid. This had to be the source material, which I don't remember. They all had promenades.
Great research. Norman Bell-Geddes was an amazing dreamer for all kinds of designs, in the 1920s/30s ... architecture, liners, cars, and aircraft. I have his book published in 1932. His daughter was the actress Barbara Bell-Geddes.
Your channel is so well researched and so brilliantly presented I must offer my humble appreciation salute.
Salute, sir. Your service is much appreciated even here in the northeastern hills of India, Aizawl.
One thinks that maybe some of these early designers might have been smoking something other than tobacco.Great video,looking forward to more of this series.
i really like the idea behind the junkers, it looks very smart (and not too ugly).
Recently been bingeing this - your commentary delivery is great; just the right mix of informative and dryly witty. Keep it up!
Also that Saro Queen looks like something designed by Gerry Anderson...
I've never been able to say this about a plane before, but... Does the J1000 make anyone else feel queasy? Seriously... My brain is screaming at me that something is wrong with it. I can't process it... Regardless... VERY cool video. Keep it up! -Vic
9:51 - are we just going to walk right be the fact that the deck drawings for the Bel Geddes show that it had hangars for TWO onboard aircraft.?!?!
Amazing.. Although I am in love with DC3, wich is my master aroplane by it's sucess until presnt time, the design or concept, the advanced qualities for it's time and the overall aspect ratio of the aircraft. I like also very much flying boats and theire long journey flights much more than regional ones as my secondary passion of the aeroplanes, this Saunders-Roe Queen concept is impressive!! I imagine the old times trancontinental airways! The adventure that should have been to fly in those times!! Very nice job on the research!! Thank you
I always felt the same way about the sea planes. The time of the Pan Am Clippers and other sea planes and companies could possibly be called the "romantic" time of air travel because of sense of adventure and pioneering travel to new exotic destinations that those planes opened up. To be a pilot or crew of a seaplane in those times had to of been an exciting job.
@@ronfullerton3162 a documentary with a former Empire flying boat passenger mentioned the pilot detouring to fly round the Great pyramid for the passengers to see it, not something you would get today methinks, I think the thirties must have been an incredible time to be aviating. The Saro Duchess had a cousin in the American Martin seamaster bomber, faster, more payload, and greater range than a B52, but the airforce didn't like the idea of wet feet😊, it may have helped had Boeing made it or am I being a bit cynical?.
@@CrusaderSports250 That is some really great information you brought up. Especially the circling of interesting points, wouldn't that be such a wonderful addition to the flight. Thank you for those interesting looks into the early era of commercial flight. That makes one wish they had a time machine to go back and actually experience it. Thanks again.
The P146; yep, definitely belongs in Thunderbirds. In fact, I think it is standard equipment for Trans Imperial Airways.
Thank you the best thing i have viewed in a long while looking forward to so much more
13:12 was gonna say, I saw that picture and the profile IMMEDIATELY put me in mind of the Firebird airliner
Yay another flying boat fan!
Well done and thanks for making the video. It was very interesting and entertaining.
You'll know that both J.1000 and Saunders Roa Queen inspired the ML-422 Pegasus Flying Boat, a long range Airliner which by the looks of it is expected to be a cruise ship cause of how it looked, the ML-422 Pegasus might have 3 variants, the original, the Airborne Glider and Troop Transport, and a Bomber
If I was writing a thesis for an aeronautical engineering PHD, I would use this 'Airliner #4' as a subject. Proving whether or not this thing could even fly would be a huge study in engineering. Having failed at that, I'd just utilize the Soviet tactic of copying my classmate's paper.
It is amazing how you find some of the most forgotten bits of aviation history.
I see at 0:37 you've also captured the SR.A/1 flying boat fighter: another answer to a question that was no longer relevant.
Looking at the Griffith (hopefully it would have been more reliable and less inclined to kill you than its TVR namesake) I wonder if those rear pods could have inspired Gerry Anderson's precurser to Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5?
Hell, what about the vehicles in *Ultraman* and *Gatchaman?*
beautiful oddities, love it
That Number 4 just screams "I am from a time when fuel was practically free!".
Wasn't the _Airliner No. 4_ even featured in an episode of TaleSpin when Baloo got deceived into flying to some island because his very special gyroscoping compass or something similar was required to build a megalomanic airplane there? It's been 25 years and I have seen this episode exactly one as a child, but I'm almost certain to recognize the design. Furthermore the show is set exactly at the right time for this inspiration to make sense.
13:15 it reminds me of the police cruisers in *Ultraman*
14:05 I never understood why the "lifting body" concept never got off the ground.
17:10 looks nothing like the Pejite gunship from *Nausicaa*
As a little boy, I remember watching the Princess lumbering overhead. Awesome!
I remember the Princesses but never saw the Short Shetland and those two were big. All those Conways could have thrusted the wings ahead of the fuselage while it was still trying to unstick from the oggin.
After seeing how people drive regular cars not having flying cars today is probably a blessing.
Did Gene Rodenberry ever see Bell Geddes' air liner I wonder? Rodenberry was 8 in 1929, which is about the right age to fall in love with that design.
Any way I could get the blueprints and plans for the Airliner No.4, Rex? I would love to make a model R/C aircraft and see how/if it flies based on it.
Good gravy these aero engineers have some wild ideas!
Titanium Turkey from TaleSpin is a reference to Airliner Number 4
Such clever stuff. You're on the sweet-spot.
Oh wow, the Airliner #4 was a 'real' aircraft. I had always assumed it had been invented from whole cloth for the old TailSpin cartoon as the 'Titanium Turkey'.
I can see why you and Drachinifel get along, keep it up!
Thanck you for your researches…fantastique…👏👏👏👏
If someone remembers cartoon "Tail Spin" there was an aircraft that closely resembles No.4, so you could say it got its moment in some cultural adaptation