R/C Ekranoplan Wingtip Vortexes

[@carcollecter98]

wingtip vortices are mesmerizing to watch

[@JoseAlcerreca]

You mean vortexes 😆

[@zackjack5546]

@@JoseAlcerreca nooooo the grammar police has infiltrated the channe!!!! 😭😭😭

[@Daddy_Damo]

I feel like a long range ekranoplan waypoint mission is coming soon, cant wait!

[@Smolus]

Could be difficult bc you need fairly flat ground, would be cool tho

[@JanTuts]

@@Smolus Lake

[@richardduncan9740]

I'm guessing it's control loop it too sensitive at this point to allow GPS waypoint nav. He'd need to solidify it's XYZ auto pilot such that it could withstand erroneous rudder inputs from the GPS and compass, and we are talking ERRONEOUS. Probably possible and also also well beyond the scope of this project but... idk really they seem to be forming a highly capable brain trust so who knows

[@TheStuartstardust]

For a long lake waypoint mission he could also try out another option from the past: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nanMeq1qqJyUg5Y

[@assassin-myst-b1sh0p2]

Good way to take out someone's ankle

[@rwl2411]

You should angle the lidar forward a little so it’s reading “ahead” of the vehicle, maybe a foot or two, would give it a little time to respond to the control inputs and reduce oscillation

[@TheStuartstardust]

That would make is more noisy due to variating pitch and the angled measurement. Moving it to the front and be true 90 degree to the ground, but away from CG would also be pitch sensitive.. 🤔 maybe give it eyes like birds use would work - basically do a Elon Musk and say fuck to lidars 😁🤭😜

[@yeyuan6273]

That’s not a problem, just combine the pitch angle into it. That is easy to grab it from the gyro.

[@daszieher]

@@TheStuartstardust seriously, I think AI camera interpretation in addition to gyro sensors should deliver best results. One lidar yields only one specific measurement, not attitude referencing.

[@TheStuartstardust]

@@daszieher yes - science also have a long history of replicating nature and they (birds in ground effect) do not use lidars 😁 The troubles are the non-flat surfaces like variating slopes - which i also think a vision system could anticipate better. 🤓

[@absalomdraconis]

@@TheStuartstardust : Part of what birds use will be force-feedback from their lifting structures.

[@imbok]

11:09 That the vortex draws air along it's axis is an excellent illustration of how induced drag works. The bigger the vortex, the more air that is accelerated horizontally by the wing and the greater the induced drag. It's a beautiful illustration. Bravo, sir. Bravo.

[@ghasty8716]

3:10 For anyone wondering about the car in the background it's a fiat 124 spider

[@markusofficial9016]

Man those vortices look absolutely gorgeous

[@66tbird1]

That answers a lot of questions. We used to race 1/2A RC and when a full-size cropduster would rip by good and heavy we'd fly up into its wake. The big vortices would barrel roll you. But sometimes you'd hit something different and axial roll you at a crazy rate. Like four rolls per second crazy.

[@rcbinchicken]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, the vortices seem to shrink in diameter (and therefore increase RPM) with time. In regular air where you can't see them, you'd never know which bit of the vortex you were gonna hit!

[@senorjp21]

seems like the lidar should point forward on a slight downward angle instead of straight down, no? that way you can see the terrain ahead of you

[@bob2859]

Time to put smoke generators on the wingtips 😎

[@HaloWolf102]

You mean smoke 'bombs'?

[@ErdeAnAlle]

Vapes should be ideal, cheap enough, run off of batteries already. Should be easy enough to add them to controls.

[@daviddavids2884]

time to make a pointless suggestion

[@davidf2281]

Some genuinely remarkable and beautiful footage here. Well done guys.

[@Jonathan.D]

It was amazing to see that the smoke was drawn into the vortex on both sides of the smoke field. I didn't expect it but it makes sense. Especially with the amount of fog being generated. If you were in FL I could have got a friend to loan you a commercial-size fog machine. He can show you how to set the density and height of the fog. This was a success and I can't wait to see the next one.

[@MrksKr]

Love the dedication to making the invisible visible, and in such a beautiful way at that too!

