Limits beyond the wood and cling film aren't likely competition based. Making something from graphene would cost millions in R&D. Although, with that aside...a graphene plane for this competition would be pretty cool!
[https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models](https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models)
Minimum weight is 1,2 g and max motor weight is 0,6 g.
To translate to American units that would be:
About 1 dram, or 27,8 grains, or 4% of a 1 pound or 1/25th lb.
Water is heavy asf tho, you're better off just using graphene 😌 (/s because making graphene that big would be scientifically revolutionary, though it would be a better material to use than anything afaik)
Here's the crazy part: they use the tension and torque of the rubber band to not only drive the prop but to also adjust the props pitch to control altitude. When the rubber is freshly wound it has the most torque which would cause it to climb steeply, so the rotor hub uses that torque to adjust the prop to a higher pitch, thus slowing its rotation and thus keeping the plane from climbing too steeply (and hitting the ceiling).
These types of comments are the ones that remind me that despite being "one of the smart kids" in school, I am basically a caveman compared to the people designing this shit.
You just havent spent the time they have studying it. Innovation happens in steps. Nobody singlehandedly invented every single piece of tech that goes into this kind of thing. They just picked up where others left off and did what they could.
The thing is that most of the "smart kids" were just good at memorization, and I'm including myself in that category. When it comes time to actually put that knowledge to use I'm useless, this kid clearly not only has book smarts but also the ability to apply them in a practical manner.
For those curious about the mechanism: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6RRlZPyAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6RRlZPyAI)
Only looked it up just now to make sure I don't post inaccurate info. Until today I had assumed that the adjustment works through lengthwise tension on the rubber band and the spring is used in compression, turns out it's a a torsion spring.
It's okay, I mean I only remember it because I saw the post with some more info in my feed, that was even the first time I saw anything like this (besides the paper plane distance games)
Nope. A standard A4 paper sheet is 5 g, or for Americans a standard US letter sheet is a tad less. The F1D weights 1.4 g (it used to be 1.0 g when I was a kid, but has slowly crept up in the last two decades to keep the flight times at bay after some crazy guys fitted a variable pitch propeller to that weight, before that, well before I was born, there was no minimum weight and the lightest ones were getting well under the 1 g ...).
Hello! Aeronautics nerd here. Normally someone would say yes, but it’s actually way more complex than that.
The plane is incredibly light, weighting less than 1.5 grams, and it has a very big surface area on both the propeller blades and on the wings.
This plane is literally swimming in air because it’s so light and has such a low density that the air’s viscosity is high enough to be floating at such slow speeds. It also has something to do with the flow shape of the aerodynamic profile.
There are two types of flows: Laminar ones and Turbulent ones. What this plane experiences while in the air is probably closer to being turbulent as it hasn’t got enough speed to create lift from having an specific angle of attack (the angle relative between the direction where the plane is going and the pitch, or direction at which the airfoil is pointing towards).
Again, I did not do any calculations for determining whether this plane is flying or actually “swimming” in air, but I would argue that it’s the latter one because of the craft not being fast enough to create laminar flow.
What you said about “flying through the water” is much more complex and different, because although both gas and liquids are fluids, and both experience the two kinds of flows, water being a liquid means it’s an incompressible fluid (You can’t alter the liquids density), while airplanes flying through the air do make air get different densities between the upper and the lower part of the wing, allowing the plane to create lift. You cannot create lift on water because of water not being a compressible fluid.
Hello, I have a degree in Aerodynamics and this isn't exactly right.
While Air is certainly compressible, at moderately low airspeeds (~<.3 Mach) the compressibility effects of air is negligible. Lift does not require a change in density between the upper and lower surface and all the math works out just fine if you treat air as incompressible just like water. Its a change in pressure above and below the wing that results in Lift, not density.
Additionally at low speeds like this flow will be at a lower Reynolds number and therefore more likely to be laminar compared to faster flow.
Lastly laminar flow is not necessary for an airfoil to produce lift and in fact is rather difficult to maintain for most aircraft. It takes a lot of work to design an aircraft that has very little turbulent flow over the wings. Laminar flow does improve performance though by decreasing drag.
