Someone was jealous of that beautiful design , and someone cursed that plane / project , how many people couldn't restore it after numerous attempts , people dieing, financial issues, sabatoge the brakes ,
Yes, but why is he touching the headers? Is he checking for a cylinder not as hot and therefore not working/firing?
Год назад+19
@@littlefishy6316 he is probably checking that they are all running, if not running it would be cold on the effected cylinder. It reminds me of a V6 2-stroke we had that only ran on one bank, so 3 of 6 cylinders and the other header was cold.
@@littlefishy6316 you watch it boil the spit, if it doesn't boil up you've got a misfiring or completely dead cylinder, very plain to see which with this method or he can't hear how it's running over the sound of everything else getting warmed up around him.
Thank you for sharing this video. Scotty Wilson was a friend of mine. I was the fourth person he told about his vision for the project over lunch in early 2008. As an aeronautical engineer, I joined Le Revé Bleu and worked alongside Scotty and some amazing people. It was such a tragic loss when the plane crashed.
@@kartyl1wielki dont be such a piece of shit, somebody died you fuck, anyways, high end name brand planes crash all the time, there are a lot of factors involved that cant be predicted, and even when huge companies build planes they have a LOT of test pilot crashes. You OBVIOUSLY know nothing about nay of this and should just stop commenting, before you make an ass out of yourself again.
This might be a silly question to ask a a turbine engine I want to go with a turbine engine so much more easier to work with a turbine would give you all the power you need for design turbine or even a missile turbine if he needed to if he can if he can get ahold of 1 actually I think there were a few airplanes correct me if I'm right or wrong was the Bentham cruise missile engines did pretty fine for being a small lightweight jet the lightweight airplane unlikely airframe so it can't wait no more or no much more than a cruise missile helicopter that use a small turbine engine turbine engine that would solve so many problems a whole bunch of new problems I don't know I'm not the engineer here I'm the guy who's asking the questions
Probably could have adapted V drive gear units made for boats. It's a common layout in boats to have the engine mounted with the output forward, connected to the V drive to turn the power to the rear via a shaft angled downward a bit to pass beneath the engine.
I feel sorry for the guy, a real tragedy. However, if you make a re-creation from scratch, you make it close as humanly possible to the original design otherwise you could have serious problems. This plane was not a B100P except in the exterior design. Kinda like a Porsche 914...looks like a Porsche, but it's actually a Volkswagen.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Even if he had built it as closely as possible to the original, we never would know if it was as good as it as the original never flew.
Roller chains are extremely efficient. Careful design with slipper guides should be easily as reliable as gears. Open chains are a completely ridiculous idea. No surprises they failed.
Buddy of mine built an RV-3, a hot little monoplane kit plane. He was both a certified aircraft mechanic and commercial pilot and flew the plane a fair bit before deciding to sell it. At the time I was a commercial pilot with about 800 hrs. When I expressed interest in it he told me to just fire it up and taxi it around a bit to get a feel for it. I did and came away with the eerie feeling that that airplane might kill me, so I thanked him for letting me taxi it and said I'd think about it. A few years later it killed him when a wing come off during a high-speed pull-out. Moral: If your sixth sense is telling you something, listen to it. Those Suzuki engines are highly reliable, but they're designed for motorcycles, not airplanes. They've got very light crankshafts, make their peak power around 10,000rpm or more and are certainly not designed for that output to be continuous. Chain drive?....... All very sad.
I Have been in a lot of hinky situations when my gut was saying NO while my head was saying GO FOR IT.......I always listened to my gut first.... I usually had no explanation, at the time, for those feelings of disquiet but I'm still here.
Yes...they run well but don't make the rated HP until over 9000 rpm...if the props and drive system only wanted 6000...then it's really underpowered. Then throw in a poorly done drive train...whoever was doing the wrenching on that thing really let them down.
@@recoilrob324 I've seen drag racers using massive rubber belts to transmit power - can't think why that wasn't done here. Also absorbs the hammer blows of the ignition and makes everything smoother...
I met Ray Jones through correspondence about a decade ago. Back in the '70s when I was in high school, a friend took me over to a neighbor's house where I was given a clandestine tour of the huge underground garage that was full of Stampe biplanes and Bugatti cars. I didn't know the neighbor's name and I only visited once, but I never forgot what I saw. I moved away after high school; when I moved back to the area 32 years later I discovered the hose and huge garage were both gone. Some internet digging put me in touch with Jaap Horst, a Bugatti documentarian from the Netherlands who knew Ray and shared my story with him. A few days later I received a letter from Ray and in subsequent conversations he told me the backstory on the biplanes and Bugattis as well as the story of bringing the 100P to America. As an EAA member, I was thrilled to hear it was in the EAA museum and visit it often. Through Jaap Horst's Pegasus newsletter I followed the creation of the replica by Scotty Wilson. I was gutted when both Scotty and the aircraft were lost. We'll probably never know what that design could have achieved.
Theres strong evidence that the Bugatti DOHC I8 design was largely stolen from Miller, who had a pair of racecars disappear in France in the 20s, which were later found under the floor of a Bugatti factory in the 1960s if I recall correctly. The story is covered in the book "The golden age of the American racing car" a book about interwar racing in the USA and a wonderful read
Leon Duray's cars, and the story does hint of some industrial espionage. On at least one occasion a Bugatti GP chassis was straight-up reengined with a Miller eight, than being a T35B reworked for Indianapolis in the late 30s; that car still survives in its Indy configuration.
Thanks 👍. Found this book in my public library, The Golden Age and the authors(Griffith Borgeson) other book, The Last Great Miller, is in library use only 🤨. So I guess I'm taking a trip to the library for a few hours...
@@paulwoodman5131 I bought the golden age at a rummage sale when I was 12 and it was what started my obsession with anything mechanical (especially because of the blueprints) I still have it
Probably because it takes so much space. As the design evolved as a fighter, it was probably only a matter of time till they wanted that space for fuel, ammo, cargo, bombs, etc, and ended up hanging the radiator out the bottom like a P-51D. Could have achieved nearly the same natural circulation with a 'modest' increase in parasitic drag from the scoop.
@@root1657 less that, it has to do with weight. most planes had to use liquid cooling by wars end, radial cooling just couldnt keep up with the amount of heat these engines would produce, so air cooling designs are a no go. but liquid is fine, problem is now you have a radiator plus cooling pipes all in the center rear/rear of the plane, drastically moving weight to the rear of the plane, something that can kill planes. hence why designs where the piston engines behind the pilot are rare, because its fairly easy to create a death trap.
@@root1657 the scoop under the P-51D can open up at the rear and is designed so that the air warmed by the coolers can expand and provide a small amount of thrust.
