Worlds First R/C Airfoil Flairboat 

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The low camera angles with the ground effect... just so buttery, so good.

You’re incredible at explaining *why* this is a challenge and *why* you’re constraining yourself. An outsider would just watch this video and write it off as a regular old airplane/boat project, but you really did the project justice by framing and explaining the problem well

I've been enjoying this series, so cool to see your conclusion with it! Also nice shot of the plane with the trolley buses on the bridge in the background like at 11:15

Maybe a suggestion for fighting the flipping phenomenon: Make the front airfoil way thinner than the rear one, which causes it to stall almost instantly when the pitch gets out of hand. The rear wing would at that point then still provide lift and force the pitch down again. Next, I think the reason bigger planes are inherently more stable within Ground effect, for two reasons; 1) The ground effect regime works within a window closely related to the wingspan (as you mentioned in earlier episodes). Bigger/ heavier planes require more wingspan in the first place to even fly, and thus give them a larger Z-window to operate within ground effect. 2) Heavier planes will also respond less aggressively to water disturbances, as the relative change in lift as caused by the disturbance is far smaller than with a tiny plane with a very small air gap.

"Wow, look at that fish, must've been eating a bug, pretty neat"... that killed me man

The shots of that thing cruising in ground effect belong in one of those "Oddly satisfying" YT vids. This is my favorite video of the series. Just sooooooo nice to watch that thing cruise.

Can you find out the difference in efficiency between flying in ground effect and flying normally in mid air in the next video?

If you stick around and watch the whole video, there's a secret rap.

This is fantastic! Your design has come such a long way! Watching your failures and then your eventual success has been a wonderful experience thank you for sharing.

Finally! I was waiting for you to upload. I had just got a 3d printer and I came across this channel and binged most of the vids you have posted. The things you create are so inspiring, I am in the science field and I dont think I can make as cool as stuff as you but its inspired me to use 3d printing in my research and its been awesome. Love the content man keep em coming

It is beautiful to see in action, I love how you clearly explain your thought prosses and the physics behind it. The low camera angle was a great idea and really shoed off the vehicles performance.

The music always get me😂 I love it

The front wing is a canard: it must stall first for stability. That is why the big old one has different aerofoils for the two wings. I suggest that you increase the front wing loading, angle of attack and sharpen the canard leading edge and reduce the wing thickness to ensure that the front wing stalls first. Also, reduce the angle of attack of the rear wing so the whole aeroplane body is at a positive angle increasing lift. Also, at small scales, a flat aerofoil works better than a classical curved aerofoil. The Wright brothers did not notice the scale effects obvious between the flat thin wing of a little bumble bee and a thick eagle wing so they used a small wind tunnel and then made their first powered aeroplane worse by building thin wings which had been optimised at tiny scales in an insect-scale wind tunnel. You are going smaller so your aerofoil must be flatter than the human carrying original. It is all Reynolds numbers!

This was super cool! Those low long shots were beautiful. I'm excited for your next video!

love how smooth it is and such a brilliant demonstration of ground effect. well done

Dude, what a rockin' good show. At first I thought this was a pointless exercise, due to a bad definition of ground effect. BUT, the thought process you went through was very interesting and worked through the various forces in play. Great work!

7:45 Günther Jörg had previously made tests with RC models for all his Airfoil boats. That is, these RC models were also all functional! On YT you can find videos of Ingrid Schellhaas, this is his daughter, who continues his work and has worked for years with her father on the boats!

OMG THANK YOU FINALLY SOMEONE BEING HONEST ABOUT 21 SAVAGE

9:49 I loved the added bonus. You are clearly very talented, thanks for sharing.

Your exeptional gift to explain Your theories, and inspire anyone who has the fortune to watch Your work, can not be understated....

That was a neat fish! Thanks for sharing all of this.

I really love this project and am definitely gonna try making one of these ground effect vehicles!

You did it! The way it hovers above the water is amazing.

First time seeing any of your stuff. Really neat and loved how much you actually explained with what you was observing.

Best song yet! And in all seriousness, your channel is definitely some of the best of RU-vid.

The reverse Delta mainwing in ground effect, with a high lifting tailwing not in ground effect is the most pitch stable configuration. Your right this is more like a SES of rigid sidewall hovercraft. You could try enhancing dynamic sideskirts by curling the edge vortex down at the lower edge of the wings

Awesome, so glad you figured out how to make it work. Can’t wait to see what you make next!!

