We're currently operating the Boomerang out of the San Luis Obispo airport (KSBP). Our founder was an engineer at Scaled Composites and was given the opportunity to keep Burt's one-of-a-kind aircraft flying. For such a unique configuration, the Boomerang's flight characteristics are truly phenomenal!
Burt Rutan did design and build many one-off airplanes, but he also sold kits for quite a few designs. Most notably, the Long-EZ was a very popular and unique 2 seat experimental canard design, of which there are still many flying.@@Dad_Lyon
@PainflyErect I wouldn't call the EZ series of planes one-offs. They've been highly successful for decades. I might add that in my 40yrs of flying and being an airport junkie, an EZ in the 80's was the only plane I actually witnessed crashing and killing the pilot. He cut me off with an unannounced emergency and crashed at end of runway.
While being a very good explanation of the reasons for the Boomerang's odd appearance, the video didn't really answer the question expressed in the title. I still don't know what happened to the Boomerang.
I was walking to another hangar at SBP and I saw it a few years ago. Talked to the guys inside for a couple minutes but never realized the significance of what I was seeing.
Thanks for producing this excellent re-cap of the Boomerang. I got to go for a flight in the prototype aircraft featured here, and chat with Burt a lot about it, and both Burt and his boomerang design were remarkable and lovable. A little told account about Burt and the Boomerang was that Burt did not have an Instrument rating, and inadvertently flew into IMC conditions and encountered a thunderstorm in the Boomerang, lost control and managed a recovery that from the description I doubt any similar light aircraft would have survived, but Burt and the Boomerang survived perfectly intact. There was a follow-on story involving Burt and the Boomerang I was involved with in the late 90's that led to my meeting Burt and the flight in the Boomerang: After Ray Morrow the founder of II Morrow, the company that developed the first commercial Loran and GPS navigation avionics for general aviation, sold that company to Garmin he contracted Burt Rutan to develop an air taxi version of the Boomerang. The cabin was a bit larger than a Cessna 414, and to be powered by Continental TISO-550s, and expected to transport 8-9 passengers at about 300mph. Burt constructed a mock-up and we spent a couple of years with Burt developing the design and working on FAA certification. The Boomerang design turned out to be an excellent air-taxi platform as nearly the entire fuselage could be utilized and even toilet and washroom accommodated. Baggage and cargo could be stored in the left boom, and due to the large-span horizontal stabilizer it had an unusually broad loading envelope as well as payload and range. Sadly, the FAA misled (lied to?) Ray as to certification requirements. Original estimates for the FAA paper work was about $8 to $12 million. But once we committed to the program the FAA said it could cost up to 10X more. Basically it appeared they they wanted to tap what they saw as deep-pockets to fund a new FAA General Aviation certification department. A regrettable loss to aviation, as today I believe it would eclipse today's state of the art turbine aircraft.
The Boomerang is alive & well in a hanger at the San Luis Obispo airport. At least it was a couple of years ago. I talked to the person in charge of maintenance and we talked about why it was there & not out in Mojave. I actually touched it. It's a one of a kind plane.
@@Clayne151 Same reason why newer aircrafts dont sell as good as older ones: They are just MUCH more expensive, with little to no extra gain. It might even be much cheaper to order a brad new aircraft of older model instead of even looking at newer ones.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907a damn shame. Those old birds have such inefficient airframes. Modern airframes are so much sleeker, have so much less parasitic drag. The fuel consumption is drastically better.
@@dp5475 This was more of a personal side project for Rutan to prove his concept. Plus putting an aircraft of this size and complexity into production would require a huge investment.
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. This text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
I got to see the Voyager in real life when I was little, and I've always been interested anything Bert Rutan does, the guy's definitely in aeronautical genius
I got to meet and talk to Mr. Rutan many years ago at a SolidWorks convention held at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. He was working with Virgin Galactic at the time. The man was fascinating to listen to and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Orange county choppers was paid to be at the same convention... they were just there to deliver the bike SolidWorks corporate had bought, collect their check, and leave. Burt stuck around spending time looking at displays on the show floor, and talking to people. He even stuck around for the dinner we had inside of Hollywood Studios after close. He was looking at the bike the Orange County guys had built and a friend of mine that worked for SolidWorks let him thru the ropes blocking it off, started the thing up in the middle of the show floor in the Coronado Springs convention center and then turned it over to Burt. :) It was awesome, I still have pictures. I found Burt to be very knowledgeable and super friendly. Very down to earth and interested to what others knew and what they were using SolidWorks to design.
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Rutan claimed that the secret to the success of the Boomerang wa the use of servos that would automatically adjust and compensate the control surfaces. I was hoping to learn more about it in this video but it was not mentioned at all. None the less, thank you for the deep dive. I learned quite a bit
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. This text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Had a chance to see (and touch) this aircraft some years ago at the Scaled Composite factory. I seem to recall that the difference in engine power was a deliberate part of the design (I think the left engine was lower). Your pictures show a more finished interior than when I saw it.