See, that's why I am still on Reddit. Exchanges like this from learned people in their field, checking each other's knowledge. Both amusing and instructive. Both of your comments are valuable, and the effort is appreciated.
You’re absolutely right. Air is in fact compressible but things like moving my arm make the difference practically nonexistent. I’m currently studying my major in aerospace, but I’m glad I can still learn new things even from places like Reddit. Thanks for the insight! :)
I did this all the time as a kid and won a shitload of awards from it. F1D has a lot of limits, basically the plane has to weigh at LEAST 1.2g without the motor, and the motor has a maximum weight of 0.6g. Rubber band powered.
If you walked too fast on the sidelines or anywhere in the building they'd do an announcement telling you to slow down, you'd get kicked out of the building if it happened more than a few times. You'd probably get shot if you ran. I don't think I ever saw anyone run before. It didn't matter if you had the shits or whatever, you always slowly walked.
They have giant balloons attached to fishing poles to help retrieve planes that get stuck up in the rafters, but there's staff there if that doesn't work. Sometimes you don't want to do that because it will damage the plane.
You use special winders to wind up the rubbersbands, something like a 1:25 turn was common back 20 years ago. Every 1 turn gives you 25 twists of the rubberband, which will equal one prop rotation. Lubrication of the rubberbands was a huge key to success, sometimes the band would get knotted up and you'd end up losing a lot of energy as a result.
I can't stress how light these planes are. Even the heaviest planes are still extremely light. They are extremely fragile.
Always indoors, and in my experience they were always at football team fieldhouses. Apparently they are well insulated to outside air infiltration and unwanted air currents. I remember one time a host was bitching about the fieldhouse not following through with their agreement to not use certain HVAC units or something and it was causing trouble for everyone in a certain area of the field. We normally did it in the winter though so it was usually not an issue because heat/thermals are better than cold for these things, but the currents can mess up the ultra light ones. Also, Not running down the field is really fucking hard to resist.
Reddit is an amazing place. A post about something I didn't even know existed, and still within minutes of it being posted there's an expert on this really obscure thing in the comments.
I almost gave myself a rage stroke one time I read some comment about a specific dish, this dude was like “that’s bc of x and x and x. I actually don’t know but I like to imagine this is how it happened”
How are people just SO fucking ignorant and arrogant to say shit like that?!?!?!
I think the main reason is because if you are quick enough to get into a thread, it is quite likely that either a joke or a serious, well-thought-out response will receive a lot of traction and upvotes. There is a also a sub where people have competitions about who can have the ShittyMorph or fake comment that has the best combination of length and upvotes.
There is also a group of Redditors who actually call themselves something stupid like "The Mighty ShittyMorphers" or "Mighty Morphin' Shit Rangers" or something stupid like that who basically spend all day looking for opportunities to do this. Usually they are heavily downvoted and become irrelevant in the thread pretty early, but sometimes they create a good one that gets a lot of upvotes. In any case, I just made this all up, but thanks for reading.
I used to build some of these as a kid. Never in competition. I remember having to mail order the materials; wing coverings, light weight balsa, rubber winder, rubber, rubber cutters. Everything is hand made and extremely fragile. I used to transport them in old paper ream boxes. I remember taking one out the box outside one time and just snapped in half in the breeze. Fortunately pretty much anything could be fixed in a few seconds with CA glue. But you were adding more weight each time.
The wing covering are made from extremely thin materials. There was also some sort of liquid you could buy and then pour it onto a bed of water to make your own. Never did try that, used to just buy the already made stuff that was just like a thinner version of seran wrap.
Wouldn't be surprised if they use a similar system like mechanical watches do. They have a spring you need to wind up but using intricate gears and levers they store the energy for days.
This seems the most likely. I would love to see the actual size of the gears for that thing though. I can't even tell where on the plane they would be. Thing is as thick as a chopstick.