There was my name, with many others, in the cockpit of the replica, as one of the donators who helped the project. What a sad ending of that marvelous story of passionate peoples dedicating their time to make it fly again (or for once !) :(
WOW! As a automotive nut I’ve got several Bugatti collectable models. I had ever heard of this machine or of the reproduction flights. Thank you for this very informative video.
Imagine if this had been implemented with a push/pull configuration like the DO 335 pfiel (I think it was the 335?)…it would’ve at least looked really F’n fast!
That man knew he was going to die. And for whatever reason he chose to do it. That makes him probably one of the bravest people I've ever heard of. The way he was acting before that last flight like the plans that he had made to sell the engines. The fact that he was acting kind of depressed and a little weirded out and he didn't greet the crowd and what not. He knew that that plane was going to kill him. And he didn't want anybody else to ever do this again after that third flight. And he knew he shouldn't go through with that third flight. But he did it anyway knowing the consequences
I was in the middle of commenting almost the exact same thing as what you wrote then found your comment. So I'm just going to say to you that I agree that he knew what was going to happen and proceeded anyway. Is this a type of suicide or bravery? I don't know. I do respect him though. I was following the story at the time and was very sad to hear he crashed.
There's knowing and then there's knowing... he was obviously very unsure whether the plane would perform without issue and knew it could end him... hence his serious apprehensions, but on the other side we think "Well, I've got a bad feeling about this but... with a bit of luck... Just one last try..." If I had a pound for everytime I'd thought that knowing full well the obvious danger then cut myself or whatever and thought "Yes, you see, you knew that was going to happen." ...It's hard to credit that apprehension as, I guess until that final day, we always get away with it... we forget that the probability of that continuing is slowly decreasing 🫤
@@JesseP.Watson You would probably wear gloves if you knew the danger of cutting yourself was high. The lack of safety gear, especially a helmet, along with all the observations about his behavior, make it sound like suicide. However, I think it's likely the people around him wouldn't have wanted to believe it was pilot error so all the speculation is kind of pointless.
@@joshuadowdle9691 Plot twist: the quantum anomaly which led to the animation of his macro receptacle on Earth shifted into non linear space-time upon impact with the ground and as he thus departed he laughed at the absurdity of the gathering crowd mourning his parting under the mistaken impression that they had witnessed his last flight for, in truth, this pilot had just succeeded in escaping gravity's influence for the first time. [Cue transcendent synths] 🌠
in my teens i had the opportunity to spend some of my summer at the eaa young eagles, which used the eaa museum for several activates and seeing this beautiful aircraft was a must every time we entered the building
This is one of my favourite aircraft designs, although I remember writing to Scotty with a concern about risk of side slip due to the forward sweep like the issues highlighted at 15.31. He built an incredible machine, I hope his family are ok. Ettore and Louis would be proud I think. Ultimately, it is a fantastic sculpture. The documentary is fantastic and I can attest, 100% accurate.
12:04 From the moment I saw in the chain tensioner illustration the word "hoseclamp" I had reservations. •#1 hose clamp is 2 words, not 1 •#2 intentionally using hose clamps in a component that is small in size yet huge in importance in an airplane designed by Ettore Bugatti himself gives me zero confidence in the success of this copy/imposter of this Bugatti model 100P aeroplane.
Air Progress magazine covered the original Bugatti with a decent article and some photos in the early '70s which is when I first learned of it. Several radio control builders made sort-of scale models for a racing class using .15cu.in. sized nitro engines back in the day also. I'd say that without some washout in the wing design, it would have some nasty quirks and too dangerous. The beauty of the airplane is without question and, together with a replica of the Hughes H1 also crashing, killing it's builder and pilot, two amazing airplanes of the period are now likely never to be seen flying again.
Lmao, gotta love how you got sponsored by the game that's been made infamous from classified documents being leaked on its forums. Anyway, this was a really good video! Always glad to see someone talk about this plane!
I would love to see some in-depth videos on piaggio aircraft,and other less well known ( by the general populace) manufacturers,miles aircraft and others built some very interesting aircraft
This was very interesting. Initially I thought it might be a modern myth, because the story sounded so similar to the Dusenberg Coupe Simone, but now I'm thinking the story-maker took inspiration from this story. It's a story fit for a movie.
MASSIVE THANK YOU ""Monsieur Scotty Wilson" and R.I.P., because you have make Bugatti 100P to born and you give the line to fly IT. I hope that the "100P" will fly again after fixing what give the crash???? .☝👍👍👍👍👍(Hope that my words are right?🤔) Thank you F.D. for this vidéo.👏👏👏
This plane was sort of the Douglas X-3 Stiletto of it's time. It's a shame we don't know more about it's original testing. I'm curious about the harmonic vibrations that would have been transmitted back and forth through those dual drive shafts, and the degree to which they knew of this airplane's vicious stall/spin characteristics? The cooling system was clever and ingenious, but may have had limitations if attempts were made to scale it up for more powerful engines. Anyways tough for the replica pilot. These types of planes should be tested out in the desert flats where you have options on engine failure, and also, there's a reason test pilots wear helmets and fire-retardant suits.
@@sjb3460 Bugatti didn't understand the tip stall characteristics of forward swept wings. Nobody did in the 1930s. The people who built the replica should have known, and should have modified the flaps to operate as flaperons to maintain roll control in flight conditions with the wingtips stalled, which made the ailerons ineffective.
Bugatti was a great French company not only making the first small sports cars for handling and performance but also the fastest autorail trains of the SNCF reaching 200 km/h powered by their famous engines back in the thirties. They were also powering fast ships as well.
I though I knew a little bit about aviation history … but this is the first time I hear of a Bugatti record breaking plane … what a beauty !!! I‘m stoked ! someone should try and build it again … it‘s such a beautiful aircraft … really
Someone did build it around 6 years ago. The test pilot was killed when the plane suddenly rolled over and went into the ground. Google "Bugatti 100P tragedy" and you"ll see the story. A very sad story.
As the original engines were not available, their best option would have been a Mazda rotary engine. Rotary engines are smaller, light weight, have stable torque across the power band, have fewer moving parts and can replicate the needed HP of the original engines.
It is so sad that with all the good engines we have today, there had to of been many more engines that were as good if not better for that project. And these other motors may of worked better with the chain power transmission they had, or of made a whole better system practical to of used. It may of been higher priced, but the cost of the used system was driven very high with the death attributed to the crash that system caused. Very sad that they took such a risk with a system that had already shown itself to be very unreliable.
Always thought this shape would make a good light jet. Another notion would be to replicate it with the contraprops, but powered by present day Bugatti car engines (actually a single one would doubtless be sufficient). It is good that the original airframe survived against the odds.