This "creator" knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Does the staggered main gear cause any stability issues when touching down? My naive non pilot intuition tells me would cause problematic torque in both pitch and roll, and perhaps yaw to a lesser degree. But... would it be notably different than when a similar sized plane has one wheel hit first? So maybe it's in a normal landing that this comes into any play at all... wouldn't there be a slight bank towards the boom side on touchdown? Don't get me wrong... I'm not questioning whether he made any mistakes, I'm just curious whether this had a meaningful impact at all. All designs are full of compromises, and as this was an idea testbed design the choice of exactly where some compromises landed would probably be different than in a production aircraft.
Yeah it probably lands flat. If you think about it, the landing config makes perfect sense. It's probably more stable than a motorcycle with a sidecar.
Jim Bede's BD-5 - Lovely to look upon; but does not work all that well. Burt Rutan's Boomerang - a Shape that only (properly) appreciated by the "Wine Snobs" of aerodynamic efficiency. (I knew it was good, but my appreciation went up a few Notches, while watching your Vid. As my parents used to say, "Tuksamika.")
He is intuitive when it comes to building that's why no wind tunnel or CAD is needed for his designs. It's a gift. I had a friend who could not do any RD without this when having fun with our High Power Model Rocket Club. My designs would always out perform his. This would frustrate him so much he asked me one time " How is it you can design a rocket, 12 to 20 feet long, without any mathematical workup and my rocket are so inferior to yours " I replied back, how is it you can design your rockets with all the mathematical formulas ? We both just laughed. I just build the rocket ! Of course I test it and take measurements after it's build, but it just comes to me. My first launch with my first HP rocket I designed back in 1991 put my rocket to just over 10 thousand feet. It landed less then a football field away. All systems worked fine and the recovery system ejected at apogee, I packed it up and lunched again the same day. Today my club, Tripoli High Powered Rocket Club hold a club altitude record of 50K, not bad for a club. I love building things and aircraft are my focus. I often find my self building all kinds of different configuration, of course it's only RC models, but the similarities are the same except for size. With today technology it might surprise you how far model anything has reached levels never possible just a few years ago. I have a RC buggy I built that does 72 miles an hour I couldn't do that without the technology of today. All you need is effort. I feel as if I missed my calling. I have a aeronautical degree, but it's only a two years of schooling. However, I've worked on aircraft for 20 years, during my military service. When I left I started college to become an engineer, but life sometimes takes you down different paths so Remote Controlled models will have to do. Burt is an incredible designer maybe some day we can gain permission to build a RC model of his Boomerang plane.
Decades ago, for the longest, people were building airplanes and racecars without the help of windtunnels and computers. Just good ol hunches and guestimation. Today they'll tell you it's impossible without such things, like they'll tell you that you can't just build something without years and thousands of dollars of schooling. At this point, so much research, innovation and tech has been done, so many things have failed, all this man[and the rest of us] needed was some imagination and common sense. That plan looks crazy until you realize common sense dictates the plane has the properties it has, so it works.
I'm a new subscriber and your content is just fantastic. It definitely doesn't go unnoticed as the subject matter can be quite difficult to come by. Keep up the great work!
Rutan is a genius and it's a sign of how unfair the innovation industry is (patents mainly) that he's not a billionaire. Fact. I worked in the invention industry and know what I speak of. Another inventor who got shafted, mainly by his own government, is the UK inventor of the hovercraft. Meanwhile Disney gets billions from their trademarks...as do others like middlemen (buy low, sell high) who add little value compared to pioneer inventors and engineers.
It's because he knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
How about showing a picture of a continental 6cyl engine when the boomerang is powered by Lycoming 4cyl 7:54. At least they both have 360cuin displacement 😂
His genius was to not only design a very efficient and safe aircraft using his very detailed understanding of advanced aeronautical concepts, but also to be able to build a prototype aircraft with very limited resources. Burt is right up there with Kelly Johnson.
indeet, good woerds, still, we need another BR...tecnology offets good engines and material...a low stall and still 220 knts is missing...i will check kelly johnson, never stept over his name.
The photo you present at 07:52 is not of a Lycoming, it is a Continental IO-360. This becomes more obvious as just prior you stated and listed it was a flat 4 engine, but the Continental you show is clears a 6 cylinder.😅
Very good description of an interesting aircraft. But the article does not answer the question posed by the title. What did happen to the aircraft. Where is it now. Is it still being flown? If you are going to pose a question in a title at least answer the question.
He didn't answer the question because he didn't write the content. He steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Thank you so much for the video. I have always wanted to hear more about that aircraft. Wish I could have one of those. Too bad only one of them was built. I guess I’ll keep playing my turbo 337.
Should have compared it to the German bomber with one engine on one side. Propeller torque has a bias to one side so an extra engine is suitable on one side but not the other. BTW rear engines are hard to keep cool.
