WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.600 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I'm just so thrilled 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:05.519 you're joining us today. It's great to be here. 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:08.160 Yeah, whether you're prepping for a huge meeting, 00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:10.640 trying to catch up on some history, or you're 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:14.080 just insanely curious like we are, you are in 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:17.019 exactly the right place. Absolutely. Today, we 00:00:17.019 --> 00:00:20.100 are unpacking a really fascinating era of extreme 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:22.899 aviation. We're specifically focusing on something 00:00:22.899 --> 00:00:25.640 called the Riesenflugzeug. For those of you who 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.100 don't speak German, that translates to giant 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:30.500 aircraft. All right. colloquially, they're often 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:33.579 just called our planes. They are. And the mission 00:00:33.579 --> 00:00:36.780 for our deep dive today is to explore this largely 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:39.700 forgotten era from the First World War. It's 00:00:39.700 --> 00:00:42.020 such a wild time. It really is. We're going to 00:00:42.020 --> 00:00:44.479 look at how rapid innovation, especially, you 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:46.119 know, when it's placed under the intense pressure 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:49.439 of a global conflict, leads to incredible engineering 00:00:49.439 --> 00:00:52.979 marvels. Oh, yeah. But also some absolutely spectacular 00:00:53.589 --> 00:00:56.890 basically logic -defying failures. So we're digging 00:00:56.890 --> 00:01:00.229 deep into the operational histories, the wildest 00:01:00.229 --> 00:01:03.570 design studies, and the sheer audacity of these 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:06.170 early leviathans of the sky. I love that we're 00:01:06.170 --> 00:01:09.310 doing this because when we think of early aviation... 00:01:09.280 --> 00:01:12.799 I mean we're talking 1915 to 1919 we usually 00:01:12.799 --> 00:01:15.140 picture those tiny fragile little biplane right 00:01:15.140 --> 00:01:17.359 the Red Baron kind of stuff exactly Yeah, the 00:01:17.359 --> 00:01:19.519 Red Baron stuff, but these were something else 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:21.700 entirely. Let's set the baseline for you listening 00:01:21.700 --> 00:01:24.420 Yeah, we are talking about Imperial German bombers 00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:28.799 that to even qualify for this class had to have 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:31.459 at least three aircraft engines. Yes. Though 00:01:31.459 --> 00:01:33.719 honestly, most of them rocked four or five or 00:01:33.719 --> 00:01:35.879 even six. Precisely. I mean, these weren't your 00:01:35.879 --> 00:01:38.640 short range jump over the trenches kind of tactical 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.659 aircraft. Right. These large multi -engine planes 00:01:41.659 --> 00:01:44.260 were designed to fly for several hours at a time 00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:46.959 deep into hostile territory. Which is wild for 00:01:46.959 --> 00:01:50.299 1915. It is. They were built to carry significantly 00:01:50.299 --> 00:01:52.900 larger bomb loads than the smaller class of German 00:01:52.900 --> 00:01:55.599 bombers of the era. Those were known as the Grossflugzeug, 00:01:55.799 --> 00:01:58.340 or the G -type bombers. OK. A good example of 00:01:58.340 --> 00:02:01.579 the smaller G -type would be the Gotha GV. But 00:02:01.579 --> 00:02:04.019 the R -planes, the Riesenflugzeug, they were 00:02:04.019 --> 00:02:06.400 in a completely different weight class entirely. 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:08.800 OK, let's unpack this. Because there's a fact 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:10.460 here that absolutely blew my mind, and I know 00:02:10.460 --> 00:02:11.979 it's going to surprise you too. Oh, I know the 00:02:11.979 --> 00:02:14.900 one you mean. Right. When we think of massive 00:02:14.900 --> 00:02:18.340 heavy bombing campaigns, our minds naturally 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:21.639 drift to World War II. You know, the Blitz, the 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:24.219 massive Armadas. Yeah. But the R -planes that 00:02:24.219 --> 00:02:26.259 were actually bombing London during the First 00:02:26.259 --> 00:02:28.979 World War were physically larger than any of 00:02:28.979 --> 00:02:31.099 the German bombers used decades later in the 00:02:31.099 --> 00:02:33.430 Second World War. It's just a stunning piece 00:02:33.430 --> 00:02:36.009 of history. The sheer scale is staggering. It 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:38.150 really is. If you look at the entirety of the 00:02:38.150 --> 00:02:41.469 German Luftwaffe in World War II, the only aircraft 00:02:41.469 --> 00:02:43.770 that even approached these World War I sizes 00:02:43.770 --> 00:02:46.110 weren't standard bombers at all. Right, they 00:02:46.110 --> 00:02:48.150 were mostly transports, right? Exactly. You had 00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:51.530 the Junkers Ju -390, which had a massive 50 -meter 00:02:51.530 --> 00:02:53.349 span, but yeah, it was just a transport plane. 