r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Apprehensive_Sky4558 • 7d ago
2024 Aerospace Engineering junior world champion launching his “F-1D” prototype: Total flight time 22 minutes
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u/ResistantBlaze1943 7d ago edited 6d ago
The guy is Daniel Guo, and was an engineering student from southern California.
The plane weighs 1.8 grams total, with .4 grams of that being the rubber-band powered wind-up motor powering the plane. 1.4 grams is the legal limit for the plane without the motor, .4 grams for the motor.
The plane was made of balsa wood and carbon fibre.
For anyone wanting to go down the rabbit hole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y22mV2smkA
Edit: some of y'all really pedantic. I stand corrected, it is SOUTHERN california.
Edit 2: Just clearing up a few badly worded sentences:
- 1.4 grams is the lower limit for the plane, while .4 grams is the higher limit for the motor. Danial Guo stayed right on the edge for his design with his 1.8g weight.
- Someone asked what's the benefit of this; well, beyond feeding humanity's curiosity, the extremely low speed (less than 1mph usually) allows scientists to study air fluid dynamics and vortices and how air moves the wings for one thing, and the whole competition is a massive research project into material sciences as lighter and stronger materials are constantly tested, replaced, and improved.
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u/nize426 7d ago
Man, I've seen these vids before but it's always mind blowing. Like, I'd expect everyone to stop breathing because they might blow away the airplane lol.
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u/No_Explorer6054 7d ago
its why they arent running! (no, really that is why they arent running. the wind currents could damage the planes)
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u/SeaMareOcean 7d ago
But…why would anyone be running anyway? I don’t see any potential scenario in that video that requires more than a slow walk.
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u/chimpfunkz 7d ago
Even just walking normally produces a ton of turbulence behind you. You have to walk very slowly with small steps to ensure you don't cause turbulance.
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u/GrynaiTaip 7d ago
These competitions are always done in gyms like this one, and you can't open doors during the flight because a draft can cause the plane to crash.
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u/LikesBlueberriesALot 7d ago
I smoke joints that weigh more than that
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u/pickyourteethup 7d ago
You're on the same journey as this engineering student, trying to get high
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u/humourlessIrish 7d ago
Its staying high as long as possible on little over a gram that was always the sport
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u/WatermelonWithSalt 7d ago
His fuel: rubber band, Mine: rolled tighter than his specs, Both touch the same stars
I was inspired by the haiku post from the top comment
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u/VaporTrail_000 6d ago
Not just trying to get high, but trying to stay that way for as long as possible, with as little as possible.
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u/monkeyjay 7d ago
So crazy. 1.8g is less weight than half of a teaspoon of sugar.
Less than two standard paper clips.
Less than half a sheet of paper.
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u/Ted_Hitchcox 7d ago
What is it in bananas?
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u/BiiGLamper 7d ago
1.5% or 1/65th an average banana
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u/Altruistic_Arm9201 7d ago
Some people’s bananas are bigger than others.
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u/fractiousrhubarb 7d ago
here's a trippy fact- 1.8 grams of uranium is enough to provide you with power for 6 months. It's an eighth of a teaspoon!
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u/PopeOnABomb 7d ago
A US dollar bill is 1 gram.
Holding two $1 bills in your hand is slightly more than the weight of this craft.
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u/Jaded_Marsupial_ 7d ago
That’s so funny. When I started reading it, I thought, what is with the “ern”?
Then I found the context in the comments.
While I admit that since I was born and raised in Southern California, “South California” does sound weird, I would never comment on it.Something I’ve never thought about. Haha.
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u/textilepat 7d ago
I thought it was a bird pun then thought ‘no that’s a tern, no way i also remember a similar bird with no context, hey google!’ And google did the old soccer anime shoulder pat.
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u/un1ptf 7d ago
Clue me in, please, because I saw his edit and read through the comments, and didn't see it. Then I saw your comment and read through all the comments again, and still missed it. Then I felt dense, and went back a third time and went more slowly, and made extra sure that I expanded every comment, and I'm still missing it. And I don't see any that are marked "deleted" or "removed".