A great example of AeroPunk. Asymmetry always guarantees AeroPunk status. Blohm & Voss baby! Combined with forward swept wings, the Boomerang is about as AeroPunk as you can get. To beat this you would need to switch from tractor props to pushers. If it had mid-mounted circumferential ducted fans like the FanJet 600, it would be the most AeroPunk aircraft of all time. 😅
Rojanna Kreigh's husband Dan Kreigh worked at Scaled and helped build Boomerang, and Rojanna felt that it looked like such a UFO it needed an alien on board, so she made a vinyl sticker with a green alien peering out. It's the second window aft of the door on the starboard side.
The only thing he know is that he stole everything in this video from work done by others. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better, but has obviously continued to steal the work of others and attempt to profit off it. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Great video info about the "Boomarang" But I must say,, at mark 7:05, references tonthe Beech Baron, are ruined by the schematic at 7:08 is not a Baron. Its the Beech B60 "Duke", which is different class slightly above the Baron, which leaves me to question; Are you comparing figures against The Baron, OR The Duke? Just saying.
A very clever and interesting design. Is there any info on why Burt built it? Was it just a fun project or was there some hope of making money with it?
Pilots say, "If it looks right, it'll fly right." There are planes that look right. There are planes that look wrong. And then there's Burt Rutan's Boomerang, which ... kinda grows on you the longer you look at it.
He steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
It's because he knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
I saw the boomerang at Mojave airport in Sept., 1996. Scaled composites was managing the flight operations of a UAV, under a NASA contract. I looked inside the cockpit and saw no instruments, just a laptop. Inside the main building used by Scaled Composites was the Voyager aircraft, hoisted up to the ceiling. I also saw a prototype airliner they were working on. A larger area of the building was walled off. We were told that area was restricted. A coworker was declared persona non grata after going in there during a previous visit. I met both Rutan brothers. While the UAV was flying a rather large jetliner arrived and stopped next to Scaled Composites's buildings. Several business-suited people came down the ramp and went inside. I later learned that Paul Allen was among the visitors and the jetliner was his private plane.
@@earlwebster5351 I think I said laptop. I didn't get a good look at it. Their UAV control van was very cool. It had a big bubble on top of the front where the UAV pilot's sat, which afforded them a 360° view of the sky above. They had 2 laptops with large screens for piloting the UAVs. Edit: The computers might have been desktop units. I think the monitors were shielded from the bright sunlight. Mounted on the back of the van was a genset and A.C. unit. The A.C. pumped cool air through a large diameter flexible tube up to the bubble. It was very hot outside. All the people at Scaled Composites we interacted with were very helpful and knew their stuff. They loaned me their Bird wattmeter when I was trying to find out why the TDRSS satellite uplink was not working.
Thanks for this - I’ve always admired Burt’s unconventional thinking and incredible achievements. I don’t think he was as appreciated as he should have been- a brilliant man. (I have flown the Long EZE myself, and have a model of the Boomerang.)
@joeljong931 They should have made him jump thru hoops. Anyone who's been in aviation for a while has basic aerodynamics knowledge. His approach in building this abomination appears to be just that. His obvious problems are not wind tunnel testing. I'm just looking at it as an aviator and immediately see potential problems with the spiral slipstreams fighting each other. Also asymmetrical in aviation has never been proven to be a good idea. It's a concept idea with absolutely no value to aviation.
Except the entire thing is plagiarized. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better, but has obviously continued to steal the work of others and attempt to profit off it. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
FYI.. You kept mentioning the Baron as Pressurized.. it wasn't.. you were thinking of and even pictured the Beech Duke which was the pressurized light piston twin from Beechcraft..
I’ve always wondered if his designs were so good why don’t we have certified ones from a manufacturer cranking them out like the Cirrus or Diamond? Went to his hangar in Mojave with parts for him to inspect of my VareEze project about 1978. He had just flown his N4EZ to the Watsonville flyin. Wow ! It attracted hundreds of people. Everyone was talking about it. it was just him and a receptionist. Remember seeing an Apple II computer in his office. Knew he was cutting edge designer since that Apple was the hottest thing going. Was a pharmacist with poison control experience…didn’t like the epoxy system he used. Tough on your liver. He recommended liver tests periodically.😮
Well then, the question has already answered itself; nothing happened to the Rutan Boomerang. In fact, it's actually rather well cared for by one of Rutan's former employees.
Technically, you can make any asymmetrical design, but it will only fly if the forces produced are symmetrical.. If one could visualize resulting forces with vectors, symmetry is always present.
Strange. If you'd design the Boomerang with two equal size fuselages, what you get looks like a twin Mustang. There have been more, two single prop planes combined into a two fuselage twin prop. It is a smart concept. Easy to build. Only problem, you get drag for the second fuselage, if you do not really need to have so much space, for passengers or for a huge lot of fuel (do you really fly huge distances often?) then it's better to reduce the second fuselage size. Burt Rutan is famous for reducing drag.