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:56.409 Okay. And the Focke -Wilfuh 200 Condor, sitting 00:02:56.409 --> 00:02:59.550 at a 32 -meter span, was mostly from Maritime 00:02:59.550 --> 00:03:03.210 Patrol. Wow. When it comes to dedicated purpose 00:03:03.210 --> 00:03:06.430 -built strategic bombers, the wooden and canvas 00:03:06.430 --> 00:03:10.150 art planes of 1918 reign supreme over the metal 00:03:10.150 --> 00:03:13.590 machines built 25 years later. It's just wild 00:03:13.590 --> 00:03:16.370 to think about. You have these canvas, piano 00:03:16.370 --> 00:03:20.110 wire, and spruce wood structures completely dwarfing 00:03:20.110 --> 00:03:23.330 the sleek metal machines of the 1940s. It sounds 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:26.629 impossible. It does. But to really understand 00:03:26.629 --> 00:03:29.590 why they got so massive, we have to look at the 00:03:29.590 --> 00:03:32.789 rules of the game. We have to look at the ultimate 00:03:32.789 --> 00:03:35.550 engineering requirement that forced these planes 00:03:35.550 --> 00:03:37.990 to become flying giants in the first place. Yes, 00:03:38.189 --> 00:03:40.550 the defining characteristic of an R -plane wasn't 00:03:40.550 --> 00:03:43.229 just about the wingspan or even the sheer number 00:03:43.229 --> 00:03:46.650 of engines. It was a very specific, almost unbelievable 00:03:46.650 --> 00:03:49.469 operational requirement set by the Idflug. And 00:03:49.469 --> 00:03:51.069 that's the inspection of the Air Force, right? 00:03:51.250 --> 00:03:53.469 Correct. The German Army Department responsible 00:03:53.469 --> 00:03:55.830 for military aviation at the time. Okay, and 00:03:55.830 --> 00:03:58.819 here is the rule. To earn that official R designation, 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:02.060 to graduate from a normal heavy bomber to a giant, 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:04.840 the engines had to be serviceable in flight. 00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:08.219 Exactly. The IDCLUG recognized a hard truth about 00:04:08.219 --> 00:04:11.900 early aviation. 1910's internal combustion engines 00:04:11.900 --> 00:04:14.979 were notoriously dangerously unreliable. Yeah, 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:17.379 they were breaking down constantly. Constantly. 00:04:17.740 --> 00:04:19.899 So if you're sending a bomber on a multi -hour 00:04:19.899 --> 00:04:22.579 mission across the English Channel, an engine 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:25.139 failure isn't just a possibility. It's basically 00:04:25.139 --> 00:04:27.279 a guarantee. It's practically guaranteed. So 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.800 their solution was to mandate that a human mechanic 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:32.800 must be able to physically access, troubleshoot, 00:04:33.060 --> 00:04:36.420 and repair the engine while the aircraft is thousands 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:38.860 of feet in the air. I want you to just picture 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:41.420 that reality for a second. Think about driving 00:04:41.420 --> 00:04:44.120 down the highway at 70 miles an hour, and your 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:46.970 check engine light comes on. Now imagine having 00:04:46.970 --> 00:04:49.829 to climb out of your window, pop the hood, and 00:04:49.829 --> 00:04:52.290 try to rebuild your car's engine while you're 00:04:52.290 --> 00:04:54.069 still speeding down the road. It sounds like 00:04:54.069 --> 00:04:56.689 an action movie. Right. That's essentially what 00:04:56.689 --> 00:04:59.610 the id -flig was demanding. Except you're in 00:04:59.610 --> 00:05:02.509 the sky, it's freezing cold, the wind is deafening, 00:05:02.810 --> 00:05:04.730 and you might be taking anti -aircraft fire. 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:07.819 It's an insane requirement. It is a monumental 00:05:07.819 --> 00:05:09.600 engineering challenge. I mean, how do you give 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:12.660 a mechanic access to a spinning, burning, vibrating 00:05:12.660 --> 00:05:15.459 block of metal in midair? Exactly. It forced 00:05:15.459 --> 00:05:17.980 the designers into two very distinct schools 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:20.220 of thought. Let's get into those. So the first 00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:22.579 approach was what we might call centralized power. 