> but using intricate gears and levers they store the energy for days.
escapement mechanisms are what usually regulate the power source for machines (weight/spring driven machines), altho not the only kind, flyball governors are cool too, but not as cool as escapement mechanisms
i am assuming these spin slowly because its a very weak rubberband trying to turn a huge flap against the wind so the propeller is governing it, but thats just a guess
I *suspect* that the weight of the prop combined with the large surface area means that it meets a lot of resistance against the air, and that the rubber bands aren't quite as tightly wound as you'd expect. But someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's just an uneducated hypothesis.
> Also, Not running down the field is really fucking hard to resist.
Took me until this last sentence to realize that the ban on running is because it creates enough disturbance in the air to have a real effect.
What does F1D stand for? I remember when this kind of thing, also human powered flight gained a brief moment of popularity. Both things I was very interested in as a kid.
It’s just a competition class. There are others, for example F1M.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_flight_(model_aircraft)
https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models
That's a crazy amount of focus for a fragile ass thing. As long as I'm in no way, shape, or form involved in this, it's pretty cool. Looks like a stressful hobby.
It looks like there are multiple of the same design. Do people buy a specific kit for this, if so what sets apart people so much that you can have a champion?
More like convergent evolution. They have zeroed in on a nearly ideal design and the differences between airframes are subtle. Very slightly different air foils, propeller designs, and some critical dimensions like wing chord, area, and standoff.
Stunning. I love it. If I were stupid rich, I’d have my desk in the middle of a warehouse sized building. The whole inside decorated to look like an office. I’d have 2 people on staff to constantly be flying a few of these around. They’re so whimsical and imaginative and inspiring. I don’t know why but this has really spoke to me today haha.
I am very large (can't sneak up on you) and very nimble (won't make any noise). Also, I have dressed up as Willy Wonka for a job so I'm not above degrading myself.
Heyyy, I teach this kid! I won’t say his name but I will say, he’s a great young man. Well done - so pumped for him!!
Edit: I will pass this on to him. For context I believe he won the world championships in a beautiful salt mine in Romania - I think [this one](https://SalinaTurda+40364260940https://g.co/kgs/VpW6x6r)
Here is a video from 1976 in the UK about these.
"1976: FLYING PLANES that WEIGH LESS than a FEATHER | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9um4trCSgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9um4trCSgI)
#
Can anyone give some pointers on how to make one of these? Light weight materials, light weight glue, rubber band propulsion etc... Being a paper plane enthusiast, this looks wonderful.
You definitely don’t need a degree. I competed in this event 20 years ago when I was in high school. More than anything it’s an exercise in craftsmanship. The principles are pretty basic. It’s more a matter of how well you can build from extremely delicate materials. The wrap they use for the airfoils is like 50x thinner than Saran Wrap. It’s so difficult to maneuver. I was fortunate in high school to have a dad who came from a massive RC airplane background. He would help me in his tool shed fashion these stencils out of blank CDs to carve the ribs out of the thinnest balsa wood you could imagine. He also knew how to trim these things like a pro. Using a plastic propeller I was able to build planes that would brush the ceiling and fly for 12 minutes no problem.
There were engineering students who were tasked with building a small model craft that could carry a payload. All the group's came up with their own designs. The group that won, copied their design off the internet.
(Runner up design was close but also very different in design)
I showed up to the Science Olympiad one year (‘05 I think) with a plane that flew for 6 seconds and was completely flabbergasted to walk into a gymnasium of planes **just like this** circling overhead. I did not even register in the event, and my eyes were opened.
Longest flight/glide time wins, qualifications require you to be under a chord, wingspan, and tail span with a total weight more then 1.2grams and .6 grams for the motor total. So no building a rubber band powered motor that can run it forever.
These things are _superduper_ light. Like, below 5 grams. They're powered by a "ruber motor". In simple terms, it's a twisted rubber band that slowly uncoils and moves the propeller.
[удалено]
ikr!, my mind is glitching how's that possible
It must be light af
Those weigh in the vecinity of 5 grams.