From what I read at the time, Rutan's goals were: 1. To build a twin-engine aircraft with standard (clockwise) engine and propeller rotation on both engines, but make these somehow cancel and result in neutral, symmetrical handling. 2. To build a twin-engine aircraft such that if one engine failed, the plane's failure mode would not have horribly asymmetric thrust and be almost unflyable. How well did he accomplish those?
Considering that it was done years before he was even born... Its called trim. And designing effort. All aircrafts fit for use had completed these criteria.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 And how does that answer the question that @Baribrotzer posed or are you here just to belittle what Rutan wanted to pursue and apparently achieved. There are many ways to skin the cat. It is not reasonable men that advance science and tech it is the unreasonable that do.
@@Axel_Andersen Quite easily: These were question that never should`ve been asked outside of drawing board, much less being a "distinctive features" of an aircraft. Its like being proud of designing airplane that is capable of flight in our day.
Asymetric can be done easily in the computer age, back in the day when materials were iffy at best builders had to keep everything balanced and robust, at the cost of performance....
We're currently operating the Boomerang out of the San Luis Obispo airport (KSBP). Our founder was an engineer at Scaled Composites and was given the opportunity to keep Burt's one-of-a-kind aircraft flying. For such a unique configuration, the Boomerang's flight characteristics are truly phenomenal!
Aren't all Ratan planes one offs?
How does it feel keeping it straight on the runway? Looks like running a tightrope
Burt Rutan did design and build many one-off airplanes, but he also sold kits for quite a few designs. Most notably, the Long-EZ was a very popular and unique 2 seat experimental canard design, of which there are still many flying.@@Dad_Lyon
Boomerang was on my must see list a few years ago at Oshkosh. It was amazing to see!
@PainflyErect I wouldn't call the EZ series of planes one-offs. They've been highly successful for decades.
I might add that in my 40yrs of flying and being an airport junkie, an EZ in the 80's was the only plane I actually witnessed crashing and killing the pilot. He cut me off with an unannounced emergency and crashed at end of runway.
While being a very good explanation of the reasons for the Boomerang's odd appearance, the video didn't really answer the question expressed in the title. I still don't know what happened to the Boomerang.
I watched the whole video because of the title “What happened to…”. The question was never answered.
It’s in the hangar across from mine at the San Luis Obispo airport. One of Rutan’s former employees is taking care of it.
I last flew on 08NOV2023 on a local flight KSBP-KSBP
So…nothing. Thank you for saving me fourteen minutes.
I was walking to another hangar at SBP and I saw it a few years ago. Talked to the guys inside for a couple minutes but never realized the significance of what I was seeing.
Thanks for producing this excellent re-cap of the Boomerang. I got to go for a flight in the prototype aircraft featured here, and chat with Burt a lot about it, and both Burt and his boomerang design were remarkable and lovable. A little told account about Burt and the Boomerang was that Burt did not have an Instrument rating, and inadvertently flew into IMC conditions and encountered a thunderstorm in the Boomerang, lost control and managed a recovery that from the description I doubt any similar light aircraft would have survived, but Burt and the Boomerang survived perfectly intact.
There was a follow-on story involving Burt and the Boomerang I was involved with in the late 90's that led to my meeting Burt and the flight in the Boomerang: After Ray Morrow the founder of II Morrow, the company that developed the first commercial Loran and GPS navigation avionics for general aviation, sold that company to Garmin he contracted Burt Rutan to develop an air taxi version of the Boomerang. The cabin was a bit larger than a Cessna 414, and to be powered by Continental TISO-550s, and expected to transport 8-9 passengers at about 300mph. Burt constructed a mock-up and we spent a couple of years with Burt developing the design and working on FAA certification.
The Boomerang design turned out to be an excellent air-taxi platform as nearly the entire fuselage could be utilized and even toilet and washroom accommodated. Baggage and cargo could be stored in the left boom, and due to the large-span horizontal stabilizer it had an unusually broad loading envelope as well as payload and range.
Sadly, the FAA misled (lied to?) Ray as to certification requirements. Original estimates for the FAA paper work was about $8 to $12 million. But once we committed to the program the FAA said it could cost up to 10X more. Basically it appeared they they wanted to tap what they saw as deep-pockets to fund a new FAA General Aviation certification department. A regrettable loss to aviation, as today I believe it would eclipse today's state of the art turbine aircraft.
The Boomerang is alive & well in a hanger at the San Luis Obispo airport. At least it was a couple of years ago. I talked to the person in charge of maintenance and we talked about why it was there & not out in Mojave. I actually touched it. It's a one of a kind plane.
See the Blohm und Voss BV-141.
It's still there as of this year. Saw it and talked about it with someone involved with its restoration. Such a wonderful plane.
If it's so good, why haven't more of it been made?
My guess: too expensive to make due to the manual carbon fibre construction.
@@Clayne151 Same reason why newer aircrafts dont sell as good as older ones: They are just MUCH more expensive, with little to no extra gain. It might even be much cheaper to order a brad new aircraft of older model instead of even looking at newer ones.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907a damn shame.
Those old birds have such inefficient airframes.