00:05:22.829 --> 00:05:25.930 The engineers decided to mount the massive engines 00:05:25.930 --> 00:05:29.629 centrally, safely inside the main fuselage of 00:05:29.629 --> 00:05:31.750 the airplane. Like in a little room. Exactly, 00:05:31.870 --> 00:05:33.769 in an enclosed room where mechanics could easily 00:05:33.769 --> 00:05:36.949 walk around them. They then used a complex system 00:05:36.949 --> 00:05:40.389 of gearboxes, clutches, and long heavy drive 00:05:40.389 --> 00:05:43.209 shafts to transfer the power from those inside 00:05:43.209 --> 00:05:45.629 engines out to propellers that were mounted remotely. 00:05:46.009 --> 00:05:48.189 Usually suspended between the wings, right? Yes, 00:05:48.329 --> 00:05:52.079 exactly. Wait, they put massive... vibrating 00:05:52.079 --> 00:05:56.220 oil -skewing engines inside a hollow wooden fuselage. 00:05:56.319 --> 00:05:59.500 They did. How did that not just shake the entire 00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:01.259 plane apart? Well, that's exactly the problem 00:06:01.259 --> 00:06:03.699 they ran into. In theory, it sounds elegant. 00:06:03.860 --> 00:06:06.279 Sure, on paper. Right. Keep the heavy engines 00:06:06.279 --> 00:06:08.220 and the mechanics warm and safe in the belly 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:11.600 of the beast. But early 20th century metallurgy 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.000 simply couldn't produce drive shafts capable 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:16.480 of handling the massive torque of four engines 00:06:16.480 --> 00:06:19.300 without violently twisting. Oh, man. You have 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:21.899 hundreds of horsepower generating immense rotational 00:06:21.899 --> 00:06:24.360 force traveling through steel shafts that are 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.069 bolted to flexible wood in airframes. That sounds 00:06:27.069 --> 00:06:29.329 like a recipe for disaster. But the vibration 00:06:29.329 --> 00:06:33.370 was catastrophic. Gearboxes shattered, driveshafts 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:35.290 snapped, and the planes literally threatened 00:06:35.290 --> 00:06:37.430 to tear themselves apart from the inside out. 00:06:37.509 --> 00:06:39.230 Which naturally leads us to the second school 00:06:39.230 --> 00:06:41.209 of thought, the distributed power model. Right. 00:06:41.529 --> 00:06:43.889 In this setup, they ditched the internal engine 00:06:43.889 --> 00:06:48.290 room and used conventional setups. The engines 00:06:48.290 --> 00:06:50.870 were mounted out in large nacelles, those aerodynamic 00:06:50.870 --> 00:06:53.889 pods on the wings. Yes. But because of that Eidflieg 00:06:53.889 --> 00:06:56.889 rule, These nacelles couldn't just be tight metal 00:06:56.889 --> 00:06:59.029 cowlings. They had to be massive. Because of 00:06:59.029 --> 00:07:01.589 the mechanics. Exactly. They were essentially 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:04.850 little wooden rooms suspended in the bracing 00:07:04.850 --> 00:07:07.389 because engineers had to be physically stationed 00:07:07.389 --> 00:07:09.829 inside them for each group of engines. Right. 00:07:09.949 --> 00:07:11.670 It was a completely different approach to the 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:13.629 same problem. Wait, hold on. You're telling me 00:07:13.629 --> 00:07:16.230 a mechanic is locked inside a tiny wooden pod, 00:07:16.750 --> 00:07:19.769 hanging off the wing. inches away from a deafening, 00:07:19.829 --> 00:07:22.730 vibrating engine in sub -zero temperatures. That's 00:07:22.730 --> 00:07:25.970 the reality of it. For hours, how is that possibly 00:07:25.970 --> 00:07:28.470 the better option? What's fascinating here is 00:07:28.470 --> 00:07:31.889 how practical simplicity almost always defeats 00:07:31.889 --> 00:07:34.310 complex, elegant theories when you're operating 00:07:34.310 --> 00:07:37.240 in the field. Even if it's terrifying. Even then, 00:07:37.579 --> 00:07:39.620 as terrifying as it sounds for the mechanic in 00:07:39.620 --> 00:07:42.360 that pod, it worked. Most of the operational 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:44.819 successful examples of the Reason Fluxa class 00:07:44.819 --> 00:07:47.620 were of this distributed type. Wow. The prime 00:07:47.620 --> 00:07:50.300 example was the Zeppelin Staken RVI. It was an 00:07:50.300 --> 00:07:54.279 all direct drive aircraft. No fancy central gearboxes, 00:07:54.399 --> 00:07:57.560 no long twisting drive shafts. That's brute force. 00:07:57.779 --> 00:08:01.519 Exactly. Just huge engines in huge pods with 00:08:01.519 --> 00:08:03.779 brave mechanics right there next to them, nursing 00:08:03.779 --> 00:08:06.519 them along with oil cans and wrench mid -flight. 