[@TheStuartstardust]

Some options for better control input: - gyro hinge in the downwards laser, true 90 degree measurement - 2 lidars to calculate pitch, and compensate distance - many lidars for same and tracking in front of plane - vision for control input to better track ground - force feedback from wingtips or flaps to detect level of ground effect - use accelerometer to compensate the pitch in the lidar measurement ..if some not done already 🤔🤓

[@shinobi1203]

those slow mo shots are hot!

[@3210hej]

15:20 , i think the reason the chiller did not work is that there was to little airflow, i atempted something similar a few years ago and found a fan is needed to get smoke, if you spray into an tube(or box) without sucking more air in the same way it will just condense on the surface.

[@Aengus42]

@ 10:48 Gasp! 😮 I think I've replayed that beautiful, tight, snaking vortex about 20 times! Compliments to the photog! Nice one Banzi! You nailed that shot. Sometimes, in physics, you reveal such beauty that has been there all the time. It just needed someone to reveal it. Gorgeous!

[@SateenDuraLuxe]

@14:58 The Dumpster Fire Dan bit was the best part of the video!

[@aGRUMPYCAT]

I'm a RC pilot since 1993 and I'm still amazed by your videos, thanks man!

[@backstept]

I work directly in line with an airport and out in the parking lot sometimes when a jet is coming in for landing you can hear the trailing vortices after the plane has passed. It's like a rippling or ripping wind sound. Really neat to see them like this!

[@SomeGuyInSandy]

It has been an amazing journey, watching your channel evolve over the years! This is an excellent video, keep going!

[@justin_time]

Man, that fog used to show the ground effect was soooo cool!!! What a great idea! Reducing the hole size on the outlet of the box with dry ice in it will help to push the fog out further in a straight line too.

[@sacredinclinations]

Your best video ever , I had to stop playing it after the vortex sequence you did at night and post this expression of my amazement and excitement, truly awesome!!! Now back to video...

[@orbiterlab]

These guys are practicing the real spirit of doing science: have a theory, try out to prove the theory, wonder about the outcome and improve. This is great stuff!

[@baddestmofoalive]

If I remember right from school, ground effect allows you to fly level at lower angles of attack, reducing induced drag and actually can roll your lift vector forward around the lateral axis giving you more of your lift vector as true vertical lift. If you can roll it far enough, you can use the horizontal component of your lift vector to “suck” your craft forward. You can turn part of your induced drag into induced thrust! But I haven’t studied aerodynamics since 2002, so I could be remembering wrong.

[@TobyRobb]

The vortexs were amazing. Two vortexs were also ejected rearward. There is a lot of theory around lift but essentially a wing just redirects the flow causing force. To get airborne, you need to throw a lot of air downwards!

[@jeroenvangoch8886]

The Miata and Abarth 124 in the background made this video just a tiny bit better that it already was!

[@GavinRemme]

One of my favorite channels

[@montagdp]

I like 10:20, where you can see the smoke get sucked into the low pressure vortex core in front (to the right) of the smoke machine.

[@KutsugeMindUrmoks]

Really like this project! Excited to see what happens to it

[@Shadow0fd3ath24]

not only is this a teaching vid, its also a unique cool RC plane that shows how to use simple electronics to do cool stuff...idk why people arent getting that...Plus THOSE BADASS VORTICES!

[@olsonspeed]

Very interesting experiment and visualization of the WIGE vortex. We used an airfoil between the pontoons of our ultralight planes to shorten the takeoff run on water , it was very effective, the wing lift also offset the weight of the floats in flight.

[@ayachtsman6847]

I want to tell you that I really liked the visualization of wake turbulence with smoke! I could watch it all day! It’s so cool and I have not see it before! thanks

[@kendokaaa]

I hate tuning PIDs but I absolutely love when it finally works

[@n1vca]

Fantastic per usual! Super interesting how much local intensity these vortices have, would never have guessed that. Amazing!

[@alisioardiona727]

Nice project. Those vortexes are gorgeous !