Modern airframes are so much sleeker, have so much less parasitic drag. The fuel consumption is drastically better.
The Boomerang is still operated on the Central Coast of California by the San Luis Obispo based Aerocrafted team.
Hasn’t flown in years but my friends get to taxi it!
So was it an economic reason he didn't produce them? Performance? Other projects?
@@dp5475 This was more of a personal side project for Rutan to prove his concept. Plus putting an aircraft of this size and complexity into production would require a huge investment.
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. This text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
We should be flying it later this week!
I got to see the Voyager in real life when I was little, and I've always been interested anything Bert Rutan does, the guy's definitely in aeronautical genius
I got to meet and talk to Mr. Rutan many years ago at a SolidWorks convention held at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. He was working with Virgin Galactic at the time. The man was fascinating to listen to and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Orange county choppers was paid to be at the same convention... they were just there to deliver the bike SolidWorks corporate had bought, collect their check, and leave. Burt stuck around spending time looking at displays on the show floor, and talking to people. He even stuck around for the dinner we had inside of Hollywood Studios after close. He was looking at the bike the Orange County guys had built and a friend of mine that worked for SolidWorks let him thru the ropes blocking it off, started the thing up in the middle of the show floor in the Coronado Springs convention center and then turned it over to Burt. :) It was awesome, I still have pictures. I found Burt to be very knowledgeable and super friendly. Very down to earth and interested to what others knew and what they were using SolidWorks to design.
Excellent overview of an underappreciated aircraft. Love it!
Content stolen from others. Google aerocrafted boomerang.
It is easy to be underappreciated when few know it exists. Thanks for telling the Masses about this aircraft. It does have its issues.
@@WilliamMurphy-uv9pm This aircraft is appreciated as it should be.
@@WilliamMurphy-uv9pmfff😂😂
Great video. One correction would be that the twin engine plane referred to as a baron at 7:39 is actually a Beechcraft Duke.
I think the Boomerang is a fantastic design idea! And having the separate fuselage for luggage and freight is a great bonus.
Watcha smuggling buddy?
@@ryshellso526
Watcha smoking buddy?
Watcha got?😂
@freedomforever6718 currently skittles Mintz, and a touch of hash.
@@ryshellso526
That explains everything.
I've known about the Boomerang forever, but this was the best write-up/podcast/video whatever I've come across. Thank you!
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Well done documentary. Explanations are clear and there's no silliness like on so many other docs these days.
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Rutan claimed that the secret to the success of the Boomerang wa the use of servos that would automatically adjust and compensate the control surfaces. I was hoping to learn more about it in this video but it was not mentioned at all.
None the less, thank you for the deep dive. I learned quite a bit
Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. This text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
So...literally a FBW?
Wow. Rutan, a true expert and craftsman.
I love the Burt Rutan's airplane designs. They are all different, but you clearly see who the designer is.
Would be cool to see an RC version.
There is one, search in youtube for: Semi Scale Flugmodell "Boomerang"
I remember watching Bert fly the Boomerang to Oshkosh twice. Remarkable aircraft! He gave several talks about it.
Had a chance to see (and touch) this aircraft some years ago at the Scaled Composite factory. I seem to recall that the difference in engine power was a deliberate part of the design (I think the left engine was lower). Your pictures show a more finished interior than when I saw it.
One of the best designed airplanes i've ever seen.
This video has earned you a subscription.
This "creator" knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
This video was very well researched. Those details are spread out over 20 years of articles, presentations, and Q&As.
Does the staggered main gear cause any stability issues when touching down?
My naive non pilot intuition tells me would cause problematic torque in both pitch and roll, and perhaps yaw to a lesser degree.
But... would it be notably different than when a similar sized plane has one wheel hit first?
So maybe it's in a normal landing that this comes into any play at all... wouldn't there be a slight bank towards the boom side on touchdown?
Don't get me wrong... I'm not questioning whether he made any mistakes, I'm just curious whether this had a meaningful impact at all.
All designs are full of compromises, and as this was an idea testbed design the choice of exactly where some compromises landed would probably be different than in a production aircraft.
Yeah it probably lands flat. If you think about it, the landing config makes perfect sense. It's probably more stable than a motorcycle with a sidecar.
Jim Bede's BD-5 - Lovely to look upon; but does not work all that well. Burt Rutan's Boomerang - a Shape that only (properly) appreciated by the "Wine Snobs" of aerodynamic efficiency. (I knew it was good, but my appreciation went up a few Notches, while watching your Vid. As my parents used to say, "Tuksamika.")
