When researching for my video on the history of airplane wings I came across
a lot of cool experimental planes I didn't want them to go to waste
so here are three of the coolest ones I found don't forget to subscribe and hit
that notification about so you don't miss out on any future uploads and let's
jump in first up the route on Voyager the initial idea for the plane was first
sketched out on the back of a napkin before being built in the Mojave Desert
over the course of five years mainly by a group of volunteers the airframe
largely made of fiberglass carbon fiber and Kevlar weighed 2200 pounds before
more than 7,000 pounds of fuel were loaded on board
that meant that had take off more than 75% of the aircraft's weight was the
insane amount of fuel that would be required to circumnavigate the globe
Voyager came equipped with two propellers one in the front and one in
the back powered by two separate engines although the rear propeller was only
used during takeoff voyagers world record flight took place on the longest
runway in the world at Edwards Air Force Base at 8:01 a.m. on December 14th 1986
with 3500 of the world's press in attendance as the plane accelerated down
the runway the tips of the wings which were heavily loaded with fuel were
damaged when they unexpectedly flipped downwards and scraped against the runway
you might wonder why the designers didn't realize this would happen in
advance but in the 67 test lights that led up to this flight the plane had
never been fully loaded to capacity contact with the ground caused parts of
the wingtips on both sides to be ripped off exposing the blue foam core but the
pilots determined that the aircraft was still within its performance
specifications despite the damage and decided to continue west during the
flight the two pilots had to deal with extremely cramped quarters to reduce
stress they had originally intended to fly the plane in three our chefs but the
plane was so difficult to control while heavily loaded with fuel that have
prevented routine changeovers and so dick Rutan stayed at the controls
without relief for nearly all of the first three days of the flight not three
hours three days and that was only about a third of the way into the planes
journey around the globe along the way the pilots had to maneuver around bad
weather numerous times perilously around the 600-mile white
typhoon large and Lybia when they were denied access to the country's airspace
in response to the American bombing of Libya earlier that year with that in
mind I'm not sure why they hadn't planned to fly around Libya in the first
place in front of 55,000 spectators and a large press contingent including 23
live feeds breaking into scheduled broadcasting across Europe and North
America the plane safely came back to earth touching down at 8:06 a.m. at the
same airfield almost exactly nine days after takeoff the average speed of the
flight was a hundred sixteen miles per hour about to fit the speed of modern
commercial airliners at touchdown there were only a hundred six pounds of fuel
remaining in the tanks less than 2% the fuel they had a take-off the flight was
the first successful aerial non stop non refueled circumnavigation of the earth
that included two passes over the equator as opposed to just circling the
North or South Pole in a few minutes in the 36 years since this feat has only
been accomplished one more time by Steve Fossett
in the global flyer designed by the same man as the voyager number two the LTV XC
142 kind of a mouthful planes are great because they can go far and fast while
carrying a lot of cargo and helicopters are great because they can take off and
land with very little space and without having a dedicated airstrip but what if
you could combine all of these traits into one plane well meet the XC 142 the
142 was a tilt wing experimental aircraft designed to investigate short
takeoff and landing transports it's wings could turn up to 90 degrees
relative to the ground so it could take off and land vertically while being able
to achieve the faster speeds and larger cargo holes of a traditional plan in
service who would carry 32 equipped troops or 8,000 pounds of cargo at a max
speed of 400 miles per hour the 142 first flew in September of 1964 and a
few months later across the Atlantic in normal flight while taking off and
landing vertically but while initial testing proved promising problems would
start piling up during continued testing the aircraft's cross link drive shaft
the mechanism that allowed the plane wings to tilt proved to be its Achilles
heel the shaft resulted in excessive vibration wing flexing and
the operating the plane and one major problem found in the aircraft was an
instability between wing angles of thirty five and eighty degrees usually
encountered during takeoff and landing and new propellers designed especially
for the XC 142 proved to generate less thrust than expected and as these
problems piled up the air force continually requested changes to the
plane's design until the program was cancelled altogether after that the one
surviving aircraft of the five originally built was handed over to NASA
for testing and now sits on display at the US Air Force's National Museum at
wright-patterson Air Force Base near Dayton Ohio although this wouldn't be
the death of VTOL aircraft the first widely successful one came just a few
years later in 1969 with the introduction of the British Harrier
jumbo jam which saw extensive use in the Falkland Wars and is still in service to
this day making it one of the most successful and most famous VTOL planes
ever developed and the u.s. didn't abandon the idea of VTOL aircraft all
together both the v-22 Osprey first introduced in 2007 and the new f-35 be
stealth fighter have beat all capabilities
lastly the grooming x-29 the grooming x-29 was an american experimental
aircraft they tested a forward-swept wing for NASA and the US Air Force from
1984 to 1991 it was part of a quest to build the ultimate fighter jet by taking
advantage of its inherent instability that would allow it to outmaneuver any
enemy fighter the aerodynamic instability of the x-29 airframe
required the use of computerized fly-by-wire which made corrections to
the flight path 40 times a second to control the plane the engineers
concluded that if all the flight computers failed aerodynamic forces
would have destroyed the plane before the pilot even had a chance to eject
planes with forward-swept wings which are angled in the opposite direction of
conventional wings are rare but the x-29 wasn't the first to employ them the
German junker bombers from the Second World War
were the first successful prototypes with this design and the man who
designed them would later create the Hansa hbf through 20 a small business
jet with forward-swept wings that took to the skies in 1964 to this day they're
the only commercial aircraft to have ever employed forward-swept wings
and if you still fly to this dam in the HondaJet the wings were spread forward
to allow them to be mounted further back along the planes body creating more
space for passengers in an otherwise cramped aircraft but whereas the Hansa
jets wings were swept forward by just a few degrees the x-29 s were swept
forward by 33 this puts such immense forces on the wings a new advanced
composite had to be especially designed for them to keep the wings from being
ripped off by the aerodynamic forces the x-29 s unique design led to another
interesting effect have you ever seen those small flaps that go up and down on
the wings of a plane often around takeoff and landing well those are
called ailerons and they're a crucial component to controlling a plane when a
normal plane goes into a stall a loss of lift that can lead to a crash the
ailerons are usually the first thing to stop working because stalls tend to
start at the wingtip and move inward due to the way the air flows over a wing
this loss of use of the ailerons leads to a loss of control in an already
dangerous situation but with forward swept wings like the ones on the x-29
airflow is forced in the opposite direction moving inwards towards the
fuselage this causes stalls to start closer to the main body of the plane
leaving the ailerons functional for longer and given pilots much needed
control while the plane was being developed this maneuverability was
believed to be essential for fighter superiority because if your plane stalls
before an enemy's you can easily be shot out of the sky the x-29 s were flown in
422 research missions between 1984 and 1992 but in the end a stealth became
more important than maneuverability the x-29 was resigned to history and since
then forward swept wings have also been made obsolete by thrust vectoring or the
ability to physically move an engine to control the direction of its thrust
ensuring maneuverability even in case of a stall well I hope you like learning a
bit more about these unusual planes if you like the video be sure to subscribe
and remember there's always more to learn
you