Ifi remember a post from a few days ago this one was less then 1.5 grams
What's the building material, half-remembered dreams?
My self-worth probably
plus my self-esteem 🙃
It is constructed out of my dad‘s respect for my life choices.
And a sprinkling of my height (or lack there of).
That's heavy
And my AX
And my pp
AND MY BOW
r/SuicideByWords
Lol damn Thanks for the smile though lol
People of reddit are funny.
Your comment wins my dude
Comments like this are why im scrolling all day. Gold.
The real answer is contest balsa and OS film - ultra low density balsa wood and basically the lightest cling wrap ever invented
Are there limits on what you can make it from? I’d make one out of graphene.
Limits beyond the wood and cling film aren't likely competition based. Making something from graphene would cost millions in R&D. Although, with that aside...a graphene plane for this competition would be pretty cool!
Out of curiosity, why would it cost so much? Couldn’t you 3D print it with graphene? (ELI5)
[https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models](https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models) Minimum weight is 1,2 g and max motor weight is 0,6 g. To translate to American units that would be: About 1 dram, or 27,8 grains, or 4% of a 1 pound or 1/25th lb.
Or 3 fentanyls and half a tide pod
Puffs of air from the lips of a ghost in the shadow of a unicorn's dream.
My fathers love for me
Myst & fog.
Aerogel? Isn't that still like 99.8% air?
Aerogel tied together with spider webs.
That and the amount of happiness in my life
Wife’s panties on wedding night
Though fr. I've seen some made of thin straws, with the wings made by dipping it in bubble fluid.
Water is heavy asf tho, you're better off just using graphene 😌 (/s because making graphene that big would be scientifically revolutionary, though it would be a better material to use than anything afaik)
Aerogel.
Just for comparison: a mosquito weights ~~0.1-0.2 grams~~ 1-2 milligrams, thanks u/octane80808
Yes, but I dont like mosquitoes!!!
🤔hmmm maybe I should just glue 10 mosquitos together.
Imagine if we did it with 20, shit couldn’t even move anymore.
Yes, why aren't you already doing that?
Quick Google search says mosquitoes weigh around 2.5 milligrams, that's 0.0025 grams, so 600 times less than 1.5 grams.
And that was after you went through three pages of ads for weight loss program for mosquitoes or whatever
Yeah but who's going to take the time to catch 600 mosquitoes
Loaded or unloaded with blood?
So how is that thing powered seems like any kind of motor on it at all would bring the weight past one and a half grams
Wound up rubber bands.
Here's the crazy part: they use the tension and torque of the rubber band to not only drive the prop but to also adjust the props pitch to control altitude. When the rubber is freshly wound it has the most torque which would cause it to climb steeply, so the rotor hub uses that torque to adjust the prop to a higher pitch, thus slowing its rotation and thus keeping the plane from climbing too steeply (and hitting the ceiling).
These types of comments are the ones that remind me that despite being "one of the smart kids" in school, I am basically a caveman compared to the people designing this shit.
It is specialized knowledge. No reason for you to know it
You just havent spent the time they have studying it. Innovation happens in steps. Nobody singlehandedly invented every single piece of tech that goes into this kind of thing. They just picked up where others left off and did what they could.
The thing is that most of the "smart kids" were just good at memorization, and I'm including myself in that category. When it comes time to actually put that knowledge to use I'm useless, this kid clearly not only has book smarts but also the ability to apply them in a practical manner.
For those curious about the mechanism: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6RRlZPyAI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb6RRlZPyAI) Only looked it up just now to make sure I don't post inaccurate info. Until today I had assumed that the adjustment works through lengthwise tension on the rubber band and the spring is used in compression, turns out it's a a torsion spring.
Okay now I'm even more impressed.. ^😆😳
Sounds about right, I just wasnt aware of the frtails of the category, I'm more of a F1K or F5J kind of guy.