[@dariorseventyeight]

Besideds the the amazing content, having some pals sharing this kind of passion and spending nice summer nights this way is priceless! :)

[@brucebaxter6923]

Ok. Here we go with math. Lift is mass of air affected times velocity downwards. For a given speed over a period of time. Induced drag is 1/2m v^2 with the above constraints (plus the mass of air in the vortex and the speed it is spinning at.) So, in the smoke, the mass of air is reduced to the area of air that moves in total and the speed that it is moving. Soooooo.......... when you look at how much area of air is moved and how fast it’s moved then it’s clear that the ground effect has less area of smoke moved less distance in total. Well done, proud of you. Personally I would have had an air speed sensor on it and put that in the loop and the elevator as the second loop. I loved the batwing design, but they don’t usually have negative angle of attack on the leading edge or have uneven trailing edge. You sir are a god among men in the toy tech world.

[@mannythehunter]

Great video! Capturing those vortex really proved difficult but really awesome.

[@glumpy1024]

I wish I had the smarts and brains you guys have. Fantastic Vid guys and I appreciate the work you put into making it. One hell of an effort. Well done and thank you!

[@OmkarSheral]

wow. mesmerized by the vortices. excellent work

[@savourypotato]

That pro pelican riding the updraft from that wave was a nice choice of footage

[@droneceptionart]

Man!! I think I have the solution! Please try to mount the lidar sensor at an angle to look forward (like 1-2 meters forward! This way you can program it to know exactly what terrain differences to expect in advance instead of reacting at the terrain at the exact position the aircraft located! Please consider this idea!

[@DoubleClutchProductions]

Science aside the smoke effect shot you guys got is absolutely fantastic! 👍

[@nickvledder]

Great video using the fog-machine! Pretty astonishing views, I love watching it!

[@TobyRobb]

Watching this made me think about mixing. I think a lot of RC hobbyists have forgotten about mixing every airframe should have some mixing. A little bit of nose down at full throttle. Opposite rudder with aileron. Maybe flapperons with low throttle. Some down ailerons with up elevator and vice versa.

[@nimrodquimbus912]

Very cool, move the motors to the wingtips, spinning in opposite direction of tip vorticies. Move entire wing to contoll altitude.

[@onlygaming8106]

man i love your videooo the way you explain everything through the videoo is littt keeep up the gud work

[@fonwoolridge]

Fantastic! great to see the stuff that us aeromodellors usually just have to visualise!

[@thinkflight]

So good

[@piconano]

That was indeed sick. Well done.

[@gormauslander]

I would love to see a smoke test demonstration of the effect of curled wingtips on the vortices

[@Fischertek]

Very interesting content. You made it visually gorgeous! As already pointed out, there are probably more ideal wing profiles than this foam plane has. I was thinking that the vortex generation should be minimized as well, to cut down energy loss. (I imagine the downward pointing wingtip structures are winglets, although they seem more like profile stiffeners!?). As impressive they really are, the fog cyclones show high turbulence around the wingtips, which in my mind should also be minimized. By improving flight efficiency, stability might improve as well. I am really looking forward to the cooperation with the amphibious ekranoplan designer. For many reasons natural air turbulence is much smaller above the sea than above ground. That should make your results more stable and valid.

[@alishanmao]

man what an awesome project. but in the end you slipped away from the topic and got hooked on those sweet vortexes filming :D you know what, lets build a full size one person ground effect vehicle and it should be 3D printed one. collaboration ideas coming up Think flight did the video with your collaboration too. working on 3D printing a full size one person boat that I can turn into ground effect on water with my 30kW Electric Paramotor strapped to it. let me know if you like to collab

[@Tora1337]

On the chilled smoke device, attach a small fan, like for a computer, at the hole for the smoke to suck it out into the environment at a higher speed. You'll have to add a small intake hole on the opposite side of the box from the exit fan. This will pull the smoke out faster and let it spread further laterally in relation to the aircraft. Also, another thing to consider is a small wind-tunnel. Building a small structure, which you can line the inside with cameras, so you can watch it inside, and place fans behind the aircraft, to suck air across it from the front, and then secure the aircraft from the center of mass at the bottom so that forward throttle will hold it tightly in one place and the air flowing over the airfoils will provide lift. This will also be at center so that pitch control should be unaffected. The securing it this way will just keep it trying to fly out the front side of the tunnel. But it will eliminate the variables of windage affecting the aircraft. Then blow smoke from the front, letting the fans at the back pull the smoke across the aircraft, so you can watch the effect on the smoke through the cameras. You could probably do this in a structure about 5 times the size of the aircraft, 3 or 4 * as long as the aircraft, and about twice as wide. Just some thoughts.