One of the things to remember about these types of vehicles is that the low power to weight ratio was part of the design goal. It was a vehicle designed to carry heavy loads at high (er) speeds using less fuel. The famous Kaspian Sea Monster could shut down the forward engines and fly only on the two aft engines once it was airborne. That was the design goal. With full power from all 10 (!) engines it could probably get out of ground effect, they just never tried it. It could fly quite high above the water though, well high enough to be out of the ram-air hovercraft effect. So, designing for, or using, reduced power isn't cheating. 100% power for take-off and 20% (or less) power for cruise was the intent. It dramatically increased range and reduced it's audible and infrared signature. Designing and building a vehicle that can ONLY operate in ground effect at such a small scale, with the incredible power to weight ratios that a model can achieve is automatically going to be tricky to do. Scaling down the vehicle without compensating for the change in relative air density just makes the model more airworthy. It's operating in a relatively thicker fluid for it's weight/density. I'm not sure if less wing area, a change in airfoil, or added weight would compensate for that though. I suspect that the wing-loading on the model is quite a bit less than the real craft. In any case, wonderful videos and great work on the craft.

I think the whole point was to make massively heavy boats that could move at 100mph using the ground effect like the Soviets did, or some smaller but underpowered so you can have good fuel efficiency. Nice to watch your design process. Engineering is a process not an event. Great job!

cant stop watching this thing float. you solved the practical engineering problem! congrats

This one is seriously cool. We are learning the pros and cons of the designs real good

Maybe link up with FliteTest to build an enormous one? Love this series

"In my opinion, this kind of plane is impractical...." Until it is 😅 Love your work, good Sir. Never stop doing what you're doing. 🤘🤘👌

when you filmed it with your low angle shots it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen😲excellent job and thank you for sharing it's fun to watch

A flair boat based on the same information that you found on the internet was my next project, you have beaten me to the build. Mine was going to be larger and heavier to help deal with the water conditions in much the same way a larger model aircraft is more solid in the air compared to a smaller one. Thank you for your work as it has inspired me to get a move on and build mine. I will be using the same material but covered with office laminating film. I previously made an X-bow catamaran as a tow-a-long camera platform for my RC yacht using the same covering technique. The foam/film combination is a match made in heaven. Looking forward to what you come up with for some improvements. All the best Allen

I think a "ground effect vehicle" is any vehicle made to fly more efficiently in the ground effect. No matter if it can fly or not

Good job man! Very interesting topic, I made a few experiments with RC hovercrafts and had a real One by Scat hovercrafts. Maybe interesting for you to try something with the architetture of the amphistar

Dude, your killing it. Great videos edits, gets rc project, and music! Love it.

Very happy you are continuing and contemplating a high loading attempt.

I'm fairly sure that packing tape would just want to stick to the water, back in the day they used to try and polish the underside of race boats as much as possible for it to slip through the water since that's how it works in the air. However it just ended up increasing the surface tension to the hull and ultimately slowing stuff down, not that it matters at speeds like this but it's still a fun anecdote !

At that size and weight, I suspect the surface tension of the water makes takeoff more difficult, and the amount of water stuck on it impacts how it behaves in air, significantly. Personally i like that basic design best, and think it just have to be bigger, and heavier, to stay in ground effect very well, and still not be able to fly. Any model that needs almost as much thrust as its mass to get out of the water will be very difficult to get unable to fly, at least with elevators enough to allow free flight.

This is so amazing. Can’t wait to see your next project.

I think dispite the different terms and arguments, we can all agree on just how awesome and satisfying it is to see it gliding over the water

BEST video yet ! I love your experimentation on this subject. These are all questions I’ve been asking myself. I wonder if Think Flight’s “Not a Pool Toy” could better test par thrust (if he decides to mount an engine someday) With a bigger, heavier model, I think you could experiment better with weight distribution and power settings. Have you ever studied the Japanese WISES (Wing in Surface Effect Ship) model called Kaien-3 (海燕-3) There are several RU-vid videos which show an underpowered craft with the motor(s) mounted way up front on a kind of canard. It looks so underpowered as to being unable to climb out of ground effect but as a result flies extremely slowly. It’s a fascinating craft which might be another platform for a future build. (I’ll donate the gorilla glue !)

Please make a huge one where you can sit in with rc controls

Instantly loved this channel. Can't wait for the next one

bro this is so cool. the gliding was really smooth.

damn dude, good one! yeah sweet shots with that zoom lense sitting on the shore. idea, the small scale you are working in seem soooo vurry sensitive to tiny variations, re surface of lake union etc...i would love to see a 3 or 4 times bigger version, with mods to add weight and move cg around, i bet you could lift alot...oh and road trip to lake chelan for the big boy test...