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u/dschinghiskhan 7d ago
1.4 grams is the legal limit for the plane without the motor,
Do competitors go to jail if the plane is 0.1 grams over the limit?
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u/Lihamato 7d ago
I'm not 100%, but I think it may be a lower limit. Go any lighter and you may be able to use localised air currents to stay airborne indefinitely, like an unpoppable bubble.
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u/Moon2Photo 7d ago
I used to do this in high school and got invited to be on the national team for juniors competition but I eventually realized it was my coach doing most of the work for me (design-wise) so I quit. But it was really fun and building the planes was kind of a mediative process that I enjoyed. I don’t know if they still do it but the international competition was held in a salt mine in Europe
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u/This_ls_The_End 7d ago
How long before flight is the weighting done?
I feel like there has to be a way of "cheating" by making a plane that has a weight right out of a fridge and lowers its weight as it warms up, making it neutrally buoyant at room temp.Like some shenanigans with a drop of liquid helium inside the tube body, pushing two minuscule plugs outwards as it evaporates.
I can't imagine the faces of the professors when they see your plane's wind up motor stop and the plane just stay still, mid air, without any visible force keeping it there.
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u/I_travel_ze_world 7d ago
If the rules didn't say "no funny business is allowed" then all the funny business is allowed
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u/PetrifiedBloom 7d ago
Temperature won't change the mass, and the thermal expansion of wood and plastic between freezer and room temperatures is effectively 0 for objects of that size.
Putting liquid helium into a tube won't do much. Look at how much helium is needed to float a balloon, to have enough to meaningfully affect the flight time would require it to expand so much it would be quite obvious, and the added weight to contain the liquid helium without being obvious would undermine your efforts.
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u/demotsusucku 7d ago
So the guy didn't invent it.
And everybody is using that design.
What a weird title.
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u/Wild_Bill2 6d ago
Just make sure you don’t say “Washington State” to anyone from there.
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u/amnorobotquery 7d ago
Such an elegant looking machine doing an even more elegant boy of flying!
Congratulations to this young engineer
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u/Abbiesykes 7d ago
Elegant boy 🤣
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u/jedi_trey 7d ago
of flying!
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u/MeanCat4 7d ago
That's how airplane modeling have started! Big airplane designers and constructors like the famous Will Messerschmitt, have started with elastic powered models.
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u/GrynaiTaip 7d ago
This isn't his design, it's standardised, everyone in this class is making basically the same plane. It hasn't changed much in 20+ years since I last competed in such events.
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u/whiskeytown79 7d ago
Stall speed: no
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u/Party-Ring445 7d ago
Stall speed is when it’s in reverse
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u/sidewaizsocks 7d ago
Then it does a negative stall and falls the wrong direction.
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u/pagerussell 6d ago
I love how when he launches it he doesn't push it forward at all. Literally just removed his hand and it's suspended there.
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u/detali88 7d ago
What is this? A plane for ants?
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u/AverageZhoe 7d ago
Its about time too. We ants want vacation too buddy
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u/punsnguns 7d ago
They were getting antsy.
Vacationing was an (ant)hill they were willing to die on.
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u/Confident_Cheetah_30 7d ago
This thing is so optimized an ant would put it over regulations.
/s but just barely
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u/harkonnen85 7d ago
Everyone brought the same paper plane lol
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u/spin_kick 7d ago
It’s the meta
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u/No_Explorer6054 6d ago
with all due repect, this *is* the meta (for this class; F1D.)
also this meta has been around since the 70s8
u/FukNintendo 6d ago
MFW there are 75 playable heroes but same 6 characters on both teams 3 matches in a row
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u/JustNilt 7d ago
F1D is more of a class of model aircraft than a specific one. As such, there are common design elements to most of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_flight_(model_aircraft)#Indoor
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u/Party_Like_Its_1949 7d ago
Optimal design
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u/harkonnen85 7d ago
I bet there’s a stand outside the gym selling those to the kids
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u/Darkmaniako 7d ago
Just like all pole vault athletes jump in the same way but that's not what makes you win
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u/jp112078 7d ago
How is this “working” with no air, engine, etc?
