*@Jamie Livingston.* I agree 1000%. Great respect to each one of them. The last one should have worked on his diet first. 😉 But at least his friends had bucket of water ready...just in case.

Agreed. As a former ultralight flight instructor, I was amazed to see that early aircraft that looked very similar to an MXL2 Sport Quicksilver Ultralight I flew in the 1990s.

I’m sorry. The dude with the wings on his back and the fat guy on the bike was pretty funny.

@@daleeasterwood2683 I know. The bucket of water was just too much. Not to mention the guy jumping off the rock.

The Sky Car had me rolling on the floor along with birdmsn and bicycle guy. There were some pretty neat ones that did fly maybe a bit strange on design but they did fly. Some were just not thought out well. Like when we were kids and jumped from a height with cardboard wings LOL

And... gasp!... doing math!

Yes, it was a huge ducted fan, something that is the basis for many jet aircraft today.

The only one problem I can see is that if the engine loses power, the aircraft also loses most of its steering (no thrust over the tail). Just make the rudder and elevator extend out past the cowl, and it looks like a solid design! :3

Looked like a gee bee

@@jamesgizasson well air is still flowing though te duct, so there is still control. It will be less because the rudders are designed to get the strong flow of the running engine, but still sufficient.

Italian engineers and Rutan Rules!!!

That Tail First plane was very interesting. It flew very well IMHO.

Some of those, like the ones at 11:00 and 14:50, were comic shorts in newsreels. They were made comic relief..and were not real flying attempts.

oh yeah, and the later pedal-powered ultralight? it just needed a real propellor and not that affront to aviation it tried using for propulsion. OOhhh...... actually..... since it's made of bike parts.... use a modified wheel with a dozen propellor blades instead of spokes. the ring around the outside will act as a safety feature too.

How do so many intelligent people not understand... ITS A TITLE TO GET CLICKS!

@@mandelorean6243*It’s Intelligent people indeed 😂

​@@mandelorean6243the title is the literal title of video from the 1940s. Did you not see the title card in the beginning? They weren't looking for "clicks" in the 1930s although it was supposed to be light hearted entertainment for trainees. And these were odd compared to the state of the art at the time.

You dont think that had more to do with the fact that he was driving it around on the ground when a folded wing and then reconfigured it to aircraft configuration? If that a normal feature of ultralight planes today?

One aircraft reminds me of the Northrup flying wing, and it flew!

The first one looks just like a modern micro light.

@@dogwalker666 Perhaps more like post-ww2 variable-swing wings... or the earlier folding-wing carrier planes.

@@jmi5969 indeed.

The plane with the spinning drums did fly. Later a plane was developed with smaller spinning drums added to the leading edge of the wings. The flat planes were made several times and the idea led to the development of the twin-engine flying pancake by Vought. The only designs here that lead nowhere were ones like the ornithopter and whatever the grey goose was supposed to be. Strangely a large ornithopter design was tested in France but WWII ended it. A few years ago some guy built an ultralight version. It did get off the ground but it quickly flopped. The Sky car would have flown but 1,000lbs of lift isn't enough to get 1,500lbs of car into the air. If it did make it up, I want to know how he would have controlled it? If it wasn't for the pesky FAA this kind of tomfoolery would still be going on.

Sky car: "Turbulence? Where we're going we don't need turbulence!" 😂

If that sky car copter had managed to get off the ground that inventor would have learned the hard (and dizzying) reason why helicopters needed tail rotors.

@@patricknesbitt4003 then he had proceeded to make one with two counter-rotating umbrellas... Without synchronizing the reciprocating motion of both 🤕

It regularly flew hundreds of miles on tests but on filming day,the rocket bike went camera-shy.

I thought the same thing about the fat man riding the rocket-cycle. It looked like he didn't know how to ride a bicycle.

The flying car. What effort & the inventor finished, stepped aside for some poor sap to sit in it.

Agreed. As a former ultralight flight instructor, I was amazed to see that early aircraft that looked very similar to a Quicksilver Ultralight I flew in the 1990s. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mJqXhtxlx9-6XWw.html

When my dad was 14, Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. When I was 14, Apollo 11 landed on the moon.

Amazing yes, but the real amazement is the true "fly-ability by all these "odd" shapes. The shapes are still valid in today's aircraft, like AWACS, helicopters, VTOL, and the small drone that flew on Mars.

Amen

I wouldn't call it flying like an eagle if I fell down at 60mph...

