Building a HIGH SPEED Rocket Plane 

you need to stop mounting the rocket engines to the top of the plane . they need to put in the back like the fans but in the middle . desing the same plane model but with the option to put in the rocket engines in the back like a fighter jet . and put 2 rocket engines in the back not one .

5:24 small correction: you need 8 times the power for twice the speed. Force increases with speed², but power is force × speed

Someone may have already commented on this and it might be obvious to you, but a big reason the plane is so unstable during the motor burn is it's not pushing through the center-of-mass. It's strapped haphazardly to the top of the craft causing it to nose dive down as soon as it's ignited. Placing it centrally in the back or adding another motor underneath is a possible way to correct this. Always love your uploads though. Keep up the good work.

You succeeded in making the SR71 exceed mach 3.2 in scale. I call that a win! Mach 3.2 is 2400 ish mph and your plane did 2800 scale mph. Bravo!!

Back in 1980, in a time before computer aided design, I build a SR-71 Estes-type rocket from scratch. I referenced photos from a magazine and used balsa wood & paper tubes for most of the materials. It was about the size of yours. Being a fairly heavy rocket, it had two D-size solid propellant motors, one in each engine. I was quite fascinated by the Blackbird at the time, but extremely inexperienced at building rockets. Needless to say, it flew, but not very straight!

It's not a project air build without rocket motors. Brilliant!!!

The Insta360 rear facing shots are beautiful! Such a versatile camera. I'm just replacing my original one after a good few years of hard use! Oh..and rocket projects are always a good watch 🤘

Props to the original manufacturer for making the landing gear accurate!

You can never go wrong with an SR-71 Love these flight videos a lot more than the boat ones

Your video quality is taking massive leaps forward. This video was that of nearly an educational video on a mainstream media station. Keep it up!

Ah James, this is your best one yet, brought a tear to my eye! Brilliant idea brilliantly executed! Just a few minor thoughts: Agree with everyone else who's suggesting a bungee-launch. FYI these incredibly low Aspect ratio deltas are a bitch in roll, because the stubby wings provide damn-all roll damping. And at higher angle of attack, the vortices spiralling off the leading edges tend to bang into each other over the aircraft centreline, causing a roll oscillation. So if you can shoe-horn a rate gyro into the roll channel it'll make life so much easier. I so just love this video!

James Bond: The Man with the Golden Plane

As I said in another video, you really need to change your radio to use ExpressLRS. The receivers are very small, even the ones with PWM outputs and the range and reliance are excelent.

That video was the most (vicarious) fun I’ve had in a long time. Some excellent research and engineering skills on display. Look forward to the next project.

The plane🔥 The neighbors reaction🗿

Removing the engine cone was a good idea because it's used to compress air, but if you wanted more power you should add a compressor stage (from the turbofan engines) and put a primary fan in the front to suck all of the air in, and by that, where you put the rocket engines you should put in the front a intake because air sticks into a body when moving, then connect it after the primary fan. You could also have heaters inside of the engine so cold weather heats and you get more force. If you did that with only 1 engine vs 4 old ones you'll get even better power.

1:59 is when the black bird breaks the sound barrier :)

Great project. That was a spectacular flight. The way you led up to the rocket engine flight was just so impressive and all the work you did to pull it off. You had a well-deserved success. Keep up the great work.

Thank you for another great video. I got a tip for line of sight flying, paint the plane with different colors over and under. Makes it easier to see which side of the plane is facing you.

WOW SUCH A GOOD AND CREATIVE VIDEO!! KEEP up the amazing WORK :)

plz get an ExpressLRS controller so you don't lose signal at long range again

I want to share my idea with everyone here. Currently i am building a popsicle stick airplane. It is painted red and costs roughly 40 dollers for parts it is almost complete! I really cant wait and i am able to build a second one but i am deciding how big and what model. This channel has helped a lot and these plane i plan to have no flaps because the motors have gyros. Thanks for the inspiration!

always a good evening when project air drops a rocket plane video

Who loves ProjectAir videos😊

Great job 👍, how about a catapult launcher build 🚀

That is one really cool plane. golden, rocket-powered, SR-71, 200kph, great footage and video so I'd call that a win.

