FIRST PROTOTYPE - FIRST FLIGHT EVER! Bae Sport jet

This is the very first prototype of a brand new design. Let's see if she flies or what happens. The design is lightly based around a BAE Hawk. From there, the name it's going to have once it comes into production, the BAE Sport. It's made by our good friend, Vicente, at 1 3rd RC Kits, same guy that produced the big pits that we flew at ProWing earlier this year. That's why it's blue as well, his favorite color. The model itself, this one is three meters. There's going to be a two and a half meter and a two meter version, and there's also going to be the same sizes for a scale BAE Hawk. After all, it's very similar. The model itself, just like the big pits, is a builder's model. That's right, so it's wood, it's a kit, and you build it yourself. So you can add or remove things from it as you go along, really make it your own, be that on the BAE, the scale version, or this, the sports version. This one's got a 180 size turbine in it. It's rather windy today. It's not the best day for flying, but it's day has come, so we're going to get the maiden and see how she goes. Let's get some fuel in, start having some fun. There you go, first ever flight of a brand new design. It went quite well, but you're getting a peek in behind the screen at the speedometer. the scenes of the work that goes into preparing and producing a model ready for sale. So all in all the plane went well, took off really easily, flew quite nice, however we obviously had way too much flap as you probably saw in the video and it was getting very squirrelly very quick. So time to change a few things on the CG, probably bring it a little bit further forward so it's a little bit less squirrelly and get those flaps reduced, a few minor touches and once we get all that done we'll get into fine tuning, adding in a gyro, obviously we don't want to do any of these tests with a gyro, we want to see exactly what the plane does before we perfect it, but it landed so I'd call that a successful prototype. Let's get back to work. There we have it, the first and second flights on this brand new design that until today not only had this model never flown before but this design had never flown before. All in all it's been quite successful, we've had two good flights, we've had a couple of good landings which are always the nerve-wracking part especially for the designer, owner and builder. There's a lot of work still to be done, a lot of fine tuning still to be made. The kit itself at the moment, obviously it's been put together so we can have this first test flight and it's not been finished to the usual high level that most people would finish a model off to, but it's fit for purpose. That also means that this particular model is quite heavy, it's probably about two kilos heavier than it would normally be. Why? Well things like the canopy which, aside from being massive, is currently 3D printed with a layer of silver carbon on top. That canopy alone is about 1.3 kilos. Now that they've seen that the design actually works and actually flies, they're happy to invest in having the moulds made for the canopy so that can be done in either see-through plexiglass or composite, however the client prefers. The same applies to the nose which is also currently 3D printed, the air intakes which are currently 3D printed, and the tail section, all the curved areas are also currently 3D printed. So all of that will get replaced for composite parts which will mean that it's a lot lighter. It also means that this should be an easy build for anyone who wants to actually purchase one and assemble one because you don't have to worry about all the difficult curves. It's just a case of building up the main standard structure and then attaching those finished curved parts onto it. How does she fly? Well, obviously at the moment she's a little bit heavy and there's quite a lot more fine tuning to be done. We haven't been flying with a gyro today as, after all, we want to see exactly what the plane flies like, what it does well and what it doesn't do well. So having a gyro would hide a lot of that which isn't good for this purpose. Normally a gyro would have helped us out today, especially with this wind, but we're quite happy with it. A lot of work still to be done, but it promises to be a nice flying aircraft which they're going to be bringing out in a few different shapes and sizes. So we'll keep you informed on how they get on with that. Hope you've enjoyed this video, a little bit behind the scenes of what goes on prior to bringing a model to market. It's a new different style of sport jet, a wooden one, which we don't tend to see much of. It also means that it could potentially be easily repairable because a lot of people know how to work wood over composite. And as hopefully you saw on that second flight, despite being quite more aggressive with it and flying a lot quicker, well, it held up well despite being made out of wood. The turbine in this at the moment is a 180. It's designed around either a 180 up to a 220. At the moment it could definitely do with that extra power, but again, hopefully it's going to be losing about two kilos worth of 3D printed parts, which hopefully will mean that even with the 180, we'll have plenty of power. If not, we'll have to have a word with Vicente so he can put a 220 in it. Anyway, enough of me rambling, hope you've enjoyed this video. Hopefully we can get some more flights on it soon with those new parts. So make sure to stay subscribed to the channel for that. Hope you've enjoyed the video. If you did, leave us a like and I'll see you all in the next one.