He is intuitive when it comes to building that's why no wind tunnel or CAD is needed for his designs. It's a gift. I had a friend who could not do any RD without this when having fun with our High Power Model Rocket Club. My designs would always out perform his. This would frustrate him so much he asked me one time " How is it you can design a rocket, 12 to 20 feet long, without any mathematical workup and my rocket are so inferior to yours " I replied back, how is it you can design your rockets with all the mathematical formulas ? We both just laughed. I just build the rocket ! Of course I test it and take measurements after it's build, but it just comes to me. My first launch with my first HP rocket I designed back in 1991 put my rocket to just over 10 thousand feet. It landed less then a football field away. All systems worked fine and the recovery system ejected at apogee, I packed it up and lunched again the same day. Today my club, Tripoli High Powered Rocket Club hold a club altitude record of 50K, not bad for a club. I love building things and aircraft are my focus. I often find my self building all kinds of different configuration, of course it's only RC models, but the similarities are the same except for size. With today technology it might surprise you how far model anything has reached levels never possible just a few years ago. I have a RC buggy I built that does 72 miles an hour I couldn't do that without the technology of today. All you need is effort. I feel as if I missed my calling. I have a aeronautical degree, but it's only a two years of schooling. However, I've worked on aircraft for 20 years, during my military service. When I left I started college to become an engineer, but life sometimes takes you down different paths so Remote Controlled models will have to do. Burt is an incredible designer maybe some day we can gain permission to build a RC model of his Boomerang plane.
Decades ago, for the longest, people were building airplanes and racecars without the help of windtunnels and computers. Just good ol hunches and guestimation. Today they'll tell you it's impossible without such things, like they'll tell you that you can't just build something without years and thousands of dollars of schooling. At this point, so much research, innovation and tech has been done, so many things have failed, all this man[and the rest of us] needed was some imagination and common sense. That plan looks crazy until you realize common sense dictates the plane has the properties it has, so it works.
@@ItsDaJaxwould it be correct to say modern tools are more for efficiency instead of viability though?
@@xostler Yeah, I'd agree with that.
@@ItsDaJax Planes do not fly based on common sense.
I'm a new subscriber and your content is just fantastic. It definitely doesn't go unnoticed as the subject matter can be quite difficult to come by. Keep up the great work!
A brilliant piece of engineering.
Rutan is a genius and it's a sign of how unfair the innovation industry is (patents mainly) that he's not a billionaire. Fact. I worked in the invention industry and know what I speak of. Another inventor who got shafted, mainly by his own government, is the UK inventor of the hovercraft. Meanwhile Disney gets billions from their trademarks...as do others like middlemen (buy low, sell high) who add little value compared to pioneer inventors and engineers.
Patent and Trademark laws weren't designed to protect engineers or inventors
And in the interest of accuracy, at 7:17 you're showing not a pressurized Beechcraft Baron, but a Beechcraft Duke.
That’s what I thought too. Looked like a Duke to me.
It's because he knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
How about showing a picture of a continental 6cyl engine when the boomerang is powered by Lycoming 4cyl 7:54. At least they both have 360cuin displacement 😂
Have been a fan of Burt's "Birds" for a long time. They said he was crazy, he proved they didn't belong in the conversion
😉
he is a GENIUS..i wish he would continue in this modern time the ultimative flying product !
His genius was to not only design a very efficient and safe aircraft using his very detailed understanding of advanced aeronautical concepts, but also to be able to build a prototype aircraft with very limited resources. Burt is right up there with Kelly Johnson.
indeet, good woerds, still, we need another BR...tecnology offets good engines and material...a low stall and still 220 knts is missing...i will check kelly johnson, never stept over his name.
The photo you present at 07:52 is not of a Lycoming, it is a Continental IO-360. This becomes more obvious as just prior you stated and listed it was a flat 4 engine, but the Continental you show is clears a 6 cylinder.😅
Excellent video. Do you happen to know how many were made?
Just the one.
Very good description of an interesting aircraft. But the article does not answer the question posed by the title. What did happen to the aircraft. Where is it now. Is it still being flown? If you are going to pose a question in a title at least answer the question.
He didn't answer the question because he didn't write the content. He steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
There was a plane with similar asymmetric configuration in WW2.
BTW: the image at 7:55 shows a 6 cylinder engine, not 4. 3 sparkplugs on each side!
The image used is the Continental io-360, not the Lycoming tio-360. It's probably an honest mistake, but details matter.
You also missed that the line drawn picture was a Beechcraft Duke, and NOT a Baron.
What I wanna know is can you get it as a left hand drive
Thank you so much for the video. I have always wanted to hear more about that aircraft. Wish I could have one of those. Too bad only one of them was built. I guess I’ll keep playing my turbo 337.
I wonder if having engines closer together near or on centreline negated the need for one to be contra rotating..or was one contra
They both appear to be standard rotation, likely due to those being the engines he had laying around.
I am greatly enjoying this now and I am learning a lot.
Loved the explanation and animations very satisfying and informative. I’m a visual learner so this was enjoyable as hell. New subscriber
I saw one take off at yeovilton somewhere around 1983, but I have no idea if that one is still flyable today
Look at the 2:00 mark of the Boomerang in flight. Does anyone else notice a flight attribute being constantly corrected?
A true American hero....Thank you Mr Rutan...
Why this design wasn't more popularized? Clearly, it has advantages.
Thinking outside the box at its finest.
"Limiting P factor issues" thanks for speaking so clearly.