Long range FPV would be amazing with this project. Imagine the feeling of speed...

yooo !!amazing! this has been my dream, i wanted to do it but never really had the rescources to , and now it is sooooo good to see someone do this. thanks🙃

Just found this channel. I personally really like doing projects like this so for me it was very enjoyable to watch

Your projects always look like such fun.

I appreciate your efforts 😊 For making these videos

That takes me back, My farther made me a rocket powered SR-71 as a kid.

I know nothing about RC planes but found this a thoroughly compelling snd informative video.

I love how you put your RC SR71 into your RC car and drove it to test!

The planes top speed potential was dramatically reduced by bolting on an un-aerodynamic camera and rocket. If these had been shrouded in there could easily have been a further 50kmh.

4:01 nice car

4:00 that’s a gorgeous Mini Cooper!😮❤

A standard planform airplane designed for subsonic flight would be more easily controlled, easier to see the orientation and easier to launch. Perhaps you could try a small diameter folding prop with a motor brake to stop rotation of the prop when the rocket is ignited. Having the rocket pointing out of the tail cone should make it easier to keep the center of thrust aligned with the center of drag.

You’re going to find that high speed aircraft have poor low speed performance. And “low speed” is going to get commensurately faster. You may need to look at non-hand launched options.

You really should try to launch your next rocketplane from another airplane

I always get so excited when I see you drop a new video, especially if it has rocket motors.

You need to build a proper High start. 10 meters of surgical rubber tube and a release. Lots of 3D printed options out there. your hand launches are pretty sketchy! Using a High start lets you keep both hands on the controller. I like your builds! Excited to see the next one!

Your problem is you need to learn to fly fpv

You should definitely try building a plane on your own from scratch. 3D printing has advanced a lot and can make som pretty strong, lightweight parts, and it'd allow you to start with a theoretical goal in mind of what speeds you want, and work backwards. It would also let you design in a spot for a camera (behind the windshield?), allow you to hide mechanical parts within the airframe, you could make it modular to test out different wingshapes, etc, build in a place inside the fuselage for the motor to sit so the thrust is inline, and you would probably get an overall better, sleeker exterior, especially since with all the hacks you made to the plane, the skin looked pretty beat up. Also, I'd imagine the aerodynamics the SR71 was designed for are probably different on the models scale. It would be a hell of a lot of work, but I personally would love to see your whole design process. Could make for a cool series! Anyway, awesome vid as always, this series of you trying to push for higher speeds is awesome and makes me think of what it must have been like for the engineers in real life whose job it was to do this stuff.

This is your coolest plane yet. Good job!

Phenomenal channel man! Just stumbled onto it.

I love your videos! I am a Maldivian drone pilot and my drone pro E88 crashed recently. I really love RC vehicles

Great job ! I’m terrible at rc airplanes but love to watch them my father use to scratch build them really enjoyed watching your video keep up the great work !

You teach me what to do in rc I saw the original rocket plane video when it first came out!

Cool project! Cant wait to the the next... Gigga... sized project you have coming!

The best and most entertaining diy plane channel everr!!

Bloody brilliant!

Absolutely LOVE the Corsair in the background....

thing looked awesome in the air 👍

14:30 kudos to you for maintaining a decent flight profile, that's a crazy acceleration for the scale

I would love to see you 3D scan the A/C and scale it up! Give yourself enough room to cram in more rockets into the form factor. Love this project!❤

That was Absolutely amazing; I really want to pick up the E-Flite Blackbird in the future; soon as I quit bending the landing gear on my Cirrus 1.5🤣

Love your videos - I know it's not about this but you should use a flight controler and ELRS - the recievers are tiny and have huge range - also give you upto 16 channels!

man you mske such a nice videos i always enjoy your vids..keep making such type of projects

Need to see a build video for your mini!