[@thesoupin8or673]

Amazing as always! Very excited for the next video in this series and also your other ones. I always love the autonomous boat videos, they're my favorite for sure. The solar plane and rover videos are great too :)

[@Nono-hk3is]

Hell yeah, thank you Wayne

[@christopherleveck6835]

The wing is too efficient. It can ACTUALLY fly. If it where having to claw it's way into the air more it would HAVE to stay in ground effect. You are giving it a chance to fly out of it, and its capable, so it will.

[@angelorondini5835]

I don't think the problem is the wing efficiency, I think it has more to do with thrust, because even a rock eventually flies with enough power. If anything he should lower the maximum rpm of the motor

[@5ch4cht3l7]

As he said, the problem with models is that turbulences have a much bigger effect on the plane so he can't rely on the ground effect to generate lift, instead is just trying to use all the groundeffect he can get to improve efficiency. In order to stay in the ground effect he has to regulate throttle and flaps the whole time. The whole point of wing/ throttle modulation is to have these parameters perfect. A less efficiernt wing or less thrust would just narrow his options to control the flight, not improve the ground effect.

[@markg890]

@@angelorondini5835 "I don't think the problem is the wing efficiency, I think it has more to do with thrust, because even a rock eventually flies with enough power." There's an official name for that: F-4 Phantom

[@angelorondini5835]

@@markg890 ahaha

[@angelorondini5835]

@@5ch4cht3l7 I know, maybe you misunderstood. I agree with you in that he shouldn't do any of these things, but if he wanted to try to get the plane to self stabilize in the ground effect zone he could just lower the thrust (why he can't actually do that, he explains in the video I think)

[@bowmanbk1]

I maybe late to the game for this input but... I used to work on Navy aircraft. Your porpoising problem, our altitude control loop for autopilot would aim for 50 percent correction rather than all at once for that very purpose. To avoid porpoising. This avoids over- correction and smooths it right out.

[@aSpyIntheHaus]

That looked spectacular!

[@Errol.C-nz]

Fascinating when you get into it.. two things you could have tried.. there's likely waaay more but.. a still air shed with doors at both ends for the cool air smoker.. & the smoker "might" be better pulling the cool air in rather than blowing through the cool air box.. pito tubes at the foil tips with a tiny smoke bomb onboard.. try bigger foil tip end plates too.. extended forward of the leading edge as well as rearward

[@imothy]

Just dump a bunch of hot water on the dry ice and you'll get the most impressive low lying fog, this is how the pro's do it for broadway stage shows and stuff, the downside is it melts the dry ice fairly quickly. But i think 10lbs of dry ice should give you about 10 minutes of fog if you do it this way.

[@yeyuan6273]

The goal is to keep the vertical distance, that makes the throttle factor more like a positive feed back, that’s why it osslilate. I suggest to keep the throttle in eco rpm in constant, use the vertical stabilizer to just the pitching, using the elaron to banking, each part for only one airdym task, it increases the authority (that’s why v tail sucks, too much task for one surface). When the pitching is too much, it definitely means that it’s too high in your case, it won’t just fall out of sky, the separation will happen first, then the weight in nose will bring the Attck angle down naturally, the traditional configuration in nature without any electronics is a negative feed back system solely by air dynamics. And by this I guess you can increase the Kp a little bit, that’s good for reaction, in your throttle combined solution, you can’t touch Kp factor too much without triggering ossilation . It’s so easy to modify it by my suggestion, so please try it ,I am eager to see the results as I am a fan of gambling..............hhahhahhhhh

[@cobralyoner]

thats some beautiful shots you got there with the fog

[@donnyb6888]

thanks for watching. bye

[@marcusherold8356]

Wow! What gnarly footage!