Oh my God, I remember watching that Australian show when I was younger! I can't remember the name, though. All cutting edge tech.

That clip was from Beyond 2000! Wow, that brings back some memories. Great video as always !

Looks like you nailed the design, she flies...er, floats, wonderfully, great work!

By the way "YOU CAN MAKE A TERD FLY WITH ENOUGH THRUST AND COMPUTER CONTROL!" .... 👍👍

Love that it just becomes a normal boat when it capsizes 😂

You're brilliant. You totally understand how airplanes work and all about motors and electronics. I have so much fun watching. Ground effect or not.

Kudos for making that work at that scale. So much logistics.

0:10 = yes you can, by reduce throttle, add extra weight, shorten the wing, or designing hole new air foil. but adding more weight or shorten the wing is a better solution, because it cost efficient 14:56 = is not cause by smooth surface, but water tendency to "bounce" or "dampen" the pressure so the craft fly smooth

Awesome video I love the smooth clear water the flight the cleanness of it is so awesome

I seriously love things that fly. You are fulfilling many dreams I'm sure.

Now you could "bolt" solar panels on to it and see how long it could "fly"

Impressive.

Massive improvement with this version. The water line shots were beautiful.

With a song to boot! Get in, what an amazing series. Well done.

I believe that if 'true ground effect' is to be found, the thrust should only be converted to speed, not lift.

The reason building a "small" WIG is actually harder than a "full size" is because you are not able to "scale" down the air and water! 😁👍✌ Oooooo, and you FINALLY get my seal of approval, .... I certify this to be a WIG! 🤣😱

You're closing in on 500k subscribers good job, I really enjoy watching your rc builds. You're underrated, Keep it up!

Awesome as always mate! Soooo keen to see a big heavy one :)

I think you are focusing too much on the ability to fly out of ground effect. Your focus should be on the efficiency gains from flying in ground effect. To me, the definition of a ground effect vehicle is simply one whose energy requirement is drastically reduced based on proximity to the ground for a given speed. I would love to see which one you could fly longer, a large solar glider or a large solar ground effect vehicle?

nice to be early

This rc looks amazing! Great work. And the song is just as good

Great video. Thanks for sharing. That was also the perfect amount of music too.

first pog

I love that on one of the low shots, the doubles disappeared leaving just the rowers floating above the water.

So so good, keep working on it.your on to something here.

You take the mystery out of genius by thinking through problems in an understandable way. " Airfoil Flairboat 101" should be a required course in any college but here it for free to the open minded and curious! Thank you Professor.

How cool is that, So smooth and floaty, Love the song!!!!

Great result on the heels of a TON of work!

Looks insane while sliding above the water!! Great work!

This is super dope! Glad I ran across the project

Love it, can't wait for the next episode

That really is quite something. Ground effect is certainly more stable in a heavier aircraft as their inertia is greater so they're slower to react to minor changes. I would certainly call that a ground effect vehicle. Great job.

Well done man, what a great journey!

It is a gorgeous thing. Very well done.

Amazing work man. I love this series.

Wow, great job, it flies beautifully

More RC raps please. I didn't know I needed them in my life

Again, brilliant and informative stuff. So dang cool!

Impressive as heck actually, a lot of research went into it!!

Well done. 👍 6:50 That lofting behavior after removal of power is fascinating.

I'm envious of this fella. I love rc EVERYTHING and is love to be able to do stuff like this. I've loved airplanes and anything that flew since I was a kid and also rc boats and since I've gotten older I've had hundreds of drones some of the smallest they make and some of the bigger ones as well also been into rc cars and trucks too

very cool project, it really does glide along nicely. great job.

That is awesome, congrats! It looks really good

Top notch filming and engineering. 🤜🤛

That's song was fantastic. Great video. Very impressed.

I used to work near where you were flying! Nice backdrop, awesome project and video :)

Really impressed at how well you got that working :)

The Aussie presenter is from the Show BEYOND 2000 in 80's science, tech & Medicine show of the latest developments around the world. I miss it. But thanks to RU-vid creators like yourself helps. Thank you

Good work and inspiring me to get our model hoverwing work going again. I do get the impression from what I read on-line, that power limiting was important for the flairboat. Apparently client of theirs in the Far East replaced the engine with a gas turbine, which caused him to crash.

You guys are genius. Great content and amazing execution.

Amazing, with the way the air flows over and under, I would love to see it in a wind tunnel to see the effect speed has on the airflow. BTW, id be willing to bet the critics dont know that feeling when someing you design comes out as good as or better than you hoped, good job!!