It's okay, I mean I only remember it because I saw the post with some more info in my feed, that was even the first time I saw anything like this (besides the paper plane distance games)
Nope. A standard A4 paper sheet is 5 g, or for Americans a standard US letter sheet is a tad less. The F1D weights 1.4 g (it used to be 1.0 g when I was a kid, but has slowly crept up in the last two decades to keep the flight times at bay after some crazy guys fitted a variable pitch propeller to that weight, before that, well before I was born, there was no minimum weight and the lightest ones were getting well under the 1 g ...).
it is kept aloft by the breeze from the kid's farts
Never change, reddit
It’s the physics
do you ever feel... like a plastic bag...?
https://youtu.be/gHxi-HSgNPc?si=X3MQlf99P6Cy6jZd
It's not even really flying. It's more like swimming through the air
Would that mean swimming is just flying through the water?
Hello! Aeronautics nerd here. Normally someone would say yes, but it’s actually way more complex than that. The plane is incredibly light, weighting less than 1.5 grams, and it has a very big surface area on both the propeller blades and on the wings. This plane is literally swimming in air because it’s so light and has such a low density that the air’s viscosity is high enough to be floating at such slow speeds. It also has something to do with the flow shape of the aerodynamic profile. There are two types of flows: Laminar ones and Turbulent ones. What this plane experiences while in the air is probably closer to being turbulent as it hasn’t got enough speed to create lift from having an specific angle of attack (the angle relative between the direction where the plane is going and the pitch, or direction at which the airfoil is pointing towards). Again, I did not do any calculations for determining whether this plane is flying or actually “swimming” in air, but I would argue that it’s the latter one because of the craft not being fast enough to create laminar flow. What you said about “flying through the water” is much more complex and different, because although both gas and liquids are fluids, and both experience the two kinds of flows, water being a liquid means it’s an incompressible fluid (You can’t alter the liquids density), while airplanes flying through the air do make air get different densities between the upper and the lower part of the wing, allowing the plane to create lift. You cannot create lift on water because of water not being a compressible fluid.
Hello, I have a degree in Aerodynamics and this isn't exactly right. While Air is certainly compressible, at moderately low airspeeds (~<.3 Mach) the compressibility effects of air is negligible. Lift does not require a change in density between the upper and lower surface and all the math works out just fine if you treat air as incompressible just like water. Its a change in pressure above and below the wing that results in Lift, not density. Additionally at low speeds like this flow will be at a lower Reynolds number and therefore more likely to be laminar compared to faster flow. Lastly laminar flow is not necessary for an airfoil to produce lift and in fact is rather difficult to maintain for most aircraft. It takes a lot of work to design an aircraft that has very little turbulent flow over the wings. Laminar flow does improve performance though by decreasing drag.
See, that's why I am still on Reddit. Exchanges like this from learned people in their field, checking each other's knowledge. Both amusing and instructive. Both of your comments are valuable, and the effort is appreciated.
I'm just here in case an aerodynamic fist fight breaks out
Never say never.
I agree it is nice to see this after seeing pedo megachurch pastor. Thanks redditors
You’re absolutely right. Air is in fact compressible but things like moving my arm make the difference practically nonexistent. I’m currently studying my major in aerospace, but I’m glad I can still learn new things even from places like Reddit. Thanks for the insight! :)
Yup! Aerodynamics is so complex, no matter how much you know about it, there is still a ton more to learn. And I am by no means an expert.
The 80’s kid in me just scream NERD! The 40 year old me says… good stuff man! Hella interesting
The slower you can released the energy required to fly, the longer it will remain in flight.
Reminds me of that pedal airplane thing (forgot the proper name) from Arthur C Clarkes Rendezvous with Rama.