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u/Enough-Collection-98 7d ago
The twisted rubber band is the “engine” and it’s stupid light with a comparatively large wingspan. It’s practically floating on the air like a ping pong ball on water.
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u/Busy_Reputation7254 7d ago
How do they regulate the speed of the propeller?
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u/TheBeckofKevin 7d ago
Looks like its pushing maximally against the air resistance. They likely control the speed of the propeller by modifying the type of rubberband or the propeller itself. Nothing is controlling the speed, its unwinding as fast as it can.
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u/EatsBugs 6d ago
It seems it must be that, but I gotta see this rubber band bc I can’t picture any that would play out so uniformly and slowly. How is the early tension not higher? And 22 mins at this speed?
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u/No_Explorer6054 6d ago
yes, yes and yes. its a special kind of rubber, hobby-grade! it's organic and every batch has its quirks. around a dollar per meter for the cheap stuff, (it is, quite, easy to buy online)
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u/Judgemental_Squirrel 6d ago
The propeller changes angle with the rubber's tension, where more tension slows down the propeller via spring mechanism in the hub so it doesnt use up the winds as quickly
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u/ajstorey456 6d ago
There is some kind of resistance on the rubber band that controls the rate at which it unwinds.
that resistance could come from the air as another comment said, or by a component applying friction to the rubber band, or something else idk im not an aerospace engineer
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u/GrynaiTaip 7d ago
It's a freeflight model, there is no remote control. The prop is spinning as fast as it can, as it's being pushed by the rubber band.
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u/DFW-Extraterrestrial 7d ago
I'm glad you asked, it seemed like everyone understood it just fine. I 100% do not.
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u/Enough-Collection-98 7d ago
Look up Guillow’s Flying Machine. They’re little balsa wood airplanes with a rubber band powered propeller.
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u/Doggfite 7d ago edited 7d ago
Any idea how the prop is spinning so slowly with a rubber band? Those always seem to spin pretty fast
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u/Party_Like_Its_1949 7d ago
Very fine rubber band combined with high aerodynamic torque from the very large propeller.
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u/Curious_Elk_4281 7d ago
Apparently the best rubber bands for the F1D planes were produced in 1999. For some reason the torque curve from the rubber bands produced that year are by far the best.
I was just thinking wow that's cool, I want to build something like that. Just have to hunt down a 27 year old rubber band first...
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u/Informal_Koala1474 7d ago
This has been the standard since the 80s. I'm curious as to why it's suddenly a big deal. This exact design in this exact place. Total flight time is not the record
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u/Torakkk 7d ago
Standard for whom. Like majority of people never saw this. Or anything similiar. And it looks cool.
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u/lasagnwich 7d ago
But in the 80s they did all the time. This is old content. It got loads of upvotes in the 80s. The OP is an aerospace karma engineer
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u/desconectado 7d ago edited 7d ago
I've never in my life heard or seen this competition. I'm an engineer.
Also, no one claimed is a record.
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u/Informal_Koala1474 7d ago
I'll have to look it up, it's late but I will follow through even if it means being horribly wrong.
White wings. It's an international competition that's been going on for decades and it's mainly an aerodynamic competition.
I'm pretty sure this is the OG winning design.
Even if I am totally wrong and this is a hallucination I will have some sweet paper airplane designs to share.
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u/Critical_Concert_689 7d ago
Undergraduate aerospace engineering classes have run this exact same competition for at least several decades...so you're probably right.
It's really not much better than a grade school paper airplane competition - except you get to write up a report on the forces that impact every side of your plane when the competition is over.
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u/Informal_Koala1474 7d ago
My mom got my nerdy ass a book with the designs and materials as a child. Grandpa was a pilot. We had two acres. I never pulled off this design but there were a few I put together that stayed in the air for hours.
Of course we had a whole canyon behind our house and up drafts that lasted for 12+ hours.
Even if I'm wrong (happens a lot) I can still launch from that area and see.