Forward sweeping of wings will always be an issue without computer assistance. If the original design was trying to design-out some of the issues with transonic flight with the forward swept wings, Ettore Bugatti would clearly have the idea of supersonic flight on his mind. In the 1930s it was already known a "devil lived above 800kph"; a devil responsible for rendering uncontrollable otherwise stable aircraft once they were in a dive. High speed stalls were common. We shall likely never know if this was Bugatti's intent. One thing for which to forever be thankful is Bugatti hiding the aircraft from the advancing German army; a future never realised may have been much worse than the future in which we now live.
I'm surprised they didn't fly off from Harvey Young Airport. When I was in the CAP, I remember WWII planes either being restored or replicated for flight. I flew in the yellow AT-6 Texan in 84, piloted by an older gentleman.
I saw this beauty at the Pederson Auto museum in the early 2000s .I thought it was a replica as it wasn't roped off. But looking through an access panel , I could see the older materials used for wiring , connecting plugs ,structure , etc it looked vintage. AND How did they get that propeller connected ? :)
Wow what a masterpiece of design and engineering!!! So inspiring, this piece touches me deeply, and with more than a little sadness, that this artistic oeuvre and engineering marvel died in obscurity when it should have thrived and gone into production and inspired generations of successors. I should be happy but I feel like crying 😢
I remember Scotty's accident. I emailed him about that plane and pointed out a few things I was uncomfortable with and he went ahead anyway. He wrote me back but I could see he wasn't concerned about it. He must have known it had other issues as well, since he had planned not to fly it anymore after that last ill-fated flight. I'm a high performance plane builder myself. But a proven design.
Remember the actual rebuild, and the tentative first few flights,, such a beautiful aeroplane,,, such sadness when the crash and the loss of its aviator Scotty
I’d built an rc model of one of these and as a kid it was not bad to fly it looked nice And was fast! I ended up making the tail surface larger by around 20% to gain stability at low speed, it was great after that but still I got bored so with some extra modifications mounted the battery in the tail and reversed all the wings I reversed it’s prop so it would push and it flew just like a Vulcan delta!
I didn't like the fin/rudder underneath, which prevented bringing the tail down low. No wonder it used lots of runway. I would have had a semi-retractable tail and put a dorsal fin there. Maybe Bugatti would have got round to doing the same thing!
5:48 I love the low tech way the mechanic checks that all cylinders were firing by licking his finger tip & touching the exhaust pipe cylinder by cylinder. If each pipe is hot it's firing. That is unless this serves another function. The more complicated shit gets the greater the chance it gets fucked up. I've been saying it since my early teens, I was born at least 50 years too late
The speed world record was established the 26 of April 1939 with the Messerschmidt ME 209 with a speed of 755,14 Km/h unbated till the 60´s with the Grumman Bearcat.
Wonderful video. I watched the process of the replica being built through Sport Aviation magazine. The original is at the EAA Museum, Airventure is strictly the name of the EAA convention held in Oshkosh in July, not the name of the museum. I knew it crashed but never heard the full story.
First I want to say sorry for your loss. I'm curious though where the engines came from or who modified them? The clutch (pictured in the video) was modified in such a way that it would inevitably slip. If it was left completely unmodified there could not have been a way for it to slip. The original design has a locking feature built it which was "welded" to be inoperable. Great story with a tragic ending. Remember the great ones, Ettore Bugatti
@@blacklion79 not with that weight. Not with that relaiability. Typical aircraft engine runs at 70-100% all their working time. Jet engines even can't get below that. That is why we don't habe jet cars.
Reminds me of the Gulfstreem Jet test flight crash..often pilots are pushed to expedite the testing-planning & testing-scheduled …a form of get there now syndrome…I think Scotty Wilson knew the aircraft was a dangerous bird offering huge risks to life but decided to make one more before placing the bird into the Smithsonian or other museum. As a pilot it pays to respect your intuition. RIP Captain Wilson.
Just as a point of interest. When you say 'hardwood' rails were set into the Balsa... 'Balsa' although light is also technically a 'hardwood' though most people think of it as a softwood as it is so light. Just saying :-) Great video BTW.
An exquisitely beautiful aircraft. I wonder about the forward swept wing design; was there some aerodynamically sound thinking behind it? I haven't enough knowledge of aerodynamics to even speculate, but I'd be interested to hear opinions of those who do. Obviously, the replica was able to take to the air, though it seemed to be somewhat tail-down in attitude. Speaking of the replica, he choice of 2 1340cc/180hp engines in place of the intended 4900cc/500hp engines is difficult to fathom. That's a substantial decrease in power. I understand that the cost of original Bugatti engines would be staggering, but I wonder if there were other alternatives that could've been more appropriate. Would something closer to the designed horsepower have made the aircraft more effective? Lovely plane, and a tragic story with many unanswered questions.
Properly forward swept wings have inwards spanwise flow, which inverts the stall characteristics compared to rearward swept wings. Forward swept wings can enter a wing root stall while maintaining aileron control. rear swept wings will tip stall and drop a wing, whic is obviously not as stable as a wings level stall. Not the case with this design. It would tip stall just like any other conventional airplane. The narrator saying it would enter an unrecoverable spin is a load of bullshit. A lack of power, poorly assembled substitute mechanicals and an arrogant pilot who knew his craft had mechanical issues but recklessly decided to take off is what caused the crash, not the aerodynamics. With the way it settled tail low and nose high after take off It also appears that he rotated WAY too early and spent a lot of time struggling to climb out of ground effect because he had some shitty substitute engines installed.
500mph is very very optimistic. I mean do you know how crazy the He 100 have to do to cool the insane engine for the record! Every surface on the He100 is made as an empty jacket to be filled with water for cooling. The whole aircraft itself was a giant radiator.
The ME209 was the smallest plane to be built around a DB600 engine, but a "brute" to fly! But its propeller driven Speed Record stood to 1968, when the Americans made an engine in a Hellcat fly faster! But also a French Bloch flew extremely fast just before the war, so Bugatti wasn't eventually the only French plane able to have made a possible speed record.