00:08:06.759 --> 00:08:08.740 The Zeppelin Snake and RVI wasn't just some one 00:08:08.740 --> 00:08:10.920 -off prototype that barely flew. They actually 00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:13.839 built 18 of those. They did. They had a wingspan 00:08:13.839 --> 00:08:17.560 of over 42 meters that's over 138 feet and they 00:08:17.560 --> 00:08:19.759 successfully flew bombing missions on both the 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.420 eastern and western fronts. A huge success for 00:08:22.420 --> 00:08:24.319 the time. It really proves that when you're pushing 00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:27.100 the absolute limits of new technology sometimes 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:30.019 the brute force straightforward terrifyingly 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:32.539 raw method is the only one that actually makes 00:08:32.539 --> 00:08:35.159 it off the ground. It truly was an arms race 00:08:35.159 --> 00:08:38.240 of scale, a global competition to see who could 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:40.559 build the biggest flying machine. And it wasn't 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:43.259 just Germany, right? Not at all. To understand 00:08:43.259 --> 00:08:45.080 the catalyst for this race, we actually have 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:48.039 to look outside of Germany. The original inspiration 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:50.679 for these behemoths, the aircraft that proved 00:08:50.679 --> 00:08:53.019 to the world that larvescale flight wasn't just 00:08:53.019 --> 00:08:56.519 a fantasy, was Russian. Right. It was the Sikorsky 00:08:56.519 --> 00:09:00.220 Ilya Muramets. Ah, OK. That one had a wingspan 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:04.639 of two. 30 meters so about 98 feet. It was the 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:07.740 first successful large passenger aircraft turned 00:09:07.740 --> 00:09:11.940 bomber. and it directly panicked the German military 00:09:11.940 --> 00:09:15.000 into launching both their Grossflugzeug and the 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:17.519 Riesenflugzeug program. Exactly. The Germans 00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:19.639 saw the Ilya Muromets and realized they were 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:22.200 instantly behind in a brand new theater of war. 00:09:22.259 --> 00:09:25.019 Panic mode. Complete panic. But they weren't 00:09:25.019 --> 00:09:27.080 the only ones trying to scale up. The Allied 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:29.399 forces were simultaneously building their own 00:09:29.399 --> 00:09:31.539 giants to compete in this new heavyweight division. 00:09:31.799 --> 00:09:33.419 Just to give you listening a sense of the sheer 00:09:33.419 --> 00:09:36.100 scale happening globally at this time, the Allies 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:40.000 had some absolute monsters in the sky. The Italians 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.700 built the Caproni Cat 4, which matched the Russian 00:09:42.700 --> 00:09:45.519 plane with a 30 -meter wingspan. The British 00:09:45.519 --> 00:09:48.519 built a one -off Felix Doe Fury flying boat, 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:52.360 pushing out to 37 .5 meters. Huge. And then there 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:56.019 was the Hanley Page V1500, a massive Allied bomber 00:09:56.019 --> 00:09:58.379 designed to reach Berlin with a wingspan of over 00:09:58.379 --> 00:10:02.149 38 meters or 126 feet. Those are staggering dimensions 00:10:02.149 --> 00:10:04.870 for a time when most people still travel by horse 00:10:04.870 --> 00:10:07.409 -drawn carriage. Right. But the Germans, driven 00:10:07.409 --> 00:10:09.970 by those intense id -flig requirements and their 00:10:09.970 --> 00:10:12.850 ambitious strategic bombing goals, decided to 00:10:12.850 --> 00:10:15.009 push the envelope even further. Here's where 00:10:15.009 --> 00:10:16.429 it gets really interesting. We've talked about 00:10:16.429 --> 00:10:19.049 the 42 meters up on Staken, but the absolute 00:10:19.049 --> 00:10:22.070 largest reason Flugzeug ever built was the Siemens 00:10:22.070 --> 00:10:25.289 -Schickert RE8, developed in 1918. A true monster. 00:10:25.450 --> 00:10:27.429 This thing was a titan among giants. It had six 00:10:27.429 --> 00:10:30.789 300 horsepower engines and its wingspan. 48 .0 00:10:30.789 --> 00:10:33.389 meters. Incredible. Imagine half American football 00:10:33.389 --> 00:10:35.789 field. Now imagine that entire length suspended 00:10:35.789 --> 00:10:37.970 in the air held together by nothing but canvas, 00:10:38.250 --> 00:10:41.830 spruce wood, and panel wire. 157 .5 feet of wingspan. 00:10:41.929 --> 00:10:44.389 If we connect this to the bigger picture, the 00:10:44.389 --> 00:10:47.289 Siemens Shukar R -8 was such a massive leap in 00:10:47.289 --> 00:10:50.289 aeronautical engineering that it created a literal 00:10:50.289 --> 00:10:53.110 historical plateau. What do you mean by that? 00:10:53.509 --> 00:10:56.549 Well, it was so big that it hit the absolute 00:10:56.549 --> 00:10:59.490 physical limits of the materials available. It 00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:02.970 was not until 16 years later that humanity managed 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:05.210 to build an airplane with a larger wingspan. 