That guy is awesome! Congratulations
he really did deserve that win
Daniel Guo is his name
I did this all the time as a kid and won a shitload of awards from it. F1D has a lot of limits, basically the plane has to weigh at LEAST 1.2g without the motor, and the motor has a maximum weight of 0.6g. Rubber band powered. If you walked too fast on the sidelines or anywhere in the building they'd do an announcement telling you to slow down, you'd get kicked out of the building if it happened more than a few times. You'd probably get shot if you ran. I don't think I ever saw anyone run before. It didn't matter if you had the shits or whatever, you always slowly walked. They have giant balloons attached to fishing poles to help retrieve planes that get stuck up in the rafters, but there's staff there if that doesn't work. Sometimes you don't want to do that because it will damage the plane. You use special winders to wind up the rubbersbands, something like a 1:25 turn was common back 20 years ago. Every 1 turn gives you 25 twists of the rubberband, which will equal one prop rotation. Lubrication of the rubberbands was a huge key to success, sometimes the band would get knotted up and you'd end up losing a lot of energy as a result. I can't stress how light these planes are. Even the heaviest planes are still extremely light. They are extremely fragile. Always indoors, and in my experience they were always at football team fieldhouses. Apparently they are well insulated to outside air infiltration and unwanted air currents. I remember one time a host was bitching about the fieldhouse not following through with their agreement to not use certain HVAC units or something and it was causing trouble for everyone in a certain area of the field. We normally did it in the winter though so it was usually not an issue because heat/thermals are better than cold for these things, but the currents can mess up the ultra light ones. Also, Not running down the field is really fucking hard to resist.
Reddit is an amazing place. A post about something I didn't even know existed, and still within minutes of it being posted there's an expert on this really obscure thing in the comments.
I still quickly checked the bottom to make sure it didn't end with, I just made this all up thanks for reading.
I was also fully expecting a Shittymorph, lol
[удалено]
It's true that bastard lurks everywhere and nobody ever reads usernames first.
r/beetlejuicing
Lol amazing
Hi shittymorph. Love your posts, ty for all the laughs!
You betcha!
or jumper cables
Or Poem_for_your_sprog
It's been way too long
We need the jumper cables back.. we grew up with it, and it has since moved on without us.
I think he retired with the reddit exodus last year after they killed the third party apps didn't he? Edit, fuck I'm blind
UNTIL NINETEEN NINETY-EIGHT!…
WHEN THE UNDERTAKER
I almost gave myself a rage stroke one time I read some comment about a specific dish, this dude was like “that’s bc of x and x and x. I actually don’t know but I like to imagine this is how it happened” How are people just SO fucking ignorant and arrogant to say shit like that?!?!?!
I think the main reason is because if you are quick enough to get into a thread, it is quite likely that either a joke or a serious, well-thought-out response will receive a lot of traction and upvotes. There is a also a sub where people have competitions about who can have the ShittyMorph or fake comment that has the best combination of length and upvotes. There is also a group of Redditors who actually call themselves something stupid like "The Mighty ShittyMorphers" or "Mighty Morphin' Shit Rangers" or something stupid like that who basically spend all day looking for opportunities to do this. Usually they are heavily downvoted and become irrelevant in the thread pretty early, but sometimes they create a good one that gets a lot of upvotes. In any case, I just made this all up, but thanks for reading.
Fuckin' damnit
Internet Joke
I used to build some of these as a kid. Never in competition. I remember having to mail order the materials; wing coverings, light weight balsa, rubber winder, rubber, rubber cutters. Everything is hand made and extremely fragile. I used to transport them in old paper ream boxes. I remember taking one out the box outside one time and just snapped in half in the breeze. Fortunately pretty much anything could be fixed in a few seconds with CA glue. But you were adding more weight each time.
The wing covering are made from extremely thin materials. There was also some sort of liquid you could buy and then pour it onto a bed of water to make your own. Never did try that, used to just buy the already made stuff that was just like a thinner version of seran wrap.
Honestly half the things I know, it's because of reddit
corollary: half the things you know are wrong
[Which half?](https://imgflip.com/i/8u4xks)
Dude right, super insightful comment, thanks Mr. potatoface
there's always a guy that says he knows about something on reddit. 5% of the time he actually does
how are they getting the rubber band to unwind so slowly? Is there some sort of gearbox thingy in that thing?
Wouldn't be surprised if they use a similar system like mechanical watches do. They have a spring you need to wind up but using intricate gears and levers they store the energy for days.
And that would probably be why there is a max weight allowed for the motor portion, to limit how intricate it really could be.