Anyone who knows the least thing about forward and back swept wings should know that back swept wings stall at the root first and forward swept wings stall at the tip first. Airplane lovers would know that from the Grumman X-29, which had plenty of coverage in technology and aircraft magazines in the mid 1980's, which covered details like that while telling about the differences in a forward swept wing. Bugatti would of course NOT have known that due to there being essentially zero wind tunnel or flight data from any kind of swept wings in the 1930's. There's also the issue of whether the wood wing construction could handle the upward twisting forces the tips of forward swept wings have to withstand. This plane didn't have a lot of forward sweep but it would still experience some twisting force. That's why such extreme forward sweep as on the X-29 hadn't been tried until it was built, riveted metal wings weren't strong enough. The X-29 used composites. The people who built the replica damn well should have known the original control setup with the ailerons at the tips was a deathtrap and converted the flaps to flaperons to ensure roll control would be possible at any angle of attack short of stalling the whole wing. Had the original ever flown, it too would have at some point crashed due to wingtip stall causing the ailerons to become ineffective. As for the video clip of the Rutan Quickie crash, that one was screwing up by the numbers. The people who did that were attempting to convert it to jet engine power by mounting a large RC model jet turbine to each side. They started the conversion immediately upon getting the plane. Their pilot never flew it with the piston engine and prop to get familiar with the handling quirks of the Quickie. Among them is a rudder that's a lot on the small size. Quickies are known for poor ground handling in crosswinds because the rudder has problems counteracting the force. That also means the rudder is pretty marginal in flight. It would be interesting to know if anyone who has a Quickie or Quickie 2 (whether they built it or bought one built by someone else) has ever enlarged the rudder? I know there's a modification to make the flaps work as flaperons to drastically improve roll control with aileron function on all four wings. Another problem was they were so eager to get the plane flying with the jets they ran beta versions of the software for the FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control). What began the tragicomedy of errors leading to the crash was the pilot decided to test it in a high crosswind. The FADEC shut down the left engine shortly after takeoff. The wind was blowing from the right. Instead of throttling down the right engine and attempting to land straight ahead on the runway, he pushed the right engine to max throttle. You do not do that in a twin engine plane with one dead engine, not even when the engines are only 2 to maybe 3 feet apart. The plane yawed hard left and crashed into a construction trailer that was fortunately cheaply built so it collapsed, preventing major injury to the pilot. That's a summation of their report on the plane and the crash. If the right engine had quit he might have saved it, even with the mistake of throttling up, due to the crosswind keeping it from turning right and diving. With twin engine planes the rule is never make turns towards the failing or failed engine. The plane will drop the wing with the bad engine. There's a lot of RUclips videos of radio control airplane crashes, containing many crashes of twin engine planes because the pilot made the mistake of turning towards the failed engine while attempting to come around back to the runway. My theory on why the downwind engine flamed out is that it was starved of intake air due to the stiff crosswind and lack of forward speed. The flat sides of the fuselage could have caused a low pressure zone on the left side, and the FADEC system wasn't able to adapt to it. So it shut the engine down rather than throttling back to avoid running too rich. How I'd fix it for crosswind takeoff and landing would be to fit a round tube crosswise through the fuselage, with horizontally pivoting doors on the ends. In crosswind takeoff or landing, open the doors to allow air to flow through the tube so the downwind engine intake isn't in the wind shadow of the fuselage. They'd already made a hole in each side to install the mounting bar for the jet engines.
Bugatti had the base for a world-beater. Had he designed it with backward sweep, and used a synchronized counter-rotating prop, it might have been Germany's worst nightmare. Seems France needed about one more year to bring several innovative aircraft on line that would have swept the sky's, had they been produced.
It's a shame that they didn't figure out a shaft drive for it, I just can't see a chain drive being able to provide consistent power without surging due to take up lash. The clutches seem like a bad Idea as well. Fine for a 500lb loaded weight motorcycle but hanging a several thousand pound airplane from that (even two engines= 2x the potential problems) seems risky at best. Just my two cents.
Sad story. One of the best pieces of advice for anyone engaging in a high-risk activity is to trust your instincts when you feel like it's not your day. Far better to lose a day than a life.
Making sure all the cylinders are firing. You lick your finger and quickly wipe it on the exhaust pipe. If it’s firing the spit will very quickly evaporate. If it isn’t firing it’ll stay wet for a few seconds.
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“What color is your bugati”-Top G
I caught that too, wonder if he could tell if they were all burning at roughly the same temperature by how fast the spit evaporated. Old school cool.
Someone was jealous of that beautiful design , and someone cursed that plane / project , how many people couldn't restore it after numerous attempts , people dieing, financial issues, sabatoge the brakes ,
That thing was cursed why is there no admitting of that it's so obvious
That race car mechanic using a spit protected fingertip to check that each cylinder is firing…☺️
Yes, but why is he touching the headers? Is he checking for a cylinder not as hot and therefore not working/firing?
@@littlefishy6316 he is probably checking that they are all running, if not running it would be cold on the effected cylinder.
It reminds me of a V6 2-stroke we had that only ran on one bank, so 3 of 6 cylinders and the other header was cold.
@@littlefishy6316 you watch it boil the spit, if it doesn't boil up you've got a misfiring or completely dead cylinder, very plain to see which with this method or he can't hear how it's running over the sound of everything else getting warmed up around him.
Douglas radial engine pilots used to use a wet rag
I was going to type this but you got it covered!
Thank you for sharing this video. Scotty Wilson was a friend of mine. I was the fourth person he told about his vision for the project over lunch in early 2008. As an aeronautical engineer, I joined Le Revé Bleu and worked alongside Scotty and some amazing people. It was such a tragic loss when the plane crashed.
Obviously you all weren't skilled enough to build a plane. Maybe try with RC models, bro.
@@kartyl1wielki dont be such a piece of shit, somebody died you fuck, anyways, high end name brand planes crash all the time, there are a lot of factors involved that cant be predicted, and even when huge companies build planes they have a LOT of test pilot crashes. You OBVIOUSLY know nothing about nay of this and should just stop commenting, before you make an ass out of yourself again.
This might be a silly question to ask a a turbine engine I want to go with a turbine engine so much more easier to work with a turbine would give you all the power you need for design turbine or even a missile turbine if he needed to if he can if he can get ahold of 1 actually I think there were a few airplanes correct me if I'm right or wrong was the Bentham cruise missile engines did pretty fine for being a small lightweight jet the lightweight airplane unlikely airframe so it can't wait no more or no much more than a cruise missile helicopter that use a small turbine engine turbine engine that would solve so many problems a whole bunch of new problems I don't know I'm not the engineer here I'm the guy who's asking the questions
I am very much sorry about your loss I bet he was a very very interesting like man
I followed the build of the replica and it was awful when it crashed. I never heard the full story of what happened until now.
Are you familiar with Jaap Horst, by any chance?
@@goatflieg No. What's the connection?
@@jamesdeath3477 Just curious. I followed the build on his Pegasus newsletter.
That chain drive was obviously sketchy just by looking at it. They really should have come up with a proper gearbox for that thing.
Probably could have adapted V drive gear units made for boats. It's a common layout in boats to have the engine mounted with the output forward, connected to the V drive to turn the power to the rear via a shaft angled downward a bit to pass beneath the engine.
I feel sorry for the guy, a real tragedy. However, if you make a re-creation from scratch, you make it close as humanly possible to the original design otherwise you could have serious problems. This plane was not a B100P except in the exterior design. Kinda like a Porsche 914...looks like a Porsche, but it's actually a Volkswagen.