00:11:05.450 --> 00:11:10.190 Wow, 16 years. Yes. That was the Soviet Tupolev 00:11:10.190 --> 00:11:13.899 Maxim Gorky in 1934, which finally surpassed 00:11:13.899 --> 00:11:17.500 it with a 63 meter wingspan. 16 years. Why did 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:19.679 it take so long? Did we just lose the ambition? 00:11:19.820 --> 00:11:22.379 Not at all. We just ran out of structural integrity. 00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:25.639 Wood and fabric simply cannot scale infinitely. 00:11:26.100 --> 00:11:28.240 The weight to strength ratio becomes impossible. 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.179 Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. It wasn't until the 00:11:30.179 --> 00:11:32.960 1930s when material science perfected lightweight 00:11:32.960 --> 00:11:35.480 aluminum alloys and monocoque metal construction 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:38.379 that engineers could finally break the 48 meter 00:11:38.379 --> 00:11:41.620 barrier set in 1918. So they pushed the physical 00:11:41.620 --> 00:11:44.320 limits of organic materials so far that the rest 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:46.220 of the world needed over a decade and a half 00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:48.539 of metallurgy advancements to catch up. And what 00:11:48.539 --> 00:11:51.659 I find absolutely captivating is the dreams that 00:11:51.659 --> 00:11:54.460 didn't quite make it off the drawing board, like 00:11:54.460 --> 00:11:57.159 the menacement giant triplane. Oh, the menacement. 00:11:57.460 --> 00:12:00.179 That design study is the perfect example of ambition, 00:12:00.539 --> 00:12:03.440 entirely unconstrained by immediate physical 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:06.659 reality. It's completely unhinged. A triplane, 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.259 meaning three stacked wings, one on top of the 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:13.240 other, with a planned wingspan of 50 .3 meters. 00:12:13.299 --> 00:12:16.879 Unbelievable. That's 165 feet of stacked canvas. 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:20.519 And to power it, they plan to use 10 engines. 00:12:21.019 --> 00:12:23.639 10. Which is an aerodynamic nightmare. I can 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:25.940 imagine. The amount of drag created by three 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:28.279 stacked wings of that size, combined with the 00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:30.759 complex airflow interference between them, means 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:33.080 you face severe diminishing returns on lift. 00:12:33.179 --> 00:12:35.460 Right. Adding 10 heavy engines might give you 00:12:35.460 --> 00:12:37.919 thrust, but the sheer weight of the fuel in the 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:39.700 engines themselves would likely mean it could 00:12:39.700 --> 00:12:43.259 barely lift its own shadow. Sadly, or maybe luckily 00:12:43.259 --> 00:12:45.019 for the poor test pilots who would have had to 00:12:45.019 --> 00:12:47.399 fly it, it was canceled while still incomplete. 00:12:47.659 --> 00:12:49.980 Very lucky for them. but it perfectly captures 00:12:49.980 --> 00:12:52.019 the mindset of the era. If it's not working, 00:12:52.299 --> 00:12:55.620 just make it bigger. More engines. More wings. 00:12:56.009 --> 00:13:00.509 That mindset of relentless, almost reckless expansion 00:13:00.509 --> 00:13:03.549 is incredibly apparent when you dive deep into 00:13:03.549 --> 00:13:05.730 the comprehensive list of aircraft built during 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:08.750 this program. When you analyze the numbers, a 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:11.769 very crucial pattern emerges. The vast majority 00:13:11.769 --> 00:13:13.929 of these planes were one -offs. Yeah, looking 00:13:13.929 --> 00:13:16.149 at the production records, it's almost exclusively 00:13:16.149 --> 00:13:18.889 one built, one incomplete, or design study only. 00:13:18.909 --> 00:13:23.389 Right. DFWRI, just one build. The Junkers R .I., 00:13:23.389 --> 00:13:25.789 one incomplete. The Siemens Shookert R .I. through 00:13:25.789 --> 00:13:28.990 R .I. to all, just one single aircraft built 00:13:28.990 --> 00:13:31.649 per model. What that tells us is that this wasn't 00:13:31.649 --> 00:13:34.629 standard manufacturing. This was an era of rapid, 00:13:35.090 --> 00:13:37.629 high -risk prototyping. Trial by fire. Exactly. 