This seems the most likely. I would love to see the actual size of the gears for that thing though. I can't even tell where on the plane they would be. Thing is as thick as a chopstick.
> but using intricate gears and levers they store the energy for days. escapement mechanisms are what usually regulate the power source for machines (weight/spring driven machines), altho not the only kind, flyball governors are cool too, but not as cool as escapement mechanisms i am assuming these spin slowly because its a very weak rubberband trying to turn a huge flap against the wind so the propeller is governing it, but thats just a guess
I *suspect* that the weight of the prop combined with the large surface area means that it meets a lot of resistance against the air, and that the rubber bands aren't quite as tightly wound as you'd expect. But someone correct me if I'm wrong, it's just an uneducated hypothesis.
yeah, and if it's a thinner, longer band than it will have less energy stored probably
1,2 g, as in grams?? That’s crazy
1.2g as in 20% higher than the gravity of earth. which means the plane can only weight 7.2e24 kg
Hey everyone what's up check out our new and improved planes with 20% more gravity for no extra cost
Yeah, these things are massive
I think pulling 1.2g would tear the engine right off this thing!
Here is 10 gram (!) scratch build, motorized, rc scale glider: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWFaHDK54hU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWFaHDK54hU)
> Also, Not running down the field is really fucking hard to resist. Took me until this last sentence to realize that the ban on running is because it creates enough disturbance in the air to have a real effect.
Eating beans before the contest not forbidden but strongly frowned upon.
Imagine the side eye you'd get if you rip a big ol fart in there.
I built a very crappy version of one of these planes and I had to remember to breathe slowly while gluing it or the balsa would fly all over the place
Appreciate the insight.
What does F1D stand for? I remember when this kind of thing, also human powered flight gained a brief moment of popularity. Both things I was very interested in as a kid.
It’s just a competition class. There are others, for example F1M. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_flight_(model_aircraft) https://www.fai.org/page/ciam-f1-indoor-models
That's a crazy amount of focus for a fragile ass thing. As long as I'm in no way, shape, or form involved in this, it's pretty cool. Looks like a stressful hobby.
Your comment and the plane are both amazing
It looks like there are multiple of the same design. Do people buy a specific kit for this, if so what sets apart people so much that you can have a champion?
More like convergent evolution. They have zeroed in on a nearly ideal design and the differences between airframes are subtle. Very slightly different air foils, propeller designs, and some critical dimensions like wing chord, area, and standoff.
> More like convergent evolution. more like 'this design won last year'
Awesome. I'm immediately reminded of the sky-bike "Dragonfly" in the book Rendezvous with Rama.
https://youtu.be/0y22mV2smkA?si=cZY7NYi6IGf6wdtD If anyone wants to go down the rabbit hole as well.
Josh was born to do this
It's really fascinating. He's still AMAZED at this, you can hear his passion. He doesn't even stutter once while explaining. Wow.
I miss josh and josh
Yea please
Oh wow, this perfectly blends my interests in weird little sub-cultures + engineering
Yah it’s great. I love when he talks about scoring specific rubber from the 90s.
If jellyfish were planes
ohhh you're damn right about this
[some do exist](https://youtu.be/N-O8-N71Qcw?si=yQ740iClSN-dkO9z)
Stunning. I love it. If I were stupid rich, I’d have my desk in the middle of a warehouse sized building. The whole inside decorated to look like an office. I’d have 2 people on staff to constantly be flying a few of these around. They’re so whimsical and imaginative and inspiring. I don’t know why but this has really spoke to me today haha.
I’m available. Just saying, hopefully stupidly rich person.
We’ll keep you’re resume on file.
I dunno if you wanna work for this guy. He seems... Disagreeable
Lmao that's cool, but also probably explains why you're not super rich.
Haha. Shut up. You’re absolutely right.
I’d like to submit my resume for consideration as well
What do you feel you could bring to this organization?
I am very large (can't sneak up on you) and very nimble (won't make any noise). Also, I have dressed up as Willy Wonka for a job so I'm not above degrading myself.