@@tedwojtasik8781 Even if he had built it as closely as possible to the original, we never would know if it was as good as it as the original never flew.
Roller chains are extremely efficient. Careful design with slipper guides should be easily as reliable as gears.
Open chains are a completely ridiculous idea. No surprises they failed.
Forward swept wings and a triangle tail. Impressive aircraft. What a awsome French fighter.
Would like to see a modern Bugatti fighter jet.
Buddy of mine built an RV-3, a hot little monoplane kit plane. He was both a certified aircraft mechanic and commercial pilot and flew the plane a fair bit before deciding to sell it. At the time I was a commercial pilot with about 800 hrs. When I expressed interest in it he told me to just fire it up and taxi it around a bit to get a feel for it. I did and came away with the eerie feeling that that airplane might kill me, so I thanked him for letting me taxi it and said I'd think about it. A few years later it killed him when a wing come off during a high-speed pull-out.
Moral: If your sixth sense is telling you something, listen to it.
Those Suzuki engines are highly reliable, but they're designed for motorcycles, not airplanes. They've got very light crankshafts, make their peak power around 10,000rpm or more and are certainly not designed for that output to be continuous. Chain drive?....... All very sad.
I Have been in a lot of hinky situations when my gut was saying NO while my head was saying GO FOR IT.......I always listened to my gut first.... I usually had no explanation, at the time, for those feelings of disquiet but I'm still here.
Don't get it twisted, the Hayabusa engine is a great engine, in a motorcycle.
Yes...they run well but don't make the rated HP until over 9000 rpm...if the props and drive system only wanted 6000...then it's really underpowered. Then throw in a poorly done drive train...whoever was doing the wrenching on that thing really let them down.
@Recoil Rob I'd say hope and dreams overcame reason. Been there myself more than once.
There great in K Cars lol
@@frosty848 they work pretty well in mini buggies. As long as you gear them low enough. Accelerate like a dragster to about 60mph.
@@recoilrob324 I've seen drag racers using massive rubber belts to transmit power - can't think why that wasn't done here. Also absorbs the hammer blows of the ignition and makes everything smoother...
Thank god for channels like this. There are so many interesting little parts of history and beautiful, cool things i would miss without these videos
I met Ray Jones through correspondence about a decade ago. Back in the '70s when I was in high school, a friend took me over to a neighbor's house where I was given a clandestine tour of the huge underground garage that was full of Stampe biplanes and Bugatti cars. I didn't know the neighbor's name and I only visited once, but I never forgot what I saw. I moved away after high school; when I moved back to the area 32 years later I discovered the hose and huge garage were both gone. Some internet digging put me in touch with Jaap Horst, a Bugatti documentarian from the Netherlands who knew Ray and shared my story with him. A few days later I received a letter from Ray and in subsequent conversations he told me the backstory on the biplanes and Bugattis as well as the story of bringing the 100P to America. As an EAA member, I was thrilled to hear it was in the EAA museum and visit it often. Through Jaap Horst's Pegasus newsletter I followed the creation of the replica by Scotty Wilson. I was gutted when both Scotty and the aircraft were lost. We'll probably never know what that design could have achieved.
Thank you for providing such detailed and extensive research for all of the aviation community! Truly remarkable
Theres strong evidence that the Bugatti DOHC I8 design was largely stolen from Miller, who had a pair of racecars disappear in France in the 20s, which were later found under the floor of a Bugatti factory in the 1960s if I recall correctly. The story is covered in the book "The golden age of the American racing car" a book about interwar racing in the USA and a wonderful read
Leon Duray's cars, and the story does hint of some industrial espionage. On at least one occasion a Bugatti GP chassis was straight-up reengined with a Miller eight, than being a T35B reworked for Indianapolis in the late 30s; that car still survives in its Indy configuration.
Thanks 👍. Found this book in my public library, The Golden Age and the authors(Griffith Borgeson) other book, The Last Great Miller, is in library use only 🤨. So I guess I'm taking a trip to the library for a few hours...
@@paulwoodman5131 I bought the golden age at a rummage sale when I was 12 and it was what started my obsession with anything mechanical (especially because of the blueprints) I still have it
What an elegant design! The cooling system is genius. I wonder why it never caught on.
Probably because it takes so much space. As the design evolved as a fighter, it was probably only a matter of time till they wanted that space for fuel, ammo, cargo, bombs, etc, and ended up hanging the radiator out the bottom like a P-51D. Could have achieved nearly the same natural circulation with a 'modest' increase in parasitic drag from the scoop.
I can see this design working beautifully as an electric plane.
@@root1657 less that, it has to do with weight.
most planes had to use liquid cooling by wars end, radial cooling just couldnt keep up with the amount of heat these engines would produce, so air cooling designs are a no go. but liquid is fine, problem is now you have a radiator plus cooling pipes all in the center rear/rear of the plane, drastically moving weight to the rear of the plane, something that can kill planes. hence why designs where the piston engines behind the pilot are rare, because its fairly easy to create a death trap.
@@root1657 the scoop under the P-51D can open up at the rear and is designed so that the air warmed by the coolers can expand and provide a small amount of thrust.
@@greggv8 Yes, "Meredith effect".
There was my name, with many others, in the cockpit of the replica, as one of the donators who helped the project. What a sad ending of that marvelous story of passionate peoples dedicating their time to make it fly again (or for once !) :(
I hope somebody tries again. It's too beautiful to just be forgotten
WOW! As a automotive nut I’ve got several Bugatti collectable models. I had ever heard of this machine or of the reproduction flights. Thank you for this very informative video.
This takes the phrase "what color is your Bugatti" to a whole nother level
Imagine if this had been implemented with a push/pull configuration like the DO 335 pfiel (I think it was the 335?)…it would’ve at least looked really F’n fast!
You mean like the Cessna "MixMaster"? LOL
@@CTLanni yeah, but 3600HP rather than 420HP
That man knew he was going to die. And for whatever reason he chose to do it. That makes him probably one of the bravest people I've ever heard of. The way he was acting before that last flight like the plans that he had made to sell the engines. The fact that he was acting kind of depressed and a little weirded out and he didn't greet the crowd and what not. He knew that that plane was going to kill him. And he didn't want anybody else to ever do this again after that third flight. And he knew he shouldn't go through with that third flight. But he did it anyway knowing the consequences
I was in the middle of commenting almost the exact same thing as what you wrote then found your comment. So I'm just going to say to you that I agree that he knew what was going to happen and proceeded anyway. Is this a type of suicide or bravery? I don't know. I do respect him though. I was following the story at the time and was very sad to hear he crashed.
