You Built What?!

[clarencebunsen]

You Built What?!: A Fire-Breathing, Jet-Powered Dragon

A 50,000-volt stun gun and liquid propane canister lets the flames fly

Richard Hamel was watching the 2010 animated film How to Train Your Dragon with his grandchildren when he noticed something odd about the tails of the flying beasts. Hamel, a longtime radio-control plane builder, realized that those appendages resembled an unconventional aircraft design feature known as an inverted V-tail. In lieu of a vertical stabilizer and horizontal rudder, some aircraft rely on two fins arranged in a V shape. “I thought, ‘That would actually work,’” he recalls, "and I started wondering if I could make a dragon fly.”

Hamel, a Pittsburgh-area plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractor, has built all types of R/C aircraft but says he prefers working with jet turbines because of their reliability and the sound they make. He bought a JetCat P80 turbine with 22 pounds of thrust and then designed the creature from the inside out. He estimated that a 2.25-liter fuel tank would be enough for a few good flights and added up the weight of the other components he knew he would need—electronics, batteries and custom exhaust pipe.

www.popsci.com/node/63547/?cmpid=enews083012&spPodID=020&spMailingID=4733913&spUserID=MTEzOTczNzkxMTES1&spJobID=284561182&spReportId=Mjg0NTYxMTgyS0

[dave]

Reminiscent of the vee-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza, a design from the 1940's. I flew around the Oswego Coal Station (then Niagara Mohawk's) in a Bonanza in '73, piloted by the father of a friend. Not much to my surprise, I found I did not like coming close to a smoke stack in a small plane and never did that again.

A look at Wiki reveals the Bonanza has a sad crash history ... well, they're all sad ... from the death of Buddy Holly to that of country singer Jim Reeves to Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist.

[Deleted]

Reminds me I didn't get my copy of Popular Science yet.

That Dragon would make a nice toy for the Afganistan Conflict