[@connerw25]

This was super awesome to see! I had no idea that wing tip vortices were even a thing until your videos.

[@JL-cy1ks]

Nice work, cool to see you guys work on PID behavior

[@waitemc]

That vortex shots are wicked

[@markifi]

incredible footage well done

[@peeweeherman5590]

For your child box try maybe a PVC pipe extention coming out if the box with holes in it. To have better colling effects you might want to insert a PVC pipe before the chiller box as a buffer. And then have one after the box going out. Buffering could be a good aid. I am assuming the fog machine is hit that's why the smoke rises. Try a mosquito fogger also. That could work.

[@MrMaxeemum]

What about the vortices shooting backwards after the front ones?

[@MrksKr]

yeah, wondered about that too

[@Kang38290]

maybe thrust from the propellers?

[@flengineering4449]

the vortices are always back behind the plane the vortices you saw going forward was the same wing vortices as the one behind they are connected but the way the smoke was set up, that's what caused them to go "forward" if your relative to the ground to the plane they are going backwards

[@3d_aeroworks]

The fog being sucked backwards is a result of the low pressure at the core of the vorticy. Since pressure flows from high to low.

[@WymansWorkshop]

How in the world have I not discovered your channel until today!? Awesome video. I love this kinda stuff. Subscribed

[@Billydrives]

I remember when I was a kid watching this guy have fun with a little toy RC Ferrari. Good times

[@sergiourquijo4000]

awesome. actually pretty inspiring. I actually built a pid control loop to control the air speed of a asw28 measured by a pitot tube. i think it will work well to get te airspeed constant and then just get te altitude control with the elevator

[@samtatenumber1]

thats sweet

[@thewayfaringanarchists8157]

Brilliant freaking work

[@chrisschaefer3863]

it would be cool to see if some vortex fighting wing tip accessories would change the efficiency and/or how the vortexes look. Loop wing plane any ?

[@ronaldharris6569]

NASA level experiments on the budget of a ham sammich. Well done guys

[@AndreasHontzia]

Your could measure the efficiency of the ground effect with a long duration flight in a controlled environment. Fly low in a gym and measure the energy consumption. Fly higher and measure again. There should be a noticable difference. Edit: nevermind. I didn't watch the whole video... 🙄

[@rcbinchicken]

I mean, that's still a valid way of measuring it - and eliminates any potential accuracy issues, either with the current meter itself or the way data is captured/processed. If Dan keeps getting inconclusive results with the ammeter method, this would be a good plan-B.

[@SmilingDevil]

I also think a gym could give you a better environment to geht more smokin‘ video footage…

[@keatonhatch6213]

Probably won’t see this but I think implementing two sensors, for altitude control, one where yours is plus another that looks ahead of the plane could help the delay in engine power. Also I think it would be an improvement to change the wind shape and/or airfoil shape to do the automated adding/reducing lift. This would allow for full elevator and aileron control…. Either way this is impressive and most likely what the “futuristic flying cars” will be.

[@The_Endo]

thumbs up for the X1 Carbon Thinkpad, love those Thinkpads

[@davehayes8812]

Respect! And for a moment there you had wing in box effect as it passed the chiller.

[@mattiamanc]

It could be interesting to see if two lidar sensors along the longitudinal axis rather than one could help fine tune pitch control

[@HOTSHOT-ls1bc]

MAKE IT BIGGER!!!!!!!! Heavier and different design like two rows of wings in line like a bus

[@colekenny2224]

You can reduce the wingtip vortices and further increase efficiency (in theory) if you reverse the winglets and have them point up link on an airliner. I'd be more curious to see what this does to the shape/behavior of the vortices as opposed to the actual efficiency though (as the benefit is probably pretty small on a small aircraft like this).

[@DIYwithBatteries]

Awesome flying Dude I love it 👍

[@GNARGNARHEAD]

thanks Wayne!