There's knowing and then there's knowing... he was obviously very unsure whether the plane would perform without issue and knew it could end him... hence his serious apprehensions, but on the other side we think "Well, I've got a bad feeling about this but... with a bit of luck... Just one last try..." If I had a pound for everytime I'd thought that knowing full well the obvious danger then cut myself or whatever and thought "Yes, you see, you knew that was going to happen." ...It's hard to credit that apprehension as, I guess until that final day, we always get away with it... we forget that the probability of that continuing is slowly decreasing 🫤
@@JesseP.Watson Well put.
@@JesseP.Watson You would probably wear gloves if you knew the danger of cutting yourself was high. The lack of safety gear, especially a helmet, along with all the observations about his behavior, make it sound like suicide. However, I think it's likely the people around him wouldn't have wanted to believe it was pilot error so all the speculation is kind of pointless.
@@joshuadowdle9691 Plot twist: the quantum anomaly which led to the animation of his macro receptacle on Earth shifted into non linear space-time upon impact with the ground and as he thus departed he laughed at the absurdity of the gathering crowd mourning his parting under the mistaken impression that they had witnessed his last flight for, in truth, this pilot had just succeeded in escaping gravity's influence for the first time. [Cue transcendent synths] 🌠
What a tragic ending to what could've been a magnificent proof of concept. Really cool video!
what a ridiculous way to die. so predictable and just a rinky dink death trap. ffs.
The photos and video of the engine set up in the replica was pretty revealing. No wonder Scotty was so pessimistic going into his last flight.
ol' Scotty fucked up. Ol' Scotty shoulda known better than to trust that cobbled together death trap held together with screen door springs.
I said the same thing only with way more words than necessary, lol. 🤣
I remember when that crash happened. I was such a fan of the 100p and glad someone built a sexy plane. Just tragic.
You give bore and stroke in inches an mm but then give the capacity in cu/in. Thanks, I now have to look it up!
I read about this beauty in Air progress I think, long ago. A replica was built but crashed right off relatively recently.
in my teens i had the opportunity to spend some of my summer at the eaa young eagles, which used the eaa museum for several activates and seeing this beautiful aircraft was a must every time we entered the building
4:54 Number 11 on the drawing sure looks like a fan. Extremely rare bird.....thanks.
This is one of my favourite aircraft designs, although I remember writing to Scotty with a concern about risk of side slip due to the forward sweep like the issues highlighted at 15.31. He built an incredible machine, I hope his family are ok. Ettore and Louis would be proud I think. Ultimately, it is a fantastic sculpture.
The documentary is fantastic and I can attest, 100% accurate.
Oh hey, an armchair expert. Tell us more.
12:04
From the moment I saw in the chain tensioner illustration the word "hoseclamp" I had reservations.
•#1 hose clamp is 2 words, not 1
•#2 intentionally using hose clamps in a component that is small in size yet huge in importance in an airplane designed by Ettore Bugatti himself
gives me zero confidence in the success of this copy/imposter of this Bugatti model 100P aeroplane.
Air Progress magazine covered the original Bugatti with a decent article and some photos in the early '70s which is when I first learned of it. Several radio control builders made sort-of scale models for a racing class using .15cu.in. sized nitro engines back in the day also. I'd say that without some washout in the wing design, it would have some nasty quirks and too dangerous. The beauty of the airplane is without question and, together with a replica of the Hughes H1 also crashing, killing it's builder and pilot, two amazing airplanes of the period are now likely never to be seen flying again.
It's somehow inappropriate to give your comment a thumbs up, but I agree with you completely.
One of the most beautiful planes
Lmao, gotta love how you got sponsored by the game that's been made infamous from classified documents being leaked on its forums.
Anyway, this was a really good video! Always glad to see someone talk about this plane!
"Never heard of"??? This guy needs to know his audience better! Of course us Aero-nerds know about this beauty!!
I would love to see some in-depth videos on piaggio aircraft,and other less well known ( by the general populace) manufacturers,miles aircraft and others built some very interesting aircraft
I first learned about it during the building of the replica was sad to see what happened in the end
Amateur Titleist....
Never heard of it.
We don't get no respect!
That was a well done video on a hidden portion of aviation history. Thank you on behalf of all the community. I subscribed.
This was very interesting. Initially I thought it might be a modern myth, because the story sounded so similar to the Dusenberg Coupe Simone, but now I'm thinking the story-maker took inspiration from this story. It's a story fit for a movie.
MASSIVE THANK YOU ""Monsieur Scotty Wilson" and R.I.P., because you have make Bugatti 100P to born and you give the line to fly IT.
I hope that the "100P" will fly again after fixing what give the crash???? .☝👍👍👍👍👍(Hope that my words are right?🤔)
Thank you F.D. for this vidéo.👏👏👏
Holy Cow! OMG! So tech and style beautiful!
thanks and like you said I never heard of this fantastic lil aircraft. truly a work of flying art 🛩
Where was the crash at 15:43 and what on earth was the pilot thinking? Does anyone have a link to the original video and/or accident report?
This plane was sort of the Douglas X-3 Stiletto of it's time. It's a shame we don't know more about it's original testing. I'm curious about the harmonic vibrations that would have been transmitted back and forth through those dual drive shafts, and the degree to which they knew of this airplane's vicious stall/spin characteristics? The cooling system was clever and ingenious, but may have had limitations if attempts were made to scale it up for more powerful engines. Anyways tough for the replica pilot. These types of planes should be tested out in the desert flats where you have options on engine failure, and also, there's a reason test pilots wear helmets and fire-retardant suits.
@@sjb3460 Bugatti didn't understand the tip stall characteristics of forward swept wings. Nobody did in the 1930s. The people who built the replica should have known, and should have modified the flaps to operate as flaperons to maintain roll control in flight conditions with the wingtips stalled, which made the ailerons ineffective.
Bugatti was a great French company not only making the first small sports cars for handling and performance but also the fastest autorail trains of the SNCF reaching 200 km/h powered by their famous engines back in the thirties. They were also powering fast ships as well.
I only ever saw the image of this Plane Once ; and I have always wanted to know more about it, Thank you soo much
I though I knew a little bit about aviation history … but this is the first time I hear of a Bugatti record breaking plane …
what a beauty !!!
I‘m stoked ! someone should try and build it again … it‘s such a beautiful aircraft … really
Someone did build it around 6 years ago. The test pilot was killed when the plane suddenly rolled over and went into the ground. Google "Bugatti 100P tragedy" and you"ll see the story. A very sad story.
This thing is a masterpiece
As the original engines were not available, their best option would have been a Mazda rotary engine. Rotary engines are smaller, light weight, have stable torque across the power band, have fewer moving parts and can replicate the needed HP of the original engines.
It is so sad that with all the good engines we have today, there had to of been many more engines that were as good if not better for that project. And these other motors may of worked better with the chain power transmission they had, or of made a whole better system practical to of used. It may of been higher priced, but the cost of the used system was driven very high with the death attributed to the crash that system caused. Very sad that they took such a risk with a system that had already shown itself to be very unreliable.