@carey ⚘️ nice thought

@@stejer211 There are powered wingsuits you know.

yes thats whyim saying

Now now we’re in the modern era he was well nourished don’t wanna hurt no feelings

😂 true, he wouldn’t be put out by that comment, but he was ‘put out’ 🙄

And if it's based on a bike, find a person who can't ride one to pilot it.

🤣🤣🤣

The windmill contraption made no aeronautical sense to me. There were no lift devices or lift generating surfaces. That was actually a paddlewheel craft. Just not an aircraft. Paddlewheel is very low efficiency propulsion method. It only and barely works for marine propulsion because of water 's high density. Water is exactly 1000 X denser and heavier then air. Air is 20% Oxygen , 70 nitrogen , and rest is CO2 and trace atmospheric gases. We already have windmill aircraft. They are called helicopters. As a helicopter is windmill laying sideways on the ground.

The ducted fan was actually a serious experimental plane developed by the Italians to test the concept.

The Stipa-Caproni was a demonstrator of the propulsor, which was being suggested for Zeppelins and huge all-wing transports where it could be buried in the wing. It flew well, as it was, and proved the propulsor worked.

Or gravity

It looked like it could’ve come from a star wars movie

Number 9 looks like a souped up AWAC.

Number six was based around the magnus effect which actually does create lift.

​@@Demonslayer20111 Yeah, 6 made me go... hunh???? how is that supposed to work? I'd love to see more. 7's wing shape is REALLY weird when you look carefully, I'd actually call it a tri-plane since it has TWO upper wing surfaces. but... yeah.. other than the unusual wing configuration, nothing really special. It has a rear mounted prop, but that's just a standard prop engine facing back. although... I think I've heard of it, and the idea was improved flight stability. But IIRC this test craft only worked at relatively low speed as the gaps between wings made massive turbulence at higher speeds. 9 is interesting since the vertical stabilizers are on the winglets, and it has no centrally mounted stabilizer. 12 is basically a pedal powered ultra-light... and people have those today.... but with REAL propellors.... not that crime against aviation. 13's high vertical stabilizer is seen in some modern designs actually.... the weird flaps not so much. 15 if it didn't bounce up and down it might have worked..... O it'd also need to have a fixed angle on the wind vanes. it looks like they were flattening into a closed position. that doesn't... oh wait.. that was the point.... this guy is trying to make lift by having a single wing flap. the bouncing is the attempt at flapping. But it can't flap fast enough to get lift. Hmm... weird idea..... weird as hell.... hmm.. if the prototype was half the weight.... maybe....

Yes, pork roast indeed 🤣

6th one . brilliant idea though not workable back then . rotating rolls instead of wings? tech wasnt light enough and motors not fast enough but this is the magnus effect principle and it does actually work (not back then) example : RC KFC bucket aeroplane (magnus effect) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gZyXmLKe2JmXdJ8.html

Excellent

My grandfather was 4.

And the first flight of the SR-71 was 61 years later. That still astounds me!

That was my thought, that it was very like modern ultralights. The tiny casters made me worried about them digging into soft surfaces; I would use about three or four times that wheel diameter.

Flying Barrel, was that the butcher on the bike at the end?

The flying Barrel almost half a Jet engine

He went a bit far demonstrating it. I wouldn't he surprised to learn he fell off if he tried that again

It reminds me of the old windvane as autopilots for sailboats, that's probably where they got the idea.

@@justindunlap1235 those windvane autopilots are still going strong!

It looks a lot like a modern ultralight with a swing wing.

That one totally surprised me. When he came driving on the road I thought "how on earth is that supposed to fly?" Then, when he turned the wing I thought "oh! but still, how is he going to get it off the ground and safely back?" He sure shot down my doubts.

I was equally impressed. Slinging the fuselage below the wing makes the machine inherently stable, and 30 years later that tail design get used on the Liberator and Lancaster. Make it in modern technology and it could almost be a powered hang-glider.

I don't remember what number or name it had, but there was an X plane (experimental) by NASA or the FAA that had a swing wing like that that was, potentially at least, supersonic.

@@HeriEystberg same here....I expected an instant crash...but he left me in the dust with my mouth hanging open....it was a pretty elegant flyer too...

the guy who designed the barrel plane was a legit professional in the aeronautics industry back in his day. Hmm I wonder if he lived long enough to see the ducted fan idea get turned into jet engines?

At least the guy trying to popularize it during WW II (Northrop) got to see the B2 project before he died.

This popped up just after Northrop revealed the B21 (December 2022). Flying wing at 4:25 had same basis aerodynamics?