[@jakeb6703]

Turned into an art project lmao, absolutely gorgeous

[@dallasstroud8061]

I've never really seen wing tip vortices from the side like that before. Really amazing! I found it really interesting to see the fog shooting backwards even though the aircraft is moving forward and couldn't figure it out at first. The vortices aren't actually shooting backwards but rather the fog is drawn into the past vortices that the aircraft has already created right? The fog is like a 3D snapshot of the aircrafts total flight. Really great work you do, keep it up!

[@mylezzpurhourr]

That’s actually bad ass to get a micro version of what you see on real planes now the next coolest feat would be to create wingtw vortex’s and wing condensation at high G turns

[@haydenc2742]

Yeah, you need to find a large empty warehouse with no air movement.... But that is so cool to see the wingtip vortices in action Keep em coming!!!!

[@falin9557]

I think it's better to have the PID control on the elevator, with a adjustable altitude setpoint using a constant value that you can change using the elevator joystick. After all, you want to go as fast as possible. If you load the plane, it will adjust the pitch to still going fast and at a certain distance. Going fast gives you lift, if you reduce the speed to adjust the height, you will change your lift

[@musk-eteer9898]

this is very cool, i love all the things RC

[@mitch3137]

I was really hoping to hear the Ekranoplan song play again!.. Awesome work! You got a smoke machine now ha ha!

[@jessemellon6258]

you have got to make this work !! and autonomous mission on the lake !!

[@daniloivensmina]

Congrats, as always awesome content my dude. Perfect kind off stuff for the nerdy aviator in me

[@Zappyguy111]

All you need is a PD controller on the elevators. The "P" will drive the plane to the correct altitude and the "D" will dampen the drive to the altitude in the case that it's too aggressive. If you notice an oscillating move to the altitude, you're P is too high and D too low, if the plane oscillates its way to the altitude, you P is too low enough and D is too high. The throttle does need a PID loop, as the "I" factor acts an error correction. I find the best way to tune a PID or PD control loop is to collect data from flight and learn the flight characteristics, model them mathematically, linear models are usually good enough, and put the plane into hypothetical kinematic models. So for example, the plane's altitude is 300mm and we want it to be 200mm from the ground, how hard do we want the P factor respond to reduce the altitude? (What is an unreasonable altitude value to which the P factor willl respond 100%?) Or, if we're in an emergency situation, the plane is in the same situation as above, but the altitude is already dropping at 200mm/s, how hard do we want the D factor to respond to dampen the decent? (What is an unreasonable decent value to which the D factor responds 100% in the opposite direction?) This is the way I tune spacecraft movement and landings in KSP, though I will point out I haven't tuned aircraft yet, unless it's just throttle control to hold course and altitude. If you like, I can take a crack at tuning your aircraft for you, but I will need to know more information about the control systems of the ekranoplane.

[@Zappyguy111]

As for the PID controlling the throttle, I would recommend controlling the throttle via pitch, although I would recommend very small values for PID as you want the response to be slower than the PD loop controlling the altitude.

[@neiladdison3458]

This is also shows why ATC have to leave a distance between aircraft when taking off and landing. The vortices would interrupt air flow for any following aircraft.

[@troylunn496]

Seeing those vortices travel backwards for so long after the G.E.V. passes over shows how you could compound ground effect with a second, third, fourth, etc train of aircraft… I’d really like to see you try multiple aircraft in a row to see if the ground effect really is more powerful following a first aircraft, and if so, does that increase efficiency? Nice videos, keep up the awesome work!

[@sages7783]

Epic. Love your channel, pushing the envelope and experimenting with cutting edge electronics and hobby vehicles. What about using 2 small drone motors though holes in the wings to control altitude, that way the angle of attack of the ekranplan wouldn't have to change but you would have fine motor control over altitude and maybe more ability to fight against breezy conditions, with a gyro and altitude hold it could potentially fly dead smooth with a pid tune.

[@c.l.3806]

Hello, In Order to make this more efficient, you need to increase Cord length. You should use Winglets facing down touching the Ground. If you Loop with the Ground the Wingtip Vortex is gone. Perhaps use flexible wheels and Rubber For the Winglets ?