On May 5, Virgin Atlantic announced that its fleet of 747s would be retired immediately. The news for the 747 and Airbus 380 has been mighty grim lately, as the pandemic is rapidly accelerating a trend away from large airplanes at near Mach 1 speed. British Airways just announced that they will be retiring their 747s in the near future, and others already have or will be soon.
But unless it gets a new paint job, this magnificent RC (Radio Controlled) 747 (the biggest RC plane in the world) will likely keep plying the skies over Germany. Here’s the details:
Wingspan: 4.95m(16.24′)
Length: 5.43m(17.8′)
Weight: 68 Kg (150 lbs)
Scale: 1/13
Turbine: 4x IQ Hammer 140
Pilot: Rainer Kamitz
Builder: Adi Pitz
Wow, that’s quite an achievement. Especially getting it back down in one piece, most videos of big radio controlled planes I’ve seen end badly.
I messed around with control line airplanes as a kid, with these I always wonder why go so big? You’d think at some point you may as well build a “real” plane or spend the money on renting a Cessna.
I think the biggest RC airplane is Communist China’s Divine Eagle long-range surveillance drone. It is 59 feet long and has a wingspan of 164 feet. The US UAV fleet is known to range up to wingspans of 130 feet.
I think the difference is RC means “radio controlled”, not remotely controlled.
Hobbyist quadcopter “drone”, yes, that’s RC. Military unmanned aircraft, not so much.
I am speechless. That is incredible.
For that matter, it’s a 747-400, with the expanded upper deck. Beautiful!
Good eye on the type, Moparlee.
I suppose it may have been cost prohibitive to build it as a 747-8, with the curved carbon fiber wings and all. 😉
Great video, thank you.
Watching this video, I couldn’t help but think that, in years gone by, there’d be a market for such a large RC passenger liner in, say, Hollywood disaster movies.
Sadly, in today’s world, everything is CGI and, frankly, there’s something lost between that and footage of a real, large-scale model.
BEST TOY EVER!
Thanks for the video post.
That’s just incredible. You really have to be an engineer to own and fly something that huge. Just keeping the four jet engines perfectly synchronized must be a challenge. On the lighter side you can probably get as much attention if not more with a flying lawnmower.
What boggles my mind is how that thing is even airworthy, and yet there it is.
I suppose if you can make a helicopter fly, anything is possible.
I’ll stick to fixed wing aircraft myself, thanks you very much.
Thanks for the link, BTW…. LMAO on that one!
Don’t they say that theoretically a bee should not be able to fly?
On a related note, the last Qantas 747 flight out of Sydney provided a unique radar trace, in the shape of the kangaroo logo
Wow, that’s impressive! Once aloft, it’s hard to tell from the real thing, except for some wing wagging.
It’ll be a sad day when the queen of the skies is retired from regular service.
That could be the first 747 to land on a carrier. Call the ball
Nice… and no tail hook required.
4 engined aircraft have landed on carriers before…without a hook!
These large RC jets are very impressive to see in person. My ex-FIL was a huge RC enthusiast (on a budget) but always built his own designs, and his large stunt plane had a 7 foot wingspan. This 747-400 has a 5 meter wingspan… and four engines! It’s a totally different kind of flying, all together.
All kidding aside, there is a lot of money wrapped up in these planes. One of the guys at his flying club built a 1/4 scale (what they call this large class of planes, whether or not they are exactly 25% actual size is another story) Extra-300 powered by a twin cylinder engine that sounded like a motorcycle when he started it up.
This guy was a regular Patty Wagstaff at the controls, and could make that plane do anything. It was as though we were at an air show watching the real thing. When asked why with all the money he had wrapped up in that plane, why not just go out and get the real thing?, his answer was always, “I’m afraid of flying.” 🤦🏼♂️
Thanks for the video, Paul!
“It’s a totally different kind of flying.”
How about a ⅓-scale B-17?
I’ve seen this in person at OSH, although only as a static display, not flying.
He just recently died 🙁
What?? No barrel roll? Tex Johnston would have done it!