Great example of thinking outside of the box.
Looks like something Blohm and Voss would have eventually come up with if WWII had gone on for another 10 years lol
Very cool plane!
Should have compared it to the German bomber with one engine on one side. Propeller torque has a bias to one side so an extra engine is suitable on one side but not the other. BTW rear engines are hard to keep cool.
Blohm and Voss BV 141 was a reconnaissance plane, not a bomber.
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A great example of AeroPunk. Asymmetry always guarantees AeroPunk status. Blohm & Voss baby!
Combined with forward swept wings, the Boomerang is about as AeroPunk as you can get. To beat this you would need to switch from tractor props to pushers.
If it had mid-mounted circumferential ducted fans like the FanJet 600, it would be the most AeroPunk aircraft of all time. 😅
I came to the comment section to see if somebody mentioned Blohm & Voss. This plane immediately reminded immediately of their creations.
@@heinrichzerbesame.
@@heinrichzerbe+ 1.
Hey, Dwayne, do you know the story of the back seat passenger? The green one...
Not really 😊
Rojanna Kreigh's husband Dan Kreigh worked at Scaled and helped build Boomerang, and Rojanna felt that it looked like such a UFO it needed an alien on board, so she made a vinyl sticker with a green alien peering out. It's the second window aft of the door on the starboard side.
The only thing he know is that he stole everything in this video from work done by others. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better, but has obviously continued to steal the work of others and attempt to profit off it. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Is there a kit version, I want one.
Great video info about the "Boomarang"
But I must say,, at mark 7:05, references tonthe Beech Baron, are ruined by the schematic at 7:08 is not a Baron.
Its the Beech B60 "Duke", which is different class slightly above the Baron, which leaves me to question; Are you comparing figures against The Baron, OR The Duke?
Just saying.
A very clever and interesting design. Is there any info on why Burt built it? Was it just a fun project or was there some hope of making money with it?
What dit the plane cost? How many were built? dit it came as a kit? Etc etc.. still many questions
Pilots say, "If it looks right, it'll fly right." There are planes that look right. There are planes that look wrong. And then there's Burt Rutan's Boomerang, which ... kinda grows on you the longer you look at it.
Was there only one ever made? Or did this have a production run
i noticed the continuous wing from the first image in the beginning :)
Reminds me of the German WWII aircraft, the Blohm & Voss BV 141 Sidecar
I’m in love with this design lol it’s like the motorcycle sidecar of the sky… can I modify the boom to put a tail gunner in ? Askin for an enemy
Great video! Cheers mate
not a mention of the BV 141?
This is a fantastic video! Keep it up
He steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
Great video! However the comparison is not a Beech Baron, but the bigger and faster Beech Duke model 60.
It's because he knows very little about airplanes and steals all his content. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
I saw the boomerang at Mojave airport in Sept., 1996. Scaled composites was managing the flight operations of a UAV, under a NASA contract. I looked inside the cockpit and saw no instruments, just a laptop. Inside the main building used by Scaled Composites was the Voyager aircraft, hoisted up to the ceiling. I also saw a prototype airliner they were working on. A larger area of the building was walled off. We were told that area was restricted. A coworker was declared persona non grata after going in there during a previous visit. I met both Rutan brothers. While the UAV was flying a rather large jetliner arrived and stopped next to Scaled Composites's buildings. Several business-suited people came down the ramp and went inside. I later learned that Paul Allen was among the visitors and the jetliner was his private plane.
I thought I read that he used Mac laptops as instruments...
@@earlwebster5351 I think I said laptop. I didn't get a good look at it. Their UAV control van was very cool. It had a big bubble on top of the front where the UAV pilot's sat, which afforded them a 360° view of the sky above. They had 2 laptops with large screens for piloting the UAVs. Edit: The computers might have been desktop units. I think the monitors were shielded from the bright sunlight. Mounted on the back of the van was a genset and A.C. unit. The A.C. pumped cool air through a large diameter flexible tube up to the bubble. It was very hot outside. All the people at Scaled Composites we interacted with were very helpful and knew their stuff. They loaned me their Bird wattmeter when I was trying to find out why the TDRSS satellite uplink was not working.
Burt Rutan knew his air craft well
This Plane must have been inspired by the " Blohm and Voss BV 141" from WWII.
Gorgeous design
And the question is: What happenened to the Rutan Boomerang?
And who killed the electric car?
Thanks for this - I’ve always admired Burt’s unconventional thinking and incredible achievements. I don’t think he was as appreciated as he should have been- a brilliant man. (I have flown the Long EZE myself, and have a model of the Boomerang.)
why is this design not more popular??? this aircraft would be perfect for northern regions
Why is the design not more widely manufactured if it’s so good?
Because it's not! Aside from being a novelty, there's absolutely no benefit to it!
There would be lopsided birds if asymmetrical was efficient.
See @jackoneal3933 comment earlier about a larger version and FAA wanting them to pay 10X the normal price for paperwork.
