Bizarre Planes You WON'T Find at Your Airport

are you tired of watching the same videos on boring planes like p-51s f-18s or 747s boring so am I so let's check out these five planes I guarantee you won't get bored with number five the flying watermelon the flying football yep the poor Arava was the recipient of many nicknames over the years so what's the story behind this goofy looking plane the ARA was developed in the late 1960s by Israeli aircraft Industries up to that point Israel manufacturers had been producing carbon copies of American and French designs such as the dult Mirage so the company decide to work on their very first design named the Arava it was built for superb performance on short runways with the goal of carrying large loads into small airstrips and it certainly does look the part A portly short takeoff and Landing aircraft it competed roughly in the same segment as the twin otter from Canada and the short Sky van from Ireland another chubby design too the ARA was influenced by the Nord naras from France a plane already being used in Israel unlike the heavy narat the ARA was much smaller and shorter instead of a retractable gear it had a rugged fixed landing gear which would help keep the design simple lower cost and better suited for bumpy runways with the tail separated from the fuselage loading the plane up was a breeze you could crack the fuselage open and toss in anything wide enough to fit inside this design feature was a nod to another chubby design the miles aroan the Arava was powered by a reliable pratton Whitney pt6 turbo props with 750 horsepower giving it plenty of power if not speed it could carry up to 20 passengers or up to 5,000 lb in cargo Israeli aircraft Industries was optimistic and projected to sell between 400 to 600 AR us to the civilian Market maybe because of its looks or maybe because it just looks slow no one seems seemed interested in the Arava it certainly didn't help that one of the prototypes crashed even the Israeli Air Force had no interest in the poor plane at that point the whole program was in danger of getting cancelled by the Israeli government eventually the Arava sold in Central and South America where it felt at home on rough air strips and its wide fuselage was found quite useful Israeli aircraft Industries then tried to market the plane as a 19 seat passenger plane but the ARA lost out to the bante and metr liner which were much faster on the same horsepower and looked a lot better too curiously the Arava could be equipped as a ground attack aircraft complete with machine guns or rocket pods it doesn't seem like any were used this way though a total of about 90 Aras were sold number four the jamaro is a success story from Australia producing hundreds of aircraft between factory-built light sport planes and kit planes jabaru also produces engines which power both their own planes and and hundreds of other kit planes around the world so with that kind of track record why in the world would they come up with such a strange design like the jabaru twin with twin engin sprouting from its nose like skin tags the jabaru twin bears a little resemblance to the donier 28 which also carries its twin engines on its nose the idea for the twin was conceived in South Africa The Story Goes that many Bush Pilots wanted to fly a jabaru for remote missions above farmlands and jungles but didn't want to contend with angry farmers yelding AK-47s Legend also has it that those same Farmers would demand Ransom from those who landed on their farms in order to save pilots from these headaches a cheap solution would need to be devised and that solution was to graph twin engines onto the jabaru model 430 the folks back and headquarters in Australia turned down the idea as it would demand a major redesign of the Wings INF fuselage so there South Africa office took up the slack and came up with a solution dorier would have been proud of and mounting both both engines on the nose jabaru Australia contributed with the molds and using a j430 model as their Foundation built a special nose bowl that could be easily retrofitted on any j430 with minimal mods required to the rest of the plane everything seems pretty well thought out even with a mesh hole in the Canard mounts so they don't provide any lift for a twin performance isn't exactly dazzling but you can't ask for too much with only 80 horsepower and fixed pitch propeller but if all you need is to limp back home in one engine while flying over hostile territory the jabaru twin just might fit the bill and who knows maybe even keep you at a safe distance from those pesky AK-47s at this time the twin has been certified in South Africa not sure if any have been sold number three the miles Arrow van if judged by the law of physics one would think the aroan would never fly looking like a box car with wings you'd think they would power the same with v12s and yet somehow it did fly even with its puny engines with only 145 horsepower each and not only did it fly it managed to carry payloads higher than its own empty weight the aoan was one of the last designs produced by Miles aircraft before the end of World War II it was marketed to the British government as a tactical transport which it probably would have been great at and also meaning there could have been hundreds of aerans built to support the war effort the problem was Miles aircraft had not asked the British government for permission to build this lovely aircraft as punishment miles was ordered to Hal production till further notice once the war in Europe ended miles was finally allowed to turn out more aerrow van by now customers were beating down their door and the company had no means to produce enough airplanes to satisfy the demand what was so special about this chubby plane for