Straight away you can tell which are engineers and which are clueless though, can't you? Then inbetween you have the Caproni ducted fan idea which is fine in principle, but the a/c is incapable of carrying any payload in it's prototype form. Has been likened to a Tiger Moth that's been dropped down a well..

ALL inventors are ahead of their time. Thats why they are called inventors. As I see it, there are no inventors, just discoverers. Why? because anything that is possible to do has been poosible to do since day one. All someone had to do was to discover how to do it.

@@HOOOLD_ON How many inventors invented things that were already invented before they invented something that wasn't? The ones who give up are the ones who become other things.

@@thephilpott2194 you mean the flying barrel? just have two barrels and a payload area between the barrels. :D Then upgrade to jet engines.... :p

The Rutan is exactly what it made me think of. They teased him calling it a plane with the tail in the back but they forgot that the Wright brother's first plane was a canard design. Amazingly the canard idea was being developed by almost all the major powers during WWII. The US, UK, Germany, Italy, and Japan all gave it a try. Britain even tried to develop a canard heavy bomber. It just wasn't the right design for a military aircraft. Although some will say the SAAB Gripen, and the Eurofighter Typhoon are canard aircraft but they are actually delta canards and not a pure canard aircraft.

"steel balls?" I think those guys had to be hauling TITANIUM BALLS - SIR!

@@Jonathan.D My favourite canard aircraft will always be the Kyushu J7W Shinden.

@@stainlesssteelfox1 It's a cool one. There was a video about it recently. Much like the US canard aircraft they tried to innovate too much too soon. That was one of the factors that kept it from being finished. It's sad that they didn't get it to work perfectly. It would be cool if someone was able to finish it and see how it would have done against the US or the British canard aircraft.

You forgot that the first aircraft to fly was a canard.

"Aw, Daaaaaad!" 😆

Did you note the presence of airfield fire fighting equipment? That was the kid running alongside with a bucket of water.

The guy running along at the back trying to strike a match to light the fuse!!! What a gag for Harold Lloyd!! Wow..;

Fatty Arbuckle had another career as a cyclist wannabee pilot. That was hilarious

well.. modern jet engines in real jets use the ducting principle as well. That fan blade on the front spins at RPM that would have blown the mind of the guy who made the barrel plane, but it's the same fundamental idea.

the pilots nicely dressed in coat and tie were like that so they would look good at funeral

@@johnwaite3879 I "CAN" picture a wife saying, "Oh, I wish Tom would quit fooling around with that infernal flying machine thing out in the barn, and get a REAL job!"

"There are BOLD pilots, and there are OLD pilots, but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots!"

We seem to be taking these men, their contribution and their sacrifice for granted, or ignore them altogether. They deserve a lot more credit.

I agree with you both. Amazing feats of engineering and courage for such a fledgling science.

I agree. And they're always wearing their Sunday best.

Imagine face planting off of a rock or a bridge. (The guy with the heavy bird outline design.)

THE HUMAN RACE IS A FUNNY THING. SINCE MANKIND FIRST WALKED THE EARTH, IT'S TRIED TO MAKE LIKE A BIRD. NOW IT HAS THE BRAINS OF ONE.

You bought the DVD muhahaha, it's old content ... Your Disk Players are a museum too now.

@@lucasRem-ku6eb Huh? What DVD? I've seen most of these clips in abbreviated fashion in documentaries and museums over the years. Hence why I only ever saw shorter versions. I really appreciated the opportunity to see longer video segments with more context.

Very true just not that bike in this video. 🤣

@@jimmydcap Yeah, that was a crime against aviation. but mix it with the ultralight design seen at the start? mmmm got you something to really work with there.

I have the same thought 👍

Pretty sure Rocket Bike was a comedy sketch in the Laurel & Hardy vein. As that, quite successful...

The first Wright Flyer had the elevator in the front.

I vividly remember that movie as a child.

"Thooossse magnificent men in their flying machines. They go uppity up up, and go downdidy down down...."

@@gregmead2967 slide whistle intensifies

They were a lot better than I expected. I wish the headline wasn't listing them as "hilarious". Some were quite good ideas and pretty darned stable.

Shhh....you're going to get Beryl upset again by criticizing those cutting edge aircraft.

Don't forget that "Tail First" Aircraft. It nearly perfected the forward Canard principle!

The ducted fan design is the basis for the MiG 15 (NATO code name Fagot) and MiG 17 (NATO code name Fresco)

The flying wing was actually designed by a podiatrist in South Bend, Indiana and the three built had successful careers as flying billboards in Indianapolis.