00:13:38.009 --> 00:13:40.690 They weren't setting up massive Ford -style assembly 00:13:40.690 --> 00:13:43.429 lines to churn out identical models, with the 00:13:43.429 --> 00:13:45.370 notable exception of the Zeppelin -Stacon RVI 00:13:45.370 --> 00:13:47.549 we talked about. Instead, they were building 00:13:47.549 --> 00:13:50.750 a massive, highly experimental plane, learning 00:13:50.750 --> 00:13:53.450 from its almost inevitable and often fatal flaws 00:13:53.450 --> 00:13:56.070 and immediately designing the next slightly different 00:13:56.070 --> 00:13:58.509 iteration. And because they were essentially 00:13:58.509 --> 00:14:01.669 testing completely unproven theories at a massive 00:14:01.669 --> 00:14:05.450 scale, The history of these planes is full of 00:14:05.450 --> 00:14:08.149 absolute tragedies. It really is. I want to share 00:14:08.149 --> 00:14:09.870 a few of these specific stories because they 00:14:09.870 --> 00:14:13.009 really highlight the human cost. What it meant 00:14:13.009 --> 00:14:16.409 for the people actually strapped into these experimental 00:14:16.409 --> 00:14:19.210 giants. It's important context. For example, 00:14:19.370 --> 00:14:23.549 the AEGRI. It had four 260 horsepower engines 00:14:23.549 --> 00:14:27.269 and a 36 meter wingspan. Its first flight was 00:14:27.269 --> 00:14:31.240 in 1916. But the records explicitly note It broke 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.210 up in flight in 1918. It's a terrifying prospect. 00:14:34.309 --> 00:14:36.590 Think about the sheer terror of structural failure 00:14:36.590 --> 00:14:38.870 at 10 ,000 feet. Oh, where to go? Exactly. You're 00:14:38.870 --> 00:14:40.690 in a machine the size of a building, and suddenly 00:14:40.690 --> 00:14:43.509 you hear the crack of a main spruce spar. There 00:14:43.509 --> 00:14:46.230 are no parachutes for the crew. Oh, man. Once 00:14:46.230 --> 00:14:48.710 the airframe fails, the massive weight of the 00:14:48.710 --> 00:14:51.470 engines just drags the entire splintering wreckage 00:14:51.470 --> 00:14:54.269 out of the sky. Then there's the DFWRI. It saw 00:14:54.269 --> 00:14:57.509 service on the Eastern Front in 1916, but its 00:14:57.509 --> 00:14:59.750 operational life was incredibly short. It crashed 00:14:59.750 --> 00:15:03.159 on its second combat flight. Just gone. And maybe 00:15:03.159 --> 00:15:06.059 the most dramatic example of this rapid prototyping 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:08.879 trial and error is the Siemens Shuckard Forceman 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:13.399 R. The Forceman is a fascinating, if grim, case 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:15.860 study in sheer persistence. It really is. It 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:19.379 first flew in 1915. It was a weird hybrid with 00:15:19.379 --> 00:15:23.879 two 110 horsepower engines and two larger 220 00:15:23.879 --> 00:15:26.860 horsepower engines. A very strange setup. The 00:15:26.860 --> 00:15:29.080 records show that it was notoriously unstable. 00:15:29.259 --> 00:15:32.080 requiring several major structural rebuilds. 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:34.840 It was finally accepted by the military in 1916, 00:15:35.500 --> 00:15:37.539 but its ultimate fate. It was scrapped after 00:15:37.539 --> 00:15:39.899 literally breaking in two. It just snapped in 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:42.519 half. It perfectly illustrates those limits of 00:15:42.519 --> 00:15:44.600 the materials we discussed earlier. Wood and 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:46.860 canvas can only take so much cyclical stress, 00:15:47.059 --> 00:15:49.840 especially when you're hanging thousands of pounds 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.980 of violently vibrating engines off of them. Eventually, 00:15:53.100 --> 00:15:54.960 the structural fatigue reaches a breaking point. 00:15:55.059 --> 00:15:57.460 Yeah. But alongside the tragedies, there is also 00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:00.080 some truly bizarre, almost comical engineering 00:16:00.080 --> 00:16:02.559 documented here. Oh, absolutely. My favorite 00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:05.139 oddity of this entire era has to be the Linkhoffman 00:16:05.139 --> 00:16:08.779 Ri from 1919. Oh, this one is crazy. This plane 00:16:08.779 --> 00:16:12.539 had a massive 42 meter wingspan. But instead 00:16:12.539 --> 00:16:14.659 of putting its four engines out on the wings, 00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:17.500 they grouped them all together in the nose and 00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:20.000 routed all that power to a single propeller. 00:16:20.139 --> 00:16:23.399 This is absurd. A single propeller utilized the 00:16:23.399 --> 00:16:25.580 combined force of over a thousand horsepower. 00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:28.919 It was the largest single propeller ever built. 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:32.460 It was an astounding 6 .9 meters in diameter. 00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:36.440 That is nearly 23 feet across. Think about a 00:16:36.440 --> 00:16:39.220 two -story building spinning at hundreds of revolutions 00:16:39.220 --> 00:16:42.509 per minute. It's hard to even picture. The gyroscopic 00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:45.110 force alone would have made the plane incredibly 00:16:45.110 --> 00:16:47.570 difficult to turn. I can't even imagine the noise 00:16:47.570 --> 00:16:50.230 or the ground clearance. You'd need landing gear 00:16:50.230 --> 00:16:52.450 like a skyscraper just to prevent the bottom 00:16:52.450 --> 00:16:54.669 of a 23 foot propeller from striking the earth 00:16:54.669 --> 00:16:57.230 on takeoff. It's just sheer engineering hubris. 