Not historic, I know….but:

Yes – it was all over the media. And very convincing too.

That thing went minimally viral a year or two ago. It’s a model airplane.

It wouldn´t really be possible, would it?

Anything is possible, given a high enough power-to-weight ratio. You could fly a wingless fuselage, if you had enough power. Numerous navy aircraft have taken off, flown and landed successfully with their wings folded, and an Israeli F-15 some years ago flew with its entire left wing gone–the pilot didn’t even know what he’d lost until after he landed and climbed out of the airplane–after a midair collision.

So yes, it is possible.

In case you’re unaware of the Neil Williams incident referenced above, he had a main-spar failure while practicing for a world aerobatic competition and immediately inverted his Zlin, which loaded the spar in the direction opposite to the failure. He flew his entire return to base and approach inverted and at the last possible second rolled the airplane upright and touched down before the spar failed again.

Last possible second? There was a mark in the runway grass where his wingtip had brushed the surface while passing through vertical on the way to upright, and there were grass stains on the wingtip and wingtip-light lens that had made the mark. Yet it had been done so precisely that the light lens wasn’t even cracked.

I’d assumed the ‘inspiration’ was the Neil Williams/Zlinn incident.

Roger Smith.

It’s been done with a model aircraft before(that’s where they got the idea for the ad). Don’t see it possible with a real one though!

I thought so.

It wouldn´t really be possible, would it?

Jon

fake
CGI clip made as a commercial