Thanks for including the freedom units for us :D

I love the stone walls and green fields.!

I would recommend going towards FPV so you can continue with the 8 second F sized motors

I got the same blackbird from eflite thats a awesome mod you did there dude 👏 makes me wanna mod mine

Love ur vids, I’m currently getting into building rc planes

Use the drone to lift the aircraft high in the air. Install a cable release servo onboard the aircraft and with enough altitude, the aircraft may gain enough airspeed during the drop to start flying properly and you may discharge the rocket then...

Check out the Seahawk foam.. No need to hand launch and you can turbo charge the rocket if you swap to metal blades 🙂

I really love your projects❤. Very cool video.

Well done man great video!!!

One suggestion is to remove the fan and fan battery. In place of the engines, two rockets, one on each side. Use the drone or a balloon to raise it, and then a remote hook system makes it detach and fall, then turn on the rockets. Perhaps, lighter, it could reach 200 km/h. Salute from Brazil.

THANK YOU FOR UPLOADING!!!

bro should start his own bizz where he builds his own OP planes , cars etc

Dude cool mini! I built and flew a model SR71 Estes rocket kit when I was a kid. I still have it and it hangs with my other model planes in my home office. Cool video sir.

Love the vids I wish I could actually fly a rc jet/plane

That Mini is beautiful.

Outstanding, cannot wait for the next one ❤🙂

Just amazing! Another airplane experiment I don't have to devise!

Well done James yet another video I cannot stop watching until the end.

Good looking plane

This is awesome. wathced the whole thing. feel like it would've been turned into a 5 pt build. first rocket powered test could've been a whole episode on its own.

That was sick keep up the good work my guy ❤❤❤

amazing rc

Top notch with the wind tunnel testing!

That was awesome. I can't wait to see your next rocket plane video!

your vids never cease to amaze me.

HES BACK!

I dont know how you do it but you make videos with such high quality but in a timely manner!

Love all your videos and especially your Mini, I have always wanted one of those cars. I live in the US and they are pricey here.

I had an Estes model rocket kit as a kid that was the SR-71 blackbird. It was fun.

So cool!!! You are my inspiration and hero!

Great video, very fun to watch. Few tips though, don't do high speed runs without a gyro because not only you were losing speed going right, but also losing speed going up and down. For that though, you will need better avionics and custom code depending on the airplane's characteristics. i think doing that first is better than hastily slapping on a rocket motor. Also, there is no problem going a little bigger and doing the aircraft shape yourself.

Literally my favorite plane! Thanks project air!

Back in the 80s there was a rc plane called the bullet it easily reached 100mph according to the manufacturer and having seen it fly it was so much faster than anything else. Great job😁✈️

Impressive as usual my friend

Ok so that was INSANE CANT belive you did that coolest EVERRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey man! Try using a very stable platform for your rocket plane.. I think you are selecting Jets with very tiny wings span and the smaller they are the twichier they are. Try the multiplex Funjet ultra 2, this is small for high speed but highly stable! It has a cult follwing in rc community for cheap speed. People have flown this over 200mph with 6s electric motors. It flies straight like an arrow and easy to manoeuvre. It needs very tiny single quad motor on even a 4s to go very fast, go far away and choose a very straight full throttle pass, once your plane is locked in and wings are steady fire up the rocket, i promise you wont regret!

Chaps messing about with things is how the world moves forward. Keep up the good work.

A question for philosophers: is it still a blackbird if it's gold?

Great fun, a pleasure to watch, reminds me of my APS Folland Gnat jetex model, which only managed a smoky ballistic trajectory after a very energetic hand launch, - far too heavy, cut up postcard is not a substitute for a bristol board skin !

Really nice video. I just thought it would be really helpful if you add for example a DJI O3 or some Walksnail system to your planes. You would have HD transmission and onboard 4K recording. On top of that you can use the gyro data from the O3 to stabilize the Video. And with up to 10 km of range you could easily test long burn rocket motors without having to turn around. Overall the handling would be much easier.