The Arup S-2 from Indiana was remarkably successful as a flying machine. Sleek and quick on little power, astounding climb rate and 18 kts landing speed. Stall-spin proof. It flew for NACA in the '30s and Charles Zimmerman was on the NACA team that saw it. After that we used the planform for the V-173, which did not need the situation with the wing-tip props spinning outward. NACA tunnel tests showed that the V-173 did not gain anything with that arrangement versus normal 80 hp props spinning the other way. The Arup planes did everything the Vought did, much simpler.

Yes, that barrel plane resembled a jet engine.

How about the ducted fan aircraft,and the ground effect types of the 1980's,which were extremely successful! What failed in one era,were successful in another,as the technology caught up to the ideas!! Those inventors did not die in vain,seeds were planted,and gave birth to new(?) Technology! Amazing,when you think that today's stealth planes were infants at one time!! Thanks for the information 👍!

Arup S-2 (#5) was the origin of the V-173 "flapjack", and the German wartime Sack AS-6. After the war, Avro Canada and the USAF built the Avrocar as the VTOL half of a supersonic discoid fighter, more like the Arup or the modern Rowe "UFO" from Aus. The USAF gave up on it (not because it wasn't working) and left Avro to try to sell it as a "air jeep" which it's still doubtful if the lift-engine could ever do.. At the same time, the USSR tried the little Sukhanov discoid gliders that did well. Trying to work it into a STOL supersonic fighter, they dropped it when the USAF dropped theirs. The video didn't mention the Nemeth "parachute plane" of the '30s, which was also an aeronautical success like the Arup, but similarly ignored by the army and everyone else.

@@JFrazer4303 Also Grumman "Flying Flapjack"

The canard actually flew well!

I like that one too, but you can't really call it a jet shirley.

You obviously don't know what a jet engine is.

@@Rob-fc9wg Considering I used to be a rework finish grinder on jet engine parts for precision cast parts I'd say it's you who doesn't know what a jet engine is. LOL, I was the last person to work on jet engine moving parts before we shipped them out to customers such as Boeing and U.S. government.

@@jumpmaninspired Where is the jet engine on this plane? Well Mr Jet Engine Finish Grinder, it seems you don't know a piston engine from a jet engine!

And yet sometimes it's the dreamers who come up with truly new ideas, unimpeded as they are by the knowledge that it won't work.

Like the guy who had himself cabled by the neck to a bicycle that was supposed to fly with the thrust of a rocket which had previously been proven to explode and spread flaming pieces of itself? That was some top "Hey y'all watch this" design philosophy.

@@musicpuddle6137 I understand what you're saying, but if the dream needs to become a physical object, there must be some design applied, some math worked out, to ensure it will perform.

@@timconstable7348 you left out practical testing. :p multiple iterations of testing are needed to verify the mathematical model is correct.

@@marhawkman303 I think that's covered under research...

The Wright Flyer, the first heavier-than-air plane to fly successfully, was a canard.

@@wittwittwer1043 Yes. A dynamically unstable one.

Rocket Wolf "Ent"

Focke Wulf!

Ever looked hard at the Wright Flyer?

if you are athletic enough, you can pedal yourself into flying.This has been done across English Channel and Island of Santorini like Icarus legend.Very long, thin wings, light as possible, flies a little over 10 mph.

a few bicycle athletes have pedaled into flight with long skinny wings,very light

@@frankthompson4923 yeah design 12 wasn't a fundamentally ridiculous idea, but it needed a proper propeller.

the test rocket exploded and the flight test rocket exploded...kind of a caution there....

It looked like the first ever AWACS!!

Word

Yes

And to think, it's designers were better known for 300 mph race planes. . . .

Actually the Wright flyer was a canard design.

@@jefferyindorf699 yeah really, people keep forgetting that the Wright flyer was backwards compared to a Cessna. the Wright flyer was a pusher design too!

I agree, I give them 10/10 for effort, courage and enthusiasm.

Agreed - The "Flying Butcher" sure didn't know about the weight to power ratio ...

There are several videos on youtube of R/C airplanes flying using the magnus effect.

@@utjason8 thank you! I'll definitely check those out!

@@utjason8 Peter stripol had a magnus effect video that I never watched but now may. He’s built some electric ultralights and does some weird fun aviation stuff.

This was not silent , but the original sound track is gone

Because it's very easy to hit the mute button to restore the original, if the addition is not to the viewer's taste.

Because silence makes the ears bored. :)

The second clip actually has audio of Z. D. "Granny" Granville discussing the Ascender. . . kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hdGdnbuEus3Hfok.html

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