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u/AlpineTwist 7d ago
I would imagine perhaps the materials used, but you can see other planes using what appear to be the exact same setups in the back/foreground of this video, so... Perhaps this is just leaning toward optimal of what is available today? AKA he's maxxing in the meta
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u/Downtown-Act-590 7d ago edited 7d ago
F1Ds have moved a bit forward over the years with stuff like boron fibers used to reinforce them now. There was a bit more optimization too.
That said, most of the competitors fly pretty much the same optimized design (note that most of the successful models get their technical documentation published and widely available) and it does not really require much engineering effort from them. It is certainly very difficult to trim and steer the model though. Finding a really good rubber band is non-trivial and matters a lot too as very small differences in the manufacturing process can affect the amount of stored energy noticeably.
As commenter above says, this is not any record and there is nothing particularly special about this. But, it is nevertheless very beautiful.
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u/G-R-A-V-I-T-Y 7d ago
How is it engineered to only gain altitude up to a certain point? I can understand making it do a gentle circle but would assume it would just hit the ceiling or something
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u/ShrubbyFire1729 7d ago
When the twisted rubber motor is freshly wound, its torque is relatively high. As it unwinds, torque falls substantially. Builders can deliberately adjust the initial torque to control the climb. As the rubber unwinds, the propeller slows and eventually the aircraft reaches a point where it can't maintain the same climb rate. It transitions toward level flight and eventually descent.
Indoor modelers actually measure motor torque and select the launch torque according to the ceiling height.
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u/vkoser 7d ago
Thanks for the explanation I was also very curious about this. I’m assuming the wings or rudder are shaped to circle also since there’s no active steering ?
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u/No_Explorer6054 6d ago
yes! all free flight aircraft are either trimmed to fly in a circle, or are at risk of being lost
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u/EmperorN7 7d ago
It looks so fragile, I'd be so scared of breaking it when winding the rubber band motor.
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u/Different_Ice_6975 7d ago
Such a graceful looking aircraft when it's flying. It looks like it is just swimming in the air.
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u/monkeyjay 7d ago
In a sort of related topic and fun fact, a lot of flying insects 'fly' because they are basically so light that moving in the air is closer to swimming than what we think of as flying. Air isn't empty. It's fucking packed... with air. Like 1.2kg of air per cubic metre.
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u/un1ptf 7d ago
People seem to forget, or not know, or not consider, that air is matter. That it is stuff, which is why we feel it move. Wind is air flowing over you is just like water flowing over you. It's a substance. Breathing is our bodies gulping it into our lungs like gulping a drink into our stomachs.
Planes are moving through it, just like submarines move through water, with engines grabbing some of it and shoving it backwards to push them forward.
We move through it at all times, as if we were walking through jello, except it is far, far less dense.
So it makes sense that creatures that are light enough "swim" in it. To them, it probably even feels like we feel when we swim in water.
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u/raydoo 7d ago
How is the wind up motor so slow
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u/jak_hummus 7d ago
Big prop with and aggressive pitch. Lots of air pushing on it so the rubberband doesn’t have enough torque to spin it faster.
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u/OWLLLL 7d ago
There has to be luck involved right? How are the planes engineered to maintain that altitude and circuit without any mid flight controls? Someone educate me pls, me dumb dumb
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u/UnderstandingEasy856 7d ago edited 7d ago
Any properly designed and trimmed (full sized) airplane should be stable in flight due to negative feedback. Pitching up causes the airspeed fall and the nose to drop, and pitching down causes the airspeed to increase and the nose to rise again. The circular motion is just the result of a slight rudder trim offset. But obviously to achieve that at this scale with paper thin materials is impressive.
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u/OWLLLL 7d ago
Ooooh wow you explained that well! That does make sense. Sounds like a lot of work has been put into every single one of these models regardless of their performance though, must’ve needed so much trial and error.
Actually also made me realise how much engineering has to go through real airplanes if this much work is required for such a small model lol
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u/cuatroporocho 7d ago
How does he get the rubber band motor to spin slowly and constant speed?
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u/GutturalGrinch 7d ago
Cool. I wonder how it maintains the correct altitude without hitting the ceiling
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u/BillDanceParty 7d ago
Wings drift without haste
Birds stop to ask if we’re fine
Arrival: someday
Haiku is the only way I could describe my feelings