00:16:57.350 --> 00:16:59.309 It really is. Now, if you're building planes 00:16:59.309 --> 00:17:01.669 this massive with landing gear that needs to 00:17:01.669 --> 00:17:03.750 support tons of weight, eventually you literally 00:17:03.750 --> 00:17:05.769 run out of runway. Yes. The wheels just sink 00:17:05.769 --> 00:17:08.470 into the mud of 1910's airfields. Yeah. So where 00:17:08.470 --> 00:17:10.670 do you go? You go to the only runway big enough. 00:17:10.670 --> 00:17:13.529 and flat enough to handle them, the ocean. The 00:17:13.529 --> 00:17:15.970 id -fleig had a specific designation for these 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:18.950 naval variations. Seaplanes were denoted by adding 00:17:18.950 --> 00:17:22.089 a lowercase s after the r, making them r's types. 00:17:23.130 --> 00:17:25.130 And a key figure in this naval expansion was 00:17:25.130 --> 00:17:28.289 a man named Claudius Dornier. A name that becomes 00:17:28.289 --> 00:17:30.750 massive in aviation history later on. Very much 00:17:30.750 --> 00:17:33.329 so. While working for the Zeppelin company, Dornier 00:17:33.329 --> 00:17:35.890 developed a series of huge flying boats known 00:17:35.890 --> 00:17:39.410 as the Zeppelin Lindau R series. Flying boats? 00:17:39.589 --> 00:17:41.089 Because they didn't have to worry about the weight 00:17:41.089 --> 00:17:43.930 of massive wheeled landing gear, they could experiment 00:17:43.930 --> 00:17:46.529 with immense boat hulls. It's an incredible shift 00:17:46.529 --> 00:17:49.630 in design. The R's eye, for example, had a massive 00:17:49.630 --> 00:17:53.539 43 .5 meter wingspan. But the attempt to merge 00:17:53.539 --> 00:17:56.119 a boat with a giant bomber wasn't easy. No, it 00:17:56.119 --> 00:17:58.400 wasn't. The records say it was wrecked unflown 00:17:58.400 --> 00:18:01.640 in 1915. A gust of wind likely caught it on the 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:03.299 water and just flipped it before it ever took 00:18:03.299 --> 00:18:05.819 to the sky. Nature always wins. But they kept 00:18:05.819 --> 00:18:08.920 trying. The RC actually made it to the evaluation 00:18:08.920 --> 00:18:12.279 stage in 1917 and the RSA was built in 1918. 00:18:12.599 --> 00:18:14.559 They even built float plane variants for the 00:18:14.559 --> 00:18:17.039 Imperial Navy. That persistence is a theme here. 00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:19.880 So what does this all mean? The war finally ends 00:18:19.880 --> 00:18:23.740 in late 1918. You have all these massive, experimental, 00:18:24.099 --> 00:18:27.480 highly specialized, giant aircraft. What happens 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:29.640 to them when the fighting stops? That's a great 00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:32.059 question. We actually have two incredible anecdotes 00:18:32.059 --> 00:18:34.359 about the post -war afterlives of the Zeppelin 00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.059 -Staken line. The transition from military to 00:18:37.059 --> 00:18:39.759 civilian use is always a chaotic, fascinating 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:43.200 phase of any post -war period. And the R -planes, 00:18:43.359 --> 00:18:46.140 despite their extreme size and expense, were 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:48.440 no exception. Exactly. Take the Zeppelin -Staken 00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:52.049 RX -6. It was a beast powered by a crazy combination 00:18:52.049 --> 00:18:56.490 of two 530 horsepower engines and two 220 horsepower 00:18:56.490 --> 00:18:58.789 engines. Just massive power. What's incredible 00:18:58.789 --> 00:19:00.670 is that they actually took one of these unfinished 00:19:00.670 --> 00:19:03.150 bombers and completely repurposed it as a civilian 00:19:03.150 --> 00:19:05.490 airliner. It's so funny to think about. Right. 00:19:05.809 --> 00:19:08.750 Imagine being a wealthy traveler in 1919, buying 00:19:08.750 --> 00:19:11.309 a commercial ticket and boarding a repurposed 00:19:11.309 --> 00:19:14.130 canvas covered World War One heavy bomber for 00:19:14.130 --> 00:19:16.480 a pleasant flight across Europe. It speaks to 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:19.079 the incredible lift capacity of these aircraft. 00:19:19.559 --> 00:19:22.299 If an airframe is designed to carry tons of high 00:19:22.299 --> 00:19:24.940 explosives, it can certainly be modified to carry 00:19:24.940 --> 00:19:28.119 a spacious, enclosed cabin full of paying passengers. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:30.940 It really was the chaotic genesis of commercial 00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:32.940 airline travel, as we know it today. Absolutely. 00:19:33.180 --> 00:19:36.720 But the absolute best post -war story belongs 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:39.970 to the Zeppelin Staken RX -AVA. It was a massive 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:43.190 post -war iteration sporting five Maybach engines. 