@joeljong931 They should have made him jump thru hoops. Anyone who's been in aviation for a while has basic aerodynamics knowledge. His approach in building this abomination appears to be just that. His obvious problems are not wind tunnel testing. I'm just looking at it as an aviator and immediately see potential problems with the spiral slipstreams fighting each other. Also asymmetrical in aviation has never been proven to be a good idea. It's a concept idea with absolutely no value to aviation.
Remind me about the asymmetrical German Blohm & Voss BV 141
The comparison to a P Barron seems apt but the image shown was of a Beech Duke... Also a reasonable comparison
The genius was the BV 141, cancelled in 1943, on which design the Boomerang appears to be based on,
Is that a Beechcraft duke figure drawing at 7:16 ?
Reminds me of a sail ship. Could probably do a sail in the air in some way
Burt Rutan: Someone is always holding my beer.
Does it come back?
Great video...👍
Except the entire thing is plagiarized. Google "Aerocrafted Boomerang" and you will see a great article on this airplane. The text from that article has been stolen 99% word for word and recited in this video by this content thief who makes a habit of doing this. I wrote him an email a few months back calling him out on a different video where he did the exact same thing. He confessed and vowed to do better, but has obviously continued to steal the work of others and attempt to profit off it. I encourage all to unsubscribe. I'm contacting youtube to have him demonetized.
FYI.. You kept mentioning the Baron as Pressurized.. it wasn't.. you were thinking of and even pictured the Beech Duke which was the pressurized light piston twin from Beechcraft..
I'm curious if most in the aviation community have the same glowing opinion of Rutan that you do!
I’ve always wondered if his designs were so good why don’t we have certified ones from a manufacturer cranking them out like the Cirrus or Diamond? Went to his hangar in Mojave with parts for him to inspect of my VareEze project about 1978. He had just flown his N4EZ to the Watsonville flyin. Wow ! It attracted hundreds of people. Everyone was talking about it. it was just him and a receptionist. Remember seeing an Apple II computer in his office. Knew he was cutting edge designer since that Apple was the hottest thing going. Was a pharmacist with poison control experience…didn’t like the epoxy system he used. Tough on your liver. He recommended liver tests periodically.😮
Well then, the question has already answered itself; nothing happened to the Rutan Boomerang. In fact, it's actually rather well cared for by one of Rutan's former employees.
The aircraft I would give anything to own...
You and me both!
His aircraft are, without exception, absolutely gorgeous.
As in yachts, beautiful aircraft move well.
The man is a genius!
Great video but the pictures of the engines are TCM 360s. Very different in every way but displacement. Beyond that, everything accurate.
Technically, you can make any asymmetrical design, but it will only fly if the forces produced are symmetrical.. If one could visualize resulting forces with vectors, symmetry is always present.
so why dont we see those in the comercial market?
Strange. If you'd design the Boomerang with two equal size fuselages, what you get looks like a twin Mustang. There have been more, two single prop planes combined into a two fuselage twin prop. It is a smart concept. Easy to build. Only problem, you get drag for the second fuselage, if you do not really need to have so much space, for passengers or for a huge lot of fuel (do you really fly huge distances often?) then it's better to reduce the second fuselage size. Burt Rutan is famous for reducing drag.
At about 7:19 your drawing calls our "carbin" pressure. Is that a misspelling of "cabin" or do airplanes have "carbins"?
And now we've got Mike. ☺️
I would love a larger model of this with more passengers and more powerful turboprop engines. Something that would compete with the King Air 360.
Rutan should be common knowledge. His designs are before their time, expect to see them used soon.
From what I read at the time, Rutan's goals were:
1. To build a twin-engine aircraft with standard (clockwise) engine and propeller rotation on both engines, but make these somehow cancel and result in neutral, symmetrical handling.
2. To build a twin-engine aircraft such that if one engine failed, the plane's failure mode would not have horribly asymmetric thrust and be almost unflyable.
How well did he accomplish those?
Considering that it was done years before he was even born... Its called trim. And designing effort. All aircrafts fit for use had completed these criteria.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 And how does that answer the question that @Baribrotzer posed or are you here just to belittle what Rutan wanted to pursue and apparently achieved. There are many ways to skin the cat. It is not reasonable men that advance science and tech it is the unreasonable that do.
@@Axel_Andersen Quite easily: These were question that never should`ve been asked outside of drawing board, much less being a "distinctive features" of an aircraft. Its like being proud of designing airplane that is capable of flight in our day.
Asymetric can be done easily in the computer age, back in the day when materials were iffy at best builders had to keep everything balanced and robust, at the cost of performance....
There are several asymmetric designs from ~80 years ago.
Computers make it just as hard, haha.
Ah yess modern blohm and voss❤
This man built a real life Star Wars spacecraft.
A Lycoming T360? I know they produce a 370 but the engine shown in the video was a Continental T360.
i thought the engines were two 4 cylinder engines the one you show here is a flat 6 7:53
Imagine what a boomerang could do to the cost of return tickets!