4:50 What is marked 11, if it's not a fan blade?
It really hurt my heart when I heard about the crash.
he was dumb. shouldn't hae been in that rat trap death trap.
4:50 no fan required what's item 11?
Always thought this shape would make a good light jet. Another notion would be to replicate it with the contraprops, but powered by present day Bugatti car engines (actually a single one would doubtless be sufficient). It is good that the original airframe survived against the odds.
I was just thinking the same, but with modern composites, and powered by twin mazda rotaries and constant speed props.
Two 3 litre BMW inline 6, easily get 500HP or more each.
Thank you for not using the accident as click bait!
Forward sweeping of wings will always be an issue without computer assistance. If the original design was trying to design-out some of the issues with transonic flight with the forward swept wings, Ettore Bugatti would clearly have the idea of supersonic flight on his mind. In the 1930s it was already known a "devil lived above 800kph"; a devil responsible for rendering uncontrollable otherwise stable aircraft once they were in a dive. High speed stalls were common. We shall likely never know if this was Bugatti's intent.
One thing for which to forever be thankful is Bugatti hiding the aircraft from the advancing German army; a future never realised may have been much worse than the future in which we now live.
4:04 Lord God damn... what are the signatures of the axes? Didn't Bugatti know the main rule for constructing any graph?
An awesome plane to welcome back an awesome guy!
I never heard of this aircraft until today. Very impressive video. TY for your content! o7!
I'm surprised they didn't fly off from Harvey Young Airport. When I was in the CAP, I remember WWII planes either being restored or replicated for flight. I flew in the yellow AT-6 Texan in 84, piloted by an older gentleman.
I saw this beauty at the Pederson Auto museum in the early 2000s .I thought it was a replica as it wasn't roped off. But looking through an access panel , I could see the older materials used for wiring , connecting plugs ,structure , etc it looked vintage. AND How did they get that propeller connected ? :)
Did you do a vid about that crash in the aircraft boneyard towards the end. Will you?
Who knew France almost had the most badass-looking fighter of wwii?
The Bugatti aircraft was a racer not a fighter, standard ww2 french fighters was Morane 406, Dewoitine D520 and Bloch 152
Wow what a masterpiece of design and engineering!!!
So inspiring, this piece touches me deeply, and with more than a little sadness, that this artistic oeuvre and engineering marvel died in obscurity when it should have thrived and gone into production and inspired generations of successors.
I should be happy but I feel like crying 😢
Someone needs to re-release an updated version with modern materials
I remember Scotty's accident. I emailed him about that plane and pointed out a few things I was uncomfortable with and he went ahead anyway. He wrote me back but I could see he wasn't concerned about it. He must have known it had other issues as well, since he had planned not to fly it anymore after that last ill-fated flight. I'm a high performance plane builder myself. But a proven design.
I've seen it in person many a time. A stunning aircraft history wise, but I do not necessarily agree that it's that aesthetically pleasing
I have never ever heard anyone ever call the hayabusa “anemic “ this was the wrong choice of powerunit,not the engine’s fault I’m afraid.
I've built a 1/72 model from Sharkit. Really beautiful!
10:39 a hero we didn't deserve.
The best video I have seen on this remarkable aircraft!
Remember the actual rebuild, and the tentative first few flights,, such a beautiful aeroplane,,, such sadness when the crash and the loss of its aviator Scotty
I love that you're explaining in both imperial and metric.. But why is only like 2/3 of all the units converted into metric?
Well worth watching. Start at 2:10 .
I’d built an rc model of one of these and as a kid it was not bad to fly it looked nice And was fast! I ended up making the tail surface larger by around 20% to gain stability at low speed, it was great after that but still I got bored so with some extra modifications mounted the battery in the tail and reversed all the wings I reversed it’s prop so it would push and it flew just like a Vulcan delta!
I didn't like the fin/rudder underneath, which prevented bringing the tail down low. No wonder it used lots of runway. I would have had a semi-retractable tail and put a dorsal fin there. Maybe Bugatti would have got round to doing the same thing!
5:48
I love the low tech way the mechanic checks that all cylinders were firing by licking his finger tip & touching the exhaust pipe cylinder by cylinder. If each pipe is hot it's firing. That is unless this serves another function. The more complicated shit gets the greater the chance it gets fucked up. I've been saying it since my early teens, I was born at least 50 years too late
Don't forward-swept wings result in yaw instability?
The speed world record was established the 26 of April 1939 with the Messerschmidt ME 209 with a speed of 755,14 Km/h unbated till the 60´s with the Grumman Bearcat.
Fantastic research and explanations!
at 5:47 the mechanic licks each of the exhaust headers, why? Aren't the headers hot AF?
Hot AF if the cylinder is firing. Merely warm if not. Low tech check to ensure the engine is firing on all cylinders.
Wonderful video. I watched the process of the replica being built through Sport Aviation magazine. The original is at the EAA Museum, Airventure is strictly the name of the EAA convention held in Oshkosh in July, not the name of the museum. I knew it crashed but never heard the full story.
Airplanes with engines with clutches seems like a bad idea. was it running with gearboxes?
First I want to say sorry for your loss. I'm curious though where the engines came from or who modified them? The clutch (pictured in the video) was modified in such a way that it would inevitably slip. If it was left completely unmodified there could not have been a way for it to slip. The original design has a locking feature built it which was "welded" to be inoperable. Great story with a tragic ending. Remember the great ones, Ettore Bugatti
Motorcycle engines? Sounds like a crazy idea.
Pure arrogance and stupidity.
There are a lot of ultralight and experimental light aircrafts powered by motorcycle engines.
@@blacklion79 not with that weight. Not with that relaiability. Typical aircraft engine runs at 70-100% all their working time. Jet engines even can't get below that. That is why we don't habe jet cars.
Smooth plane
Excellent stuff bro
Reminds me of the Gulfstreem Jet test flight crash..often pilots are pushed to expedite the testing-planning & testing-scheduled …a form of get there now syndrome…I think Scotty Wilson knew the aircraft was a dangerous bird offering huge risks to life but decided to make one more before placing the bird into the Smithsonian or other museum. As a pilot it pays to respect your intuition. RIP Captain Wilson.
Just as a point of interest. When you say 'hardwood' rails were set into the Balsa... 'Balsa' although light is also technically a 'hardwood' though most people think of it as a softwood as it is so light. Just saying :-)
Great video BTW.
Bugatti should make more airplanes. They made cars that looked great !
An exquisitely beautiful aircraft. I wonder about the forward swept wing design; was there some aerodynamically sound thinking behind it? I haven't enough knowledge of aerodynamics to even speculate, but I'd be interested to hear opinions of those who do. Obviously, the replica was able to take to the air, though it seemed to be somewhat tail-down in attitude.
