Someone flying an RC controlled A-380 Airbus

[gunug]

Nice footage of a large RC controlled Airbus A-380 in Switzerland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rt9zX1rZFU

[jchuzi]

So that's what Jim did in a previous life!  

[Xairbusdriver]

Actually, flying from inside an aircraft is much easier than doing it by RC. As long as the model is flying away from you, things operate just as they would with pilot input. When it's flying toward you, left becomes right and vice versa!! It's rather like looking in a mirror as opposed to looking at your image projected on a screen/monitor. Now, have the aircraft fly toward you inverted...    
Fortunately, 99.9% of my flying was from inside the cockpit. When I flew RC, I also had to do the repairing, didn't have that problem when I was getting paid to fly! Nor did I have to pay for the fuel!!

BTW, I never flew the 380, only the <300 and 310>. Still wide bodies but much shorter. Typical of the French, the 310 is actually smaller than the 300... and the 320 is smaller still! It's not even a wide body!!! The numbers were simply indicative of the design/build order, not size. And even Boeing had somewhat unintuitive numbers for the 707, 727 (shorter), 737 (shortest).

[gunug]

I thought the jets sounded pretty realistic on the RC plane; I watched some related links of RC prop planes (some fairly large) and they still sounded more like toys than the real thing.

[Xairbusdriver]

The sounds of a turbine engines are all fairly similar. Mostly created by constant compression of air being supplied with fuel resulting in continuous expanding exhaust gases. Here's the <smallest version> from an American manufacturer: $2,995.00, RPM Range: 85,000 to 245,000rpm, 5.5 lbs of thrust. That Airbus model undoubtedly had four larger engines.

Frankly, I don't want to be anywhere near an object rotating at that speed, no matter what it cost! Having large amounts of money does not make one knowledgable in safety.

Piston engines not so much. Their sound comes from multiple but discrete explosions. The size of the piston and compressed fuel/air mixture usually determines the frequencies heard; bigger cylinders/longer strokes equals lower frequencies, even with high rates of rotation. Most RC piston engines are of very small size compared to other piston engines we usually hear. Closest you get to a large RC piston engine would be a weed-eater^®. And they will never sound like a turbine, of course.

[tacit]

I used to fly RC planes in Tampa, and at the time I was there, the folks at the flight field were having a big argument over whether or not to allow turbine (jet) planes to fly. Very few RC flight fields permit turbines, because they have a nasty tendency to explode and burn when they crash. With piston engines, even if they hit the ground at 600 MPH (which can happen), there's practically no risk of fire.

We were due to have a vote on allowing turbines, and just a week before the vote there was a flight field in the Florida panhandle that had a five-alarm fire when a turbine plane crashed and burned. Folks had been leaning toward allowing them until that happened, and then when we had the vote, it was "no" by 4 to 1.

I remember a saying everyone used to use whenever someone wrecked a plane, which happened pretty often: "if you're gonna be cryin', you shouldn't be flyin'."

[Xairbusdriver]

Not exactly RC, still...

<Russians capture cigarette-smuggling drone> (ars article)

Probably simply hand-launched or assisted, the GPS the rest of the way.

[tacit]

And in even more bizarre news, some enterprising folks have made an RC quadrocopter out of carrots!

[Xairbusdriver]

Wouldn't celery be more efficient? Greater fiber strength, somewhat more flexible, less carving required, faster growing(?), less tilling required. Besides, it would be 'greener'!