There are many RC models of unique aircraft. Here's one based off the Horten brothers' flying parabola: <a href="http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/1/6/2/3/6/1/a1390320-156-Horten%20Parabola%20Aerotow2007.jpg?d=1184348723" rel="nofollow">http://static.rcgroups.net/forums/attachments/1/6/2/3/6/1/a1...</a>. The Hortens were WW2 german aircraft designers who specialized in flying wings.<p>This RC SR-71 of course doesn't implement the most technically challenging features of the actual aircraft: ramjet propulsion and titanium skin. It's a very cool looking toy though.
I highly recommend a visit to the Museum of Flight in Seattle where you can see a real SR-71 Blackbird. It doesn't look like it came from this planet, gave me the chills thinking about the people who created it.
Such a beautiful plane. I got the chance to see the second to the last flight of the NASA SR-71 at Edwards AFB in I think 2001 or 2000. The airplane is other worldly, loud as hell and simply beautiful.<p>They did a full Mach 3 overhead pass (at 50k feet I think) and also a bunch of slow and high speed passes before it landed and it did a close up crowd taxi-by. The engines at idle have a unique noise, different than any other jet they had.<p>From the front its a higher pitch noise due to the fact that you're hearing the eddies off the compressor (the engine had no slow RPM fan like most military jets), and from the back like the worlds largest hair dryer.<p>At take off, it sent up a rooster tail of dust from the runway that went for a half mile.<p>Sad that they retired the bird. Kelly Johnson was a super hero engineer.
Impressive. My initial reaction watching the clip is that he got the sound right (loud). I've stood near the runway as a real Blackbird took off and could feel my chest rattle from the sound as it rolled by.
That's pretty amazing, however, the title is a bit misleading. He made an RC Blackbird replica: not a drone, not life-size, not immune to radar, not weaponized, thus not a Blackbird.
That is just amazing. When I was a kid, I loved to read about high-tech aircraft and space ships and I recall that the SR-71 was known for being hard to handle at low velocities and altitudes (something about the shape of the plane). I wonder if the same is true about the small version. It looks easy enough in the video.
Wow, the most impressive thing is that he actually managed to land it while controlling remotely. That must have taken a lot of experience and skill.<p>I'd feel more comfortable writing some autopilot landing code for the thing than to trust myself to not ruin months of work.
RC Aircraft nerd here. This is very cool, but not at all uncommon (while this particular model is, making scale remote-control versions are not). Pulse-jet aircraft are some of the coolest things you can fly, but need a big field (for safety reasons).
I'm surprised the aerodynamics work at scale and slow speed. Very nice work! (Incidentally, I'm always amazed at the eyesight these guys seem to have, I'd have no idea which way it was pointed)