Speaking of the replica, he choice of 2 1340cc/180hp engines in place of the intended 4900cc/500hp engines is difficult to fathom. That's a substantial decrease in power. I understand that the cost of original Bugatti engines would be staggering, but I wonder if there were other alternatives that could've been more appropriate. Would something closer to the designed horsepower have made the aircraft more effective? Lovely plane, and a tragic story with many unanswered questions.
Properly forward swept wings have inwards spanwise flow, which inverts the stall characteristics compared to rearward swept wings. Forward swept wings can enter a wing root stall while maintaining aileron control. rear swept wings will tip stall and drop a wing, whic is obviously not as stable as a wings level stall.
Not the case with this design. It would tip stall just like any other conventional airplane. The narrator saying it would enter an unrecoverable spin is a load of bullshit.
A lack of power, poorly assembled substitute mechanicals and an arrogant pilot who knew his craft had mechanical issues but recklessly decided to take off is what caused the crash, not the aerodynamics.
With the way it settled tail low and nose high after take off It also appears that he rotated WAY too early and spent a lot of time struggling to climb out of ground effect because he had some shitty substitute engines installed.
say what you want but Bugatti sure knows how to design something breath taking...
500mph is very very optimistic. I mean do you know how crazy the He 100 have to do to cool the insane engine for the record! Every surface on the He100 is made as an empty jacket to be filled with water for cooling. The whole aircraft itself was a giant radiator.
That design; the airflow, the auto flaps, the engines & props... sheer genius. Amazing & pretty too.
The ME209 was the smallest plane to be built around a DB600 engine, but a "brute" to fly! But its propeller driven Speed Record stood to 1968, when the Americans made an engine in a Hellcat fly faster! But also a French Bloch flew extremely fast just before the war, so Bugatti wasn't eventually the only French plane able to have made a possible speed record.
Anyone who knows the least thing about forward and back swept wings should know that back swept wings stall at the root first and forward swept wings stall at the tip first. Airplane lovers would know that from the Grumman X-29, which had plenty of coverage in technology and aircraft magazines in the mid 1980's, which covered details like that while telling about the differences in a forward swept wing.
Bugatti would of course NOT have known that due to there being essentially zero wind tunnel or flight data from any kind of swept wings in the 1930's. There's also the issue of whether the wood wing construction could handle the upward twisting forces the tips of forward swept wings have to withstand. This plane didn't have a lot of forward sweep but it would still experience some twisting force. That's why such extreme forward sweep as on the X-29 hadn't been tried until it was built, riveted metal wings weren't strong enough. The X-29 used composites.
The people who built the replica damn well should have known the original control setup with the ailerons at the tips was a deathtrap and converted the flaps to flaperons to ensure roll control would be possible at any angle of attack short of stalling the whole wing. Had the original ever flown, it too would have at some point crashed due to wingtip stall causing the ailerons to become ineffective.
As for the video clip of the Rutan Quickie crash, that one was screwing up by the numbers. The people who did that were attempting to convert it to jet engine power by mounting a large RC model jet turbine to each side. They started the conversion immediately upon getting the plane. Their pilot never flew it with the piston engine and prop to get familiar with the handling quirks of the Quickie. Among them is a rudder that's a lot on the small size. Quickies are known for poor ground handling in crosswinds because the rudder has problems counteracting the force. That also means the rudder is pretty marginal in flight. It would be interesting to know if anyone who has a Quickie or Quickie 2 (whether they built it or bought one built by someone else) has ever enlarged the rudder? I know there's a modification to make the flaps work as flaperons to drastically improve roll control with aileron function on all four wings.
Another problem was they were so eager to get the plane flying with the jets they ran beta versions of the software for the FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control). What began the tragicomedy of errors leading to the crash was the pilot decided to test it in a high crosswind. The FADEC shut down the left engine shortly after takeoff. The wind was blowing from the right. Instead of throttling down the right engine and attempting to land straight ahead on the runway, he pushed the right engine to max throttle. You do not do that in a twin engine plane with one dead engine, not even when the engines are only 2 to maybe 3 feet apart. The plane yawed hard left and crashed into a construction trailer that was fortunately cheaply built so it collapsed, preventing major injury to the pilot.
That's a summation of their report on the plane and the crash.
If the right engine had quit he might have saved it, even with the mistake of throttling up, due to the crosswind keeping it from turning right and diving. With twin engine planes the rule is never make turns towards the failing or failed engine. The plane will drop the wing with the bad engine. There's a lot of RUclips videos of radio control airplane crashes, containing many crashes of twin engine planes because the pilot made the mistake of turning towards the failed engine while attempting to come around back to the runway.
My theory on why the downwind engine flamed out is that it was starved of intake air due to the stiff crosswind and lack of forward speed. The flat sides of the fuselage could have caused a low pressure zone on the left side, and the FADEC system wasn't able to adapt to it. So it shut the engine down rather than throttling back to avoid running too rich. How I'd fix it for crosswind takeoff and landing would be to fit a round tube crosswise through the fuselage, with horizontally pivoting doors on the ends. In crosswind takeoff or landing, open the doors to allow air to flow through the tube so the downwind engine intake isn't in the wind shadow of the fuselage. They'd already made a hole in each side to install the mounting bar for the jet engines.
A sad story in many ways. Thankyou for an interesting video
Scottie was begging for an accident by the looks of it?
totally reckless and predictable.
I just saw it on Saturday. What a machine.
@5:50 somebody call Helf and Safety , that man has no mask !
The gentleman picking his finger and checking each exhaust pipe.
beautiful and clever - the perfect combination
If I learned anything from Junkyard Wars/Scrapheap Challenge and J.G. Parry-Thomas, it is that chain drives are for bikes.
Bugatti had the base for a world-beater. Had he designed it with backward sweep, and used a synchronized counter-rotating prop, it might have been Germany's worst nightmare. Seems France needed about one more year to bring several innovative aircraft on line that would have swept the sky's, had they been produced.
It's a shame that they didn't figure out a shaft drive for it, I just can't see a chain drive being able to provide consistent power without surging due to take up lash. The clutches seem like a bad Idea as well. Fine for a 500lb loaded weight motorcycle but hanging a several thousand pound airplane from that (even two engines= 2x the potential problems) seems risky at best. Just my two cents.
Sad story. One of the best pieces of advice for anyone engaging in a high-risk activity is to trust your instincts when you feel like it's not your day. Far better to lose a day than a life.
5:50 just out of pure curiosity, what is he doing?
Making sure all the cylinders are firing. You lick your finger and quickly wipe it on the exhaust pipe. If it’s firing the spit will very quickly evaporate. If it isn’t firing it’ll stay wet for a few seconds.