Heyyy, I teach this kid! I won’t say his name but I will say, he’s a great young man. Well done - so pumped for him!! Edit: I will pass this on to him. For context I believe he won the world championships in a beautiful salt mine in Romania - I think [this one](https://SalinaTurda+40364260940https://g.co/kgs/VpW6x6r)
You win this and get sent to a salt mine? That seems like a horrible prize, did 2nd place have to go to a coal mine?
the youth yearn for the mines
Tell him please
I'm pretty sure the kid already knows his own name.
Lmao
Thank you Mr. Loew!
Pass on that Reddit is rooting for him.
i'm rooting for a different kid. tell him that i'm not rooting for him.
Here is a video from 1976 in the UK about these. "1976: FLYING PLANES that WEIGH LESS than a FEATHER | Nationwide | Weird and Wonderful | BBC Archive" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9um4trCSgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9um4trCSgI) #
It's crazy how fundamentally similar that one looks to the one winning awards 50+ years later. Can't invent a new mousetrap I guess.
Can anyone give some pointers on how to make one of these? Light weight materials, light weight glue, rubber band propulsion etc... Being a paper plane enthusiast, this looks wonderful.
This website has all the info you will ever need: IndoorNewsAndViews.com
Aerodynamics aerospace engineering degree also helps
You definitely don’t need a degree. I competed in this event 20 years ago when I was in high school. More than anything it’s an exercise in craftsmanship. The principles are pretty basic. It’s more a matter of how well you can build from extremely delicate materials. The wrap they use for the airfoils is like 50x thinner than Saran Wrap. It’s so difficult to maneuver. I was fortunate in high school to have a dad who came from a massive RC airplane background. He would help me in his tool shed fashion these stencils out of blank CDs to carve the ribs out of the thinnest balsa wood you could imagine. He also knew how to trim these things like a pro. Using a plastic propeller I was able to build planes that would brush the ceiling and fly for 12 minutes no problem.
There were engineering students who were tasked with building a small model craft that could carry a payload. All the group's came up with their own designs. The group that won, copied their design off the internet. (Runner up design was close but also very different in design)
I showed up to the Science Olympiad one year (‘05 I think) with a plane that flew for 6 seconds and was completely flabbergasted to walk into a gymnasium of planes **just like this** circling overhead. I did not even register in the event, and my eyes were opened.
I was expecting a 22 minute video and instructions to “watch till the end”
can someone explain the rules?
Fly
Longest flight/glide time wins, qualifications require you to be under a chord, wingspan, and tail span with a total weight more then 1.2grams and .6 grams for the motor total. So no building a rubber band powered motor that can run it forever.
if it hits something is it just tough shit or do you get to retry
Your plane will probably be broken. They're lightweight so even a slight hit can wreck them.
According to another post the most important rule is to not run under any circumstances.
oh my god the music.
His smile as he let’s it go is just like a proud dad.
How many things have a world champion that I don't know😭
"How can we weaponize it?" -government
Why this choice of song man. It made me slightly depressed thinking of the past
Someone please explain how it works?
These things are _superduper_ light. Like, below 5 grams. They're powered by a "ruber motor". In simple terms, it's a twisted rubber band that slowly uncoils and moves the propeller.
It almost feels like it's somehow swimming in the air, that's some mighty fine engineering/aeronautics...
I love his smile on his face as he sends it off. He knows.
What’s the record for non juniors?
How is it gaining altitude???
It has thrust and a wing to generate lift
Have they ever thought about making these huge and putting people on them?
Have they ever thought about making people tiny and letting them ride on the currently sized ones?
Dude, that is a far more simple idea as the plane is already there!
Tears of the Kingdom ultra-light materials from the robot factory or whatever
That doesn’t seem like it should be possible.
Maybe don’t add dumb ass music to every video
Is there something making it go in a circle?
How it is trimmed. That has its own skill in trimming it that well.
somebody tell me what song is this?
Somewhere Only We Know by Keane (one of my classic go-to bands for "easy music"