00:19:43.930 --> 00:19:46.029 And under its operational history, it simply 00:19:46.029 --> 00:19:49.839 says, seized while smuggling. It's a remarkable, 00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.359 almost cinematic historical footnote. It really 00:19:52.359 --> 00:19:55.519 is. A multi -engine giant aircraft representing 00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:58.880 the absolute pinnacle of Imperial strategic bombing 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:01.779 technology, ending its brief career being impounded 00:20:01.779 --> 00:20:04.059 for illicit trade. Just incredible. It really 00:20:04.059 --> 00:20:06.119 paints a picture of the desperate lawless nature 00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:08.259 of the post -war landscape in Europe. I just 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:11.420 picture this 138 -foot wide bomber, engines roaring, 00:20:11.539 --> 00:20:13.420 touching down in a dark muddy field somewhere 00:20:13.420 --> 00:20:15.579 in the dead of night, loaded to the brim with 00:20:15.579 --> 00:20:17.359 contraband. It's like something out of an Indiana 00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:19.799 Jones movie. This raises an important question 00:20:19.799 --> 00:20:21.779 as we look back at the entirety of the Reason 00:20:21.779 --> 00:20:24.640 Fluxoid program. When you synthesize all this, 00:20:24.920 --> 00:20:27.539 the tragedies of planes snapping in two, the 00:20:27.539 --> 00:20:30.259 triumphs of the Zeppelin -Steakens, the bizarre 00:20:30.259 --> 00:20:32.980 23 -foot single propellers, the massive flying 00:20:32.980 --> 00:20:35.740 boats, what you're really looking at is a unique 00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:39.400 fleeting moment in history. It was a brief window 00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:43.359 where pure ambition drastically violently outpaced 00:20:43.359 --> 00:20:46.180 standard conventions and material science. Perfectly 00:20:46.180 --> 00:20:49.579 said. The results were incredibly profound engineering 00:20:49.579 --> 00:20:53.700 insights alongside magnificent, sometimes literal, 00:20:54.059 --> 00:20:56.200 failures. I think that's the core takeaway for 00:20:56.200 --> 00:20:58.220 you listening right now. Because it's not just 00:20:58.220 --> 00:21:00.480 about old wooden airplanes. Right. Whether you're 00:21:00.480 --> 00:21:02.819 leading a new project to work, coding a new app, 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:05.920 or just learning a complex new skill, the story 00:21:05.920 --> 00:21:07.980 of the airplanes proves something fundamental 00:21:07.980 --> 00:21:11.740 about the human endeavor. Sometimes, rapid prototyping, 00:21:11.960 --> 00:21:14.660 trying the absolute wildest idea, seeing if the 00:21:14.660 --> 00:21:17.059 23 -foot propeller works, testing the absolute 00:21:17.059 --> 00:21:18.859 limits, even when it results in your project 00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:21.460 literally breaking in half, is the absolute only 00:21:21.460 --> 00:21:23.480 way to discover where the true boundaries lie. 00:21:23.720 --> 00:21:25.759 They didn't know what was physically impossible 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:27.960 until they built it, flew it, and watched it 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:30.599 fail. Exactly. That's a powerful perspective 00:21:30.599 --> 00:21:33.420 on innovation, and it leaves us with a final 00:21:33.420 --> 00:21:36.680 lingering thought to mull over. Let's hear it. 00:21:36.670 --> 00:21:39.069 We saw how the engineers of the Riesenflugzeug 00:21:39.069 --> 00:21:42.049 pushed the physical limits of their time so aggressively 00:21:42.049 --> 00:21:45.490 that their 48 -meter wingspans weren't surpassed 00:21:45.490 --> 00:21:48.130 by humanity for nearly two decades. Yeah, that 00:21:48.130 --> 00:21:50.809 16 -year gap. It makes you wonder, if we look 00:21:50.809 --> 00:21:54.210 at today's landscape of failed or abandoned extreme 00:21:54.210 --> 00:21:57.269 tech projects, the hyperloops, the canceled space 00:21:57.269 --> 00:21:59.750 planes, the bizarre drone delivery concepts, 00:22:00.170 --> 00:22:02.730 how many of those are actually silent time capsules? 00:22:02.769 --> 00:22:04.789 Oh, answer soon. How many of today's so -called 00:22:04.789 --> 00:22:07.420 magnificent failures have already secretly solved 00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:09.640 the engineering bottlenecks we won't even realize 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:12.400 we face until the year 2040. I absolutely love 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:15.240 that. The colossal failures of today, quietly 00:22:15.240 --> 00:22:18.480 building the reality of tomorrow. Thank you so 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:20.240 much for joining us on this deep dive into the 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:23.039 giant airplanes. Keep exploring, keep questioning, 00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:24.839 and we'll catch you on the next deep dive.