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The fabulous Flamingo, a motorhome made from an abandoned aircraft
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoIf you like that, check out the Winnebago Heli-Home.[0] It actually flew. [0] https://www.thedrive.com/news/34753/the-winnebago-heli-home-was-a-real-flying-rv-that-needs-to-make-a-comeback-in-2020 https://www.thedrive.com/news/34753/the-winnebago-heli-home-...
- ljf 5y agoCheers that was too interesting not to post! Looks amazing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29361699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29361699
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoI first learned about it on HN so credit’s due to that OP!
- dylan604 5y agoEveryone of my family members that owned an RV has said that gas mileage was aweful. I'm wondering what would be worse, this heli-home or a regular RV. How much advantage of being able to travel in the literal "as a crow flies" distances vs ground roads, price of regular fuel vs aviation fuel, etc. However, at least in an RV, you don't need sound deadening headphones and intercoms the entire time of travel.
- t0mas88 5y agoFor a mid sized helicopter like this, you can expect around 40 gallon per hour and a speed of about 100 mph. So I don't think this is a solution to the RV fuel consumption problem.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoJet-A1 is a lot cheaper though than unleaded petrol or car diesel at least here in Europe. Especially because it's untaxed. Still it works out much more expensive for the chopper obviously. Those really guzzle it. And this one looks so old that might be piston based in which case it would probably run on avgas which is a lot more expensive than car fuel.
- p_l 5y agoTax depends on who is buying, usually. IIRC in Poland private plane owners who are not buying through airclub pay tax on fuel, but airclubs don't, which results in every non-road-legal 4 stroke engine on airfield running on AVGAS-100LL ;)
- GekkePrutser 5y agoSeriously?? I thought Avgas is still much more expensive than regular unleaded fuel. It sure was when I flew but I'm not sure whether we were paying taxes. We bought it through the airclub but it was not a commercial club. So we probably did pay it. But we paid something like 3,50 euro per liter and this was when regular petrol prices were 1,50 or so. I was told it's so expensive because the special production: They add dehumidifying agents against condensation etc. I heard a lot of clubs are going for turbodiesel conversions now but the problem is that they have to be completely replaced every X years, they can't just do an engine overhaul like they can on the old Lycoming avgas engines.
- p_l 5y agoSounds like you were paying AVGAS price + taxes, at least given typical petrol prices in EU. At least in Poland, the situation is that if both are without taxes, then AVGAS is more expensive than car petrol. But taxes add enough on top that taxed car petrol is more expensive than untaxed avgas. This meant that non-airclub planes had significant amount of car petrol conversions done, but aircraft that could be fueled through Polish Aero Club didn't bother. At the airfield I learnt to fly gliders, even the utility car (used among other things for dragging winch wire back to start) was fueled with avgas-100ll, except we also modded it with LPG system that was fueled by normal kitchen gas bottle. The hand-pushed grass mower also ran on avgas :D only the winch and old ursus tractor used diesel due to engine type involved.
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- fy20 5y agoEuropean diesel RVs get around 25 MPG (US). That's better than a Ford F150.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoLone Starr would love that!
- verve_rat 5y agoHoly shit do I hate the hyperactive editing of that video. It is a video about a thing you want us to look at, maybe let us have a good look. Long slow pans, not jittery jump cuts. FFS.
- speed_spread 5y agoI look at those tiny windows making up the split windshield and all I see is a giant pedestrian-squashing contraption. To think that this thing is allowed to move on public roads at speeds greater than 3mph is terrifying. This should have been a trailer.
- analog31 5y agoThe main thing that saves us from such machines is that they are relatively rare, and are seldom operational. Disclosure: I follow some musician forums, and a classic genre of discussion thread is: "The bandleader wants to buy a bus."
- Stevvo 5y agoI love that you can get something like this road-legal in the US; in Europe you wouldn't stand a chance.
- chrismorgan 5y agoI’m curious why you reckon it wouldn’t stand a chance. In Australia and New Zealand I’d expect it to be fairly straightforward (meaning fiddly in places but perfectly doable), so long as it isn’t too wide (it’s within half an inch of the US limit, by the sounds of it). I know one New Zealander making a fairly outrageously large, heavy and wide RV at present, and he knows all the details that will be required to get it road-legal (a family member has done something slightly less extreme before) and reckons it’ll be fine.
- dylan604 5y agoHow does it getting approved in Australia or New Zealand help counter it being harder to approve in EU?
- t0mas88 5y agoAustralia and New Zealand are also less busy and have wider roads than most of western Europe.
- p2t2p 5y ago> wider roads Surprisingly but not, at least compared to Russia (and Switzerland) Lanes here are narrower than in Russia and of my memory doesn’t fail me, when we were driving from Switzerland to Italy several years ago, the lanes there were as wide as in Russia.
- chiph 5y agoMy understanding is that Australia can be pretty picky. Dick & Pip Smith drove an Earthroamer (a $500k offroading RV) around the world and when he got to his native Australia there were several things he had to alter, even though it was titled in Colorado, had Colorado plates, and had a 12-month Carnet from the government for it. The ones I remember were he had to install wider fender flares to ensure full coverage, and replace the red rear turn signals with amber ones. Being famous there apparently didn't help.
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- squarefoot 5y agoHow beautiful, loved it! Kudos to the creator for the patience to do the adaptation. I wish we could build and use such a thing legally in the EU, but we have much smaller roads which would be easily clogged by a monster like that. If I may raise some criticism, the rear abrupt cut off looks odd. I would add a few Space Shuttle styled rocket nozzles over there, then hide the air conditioner exhaust in one of them.
- p_l 5y agoWell, it wouldn't fit in some cities, but I do not believe a motorhome is for city trips, is it? This one maybe a bit too big but I think something similar would be doable even with some tiny rural roads.
- DocTomoe 5y agoAlso - and I am not a car mechanic - I can spot at least 5 violations of street-worthiness laws just by watching this rather flashy video. This contraption would never pass inspection.
- oh_sigh 5y agoHey...I saw this in my home state of Wyoming, at a Walmart parking lot a few months ago. I hung around for 30 mins hoping to talk to the owners but unfortunately they weren't around(or, they were inside sleeping and I didn't want to disturb them). They were hauling a trailer as well, so I guess there isn't too much storage space in there. https://i.imgur.com/pCd7opK.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/pCd7opK.jpeg