starters the cabin was huge you could fit either 10 passengers inside or cram it with around 2,000 lb of cargo an average sized car could be flown inside as well let's not forget this thing only had 145 horsepower to make best use of the huge cabin clamshell doors allowed it to swallow almost anything that could fit inside surprisingly it was flown by a single pilot and also surprisingly Pilots were delighted at how well this thing flew even on such little power while the aoan looked promising miles aircraft was an ambitious company and their imagination flew wild the AO van was spun off into a dizzying array of versions C plane observation plane a version with four engines and even a version with a detachable pod fuselage another one served as a test bed for huge turbo props and what might have been the strangest modification was an aroen with long skinny Wings this would be later put to use by the French on the herel Dubois hd34 sadly miles aircraft were bogged down in a political Scandal and after several lawsuits against them shut their doors in 1948 and thus ending everyone's dream of owning the ultimate flying moving van by the time they went bankrupt only 48 were sold number two here we have a sad looking plane with an equally sad story behind it the patch and explorer who would designed such monstrosity the Explorer was actually born as an amphibian The Thirst and teal was a nice and likable amphibian from the 1960s somewhat similar to a lake amphibian but with a tail and a forward- facing engine unlike the Len amphibian not many were built so thirst decided to try their hand at something a bit different thirston took the teal to the Chop Shop and it morphed into a land plane thst's game plan was to sell it as a cheap alternative to helicopters where it could be used for pipeline Patrol for example it was almost as slow as a chopper and it had a huge glassy cockpit to match thirston found no buyers in the US so he packed his bags and headed to South Africa he parted partnered up with a local investor and tried to whip up some interest in startup production that too fizzled out so the poor explorer was in handed over to the South African Air Force the Air Force tested it out as a potential observation plane but it lost out to the am3 bosbach and let's be honest what pilot would want to be seen in the dumpy Explorer when you could look cool and fly the bossbot the Air Force reluctantly kept the Explorer and flew the thing around for flight testing and soon they learned of its horrible flying qualities with the engine mounted up so high the center of gravity was also high and made it very tricky to maneuver especially when Gusty because of the square box likee fuselage it required lots of control Force to horse the plane around and because of the seating position was so low to the ground many Pilots busted the nose gear after flaring too high on Landing test pilots claimed exhaustion after long flights having to wrestle the plane around the Explorer sat abandoned in a hanger for many years until it was restored by the Air Force Museum for years it flew at many air shows where it was displayed like a freak Show at a circus sadly it met its demise along with two pilots in 2021 following an engine failure number one are you ready for a big fat dose of bizaar introducing the Stark as37 a bane but not really a bip plane the Stark as37 featured a wing design that was so out of the box that would have probably make Bert Routan Green With Envy Andre Stark was a relatively unknown designer from France over the course of his career he designed a handful of elegant light planes that look pretty ordinary compared to other aircraft that all changed in 1938 when quietly he built a small Sports plane called the as20 it looked pretty average in shape except for one obvious detail the staggered Wings this was nothing like a bip plane in fact there was nothing else that resembled this plane at all the as20 was built during German occupation and though it flew with several flights the Germans really didn't think much of the little plane and sadly it faded into Oblivion after the war fast forward to the 1970s and Andre Stark rolled out a tiny Racer the as27 starky the starky featured similar wings as the as20 but this time the ends of the wings were connected with devices called curtains which were essentially aerons tilted at an angle what exactly was Andre Stark going for with such a strange layout well in order to fly slow many airplanes employ slotted Wings slotted Wings essentially increase the wings area giving a better handling and lower speeds this can consist of flaps and Leading Edge slats The Helio corer is a prime example of a light plane with slotted wings that employs lots of different mechanisms Stark's design does away with all that and by having the wings closed together they act the same as slotted wings but doing away with all the flap mechanisms and all the internal equipment needed to make them work sadly only one star key was built Andre was focused on an even better version and definitely the most bizarre the as37 was a two- seat homebuilt plane it had the same staggered wings as the previous designs but what really set this one apart was the power just like the right flyer 70 years before it the as37 had one engine in the fuselage that drove twin propellers using belt drives the props were attached in a narrow gap between the front and back wings so I think we can agree that Stark was an out of the boox kind of thinker and this really became evident when it came time to pick an engine Andre could have opted for an off-the-shelf Continental or Lycoming flat 4 but why would he do something boring like that instead he picked an engine from a catrone GS with only 60 horsepower it was dirt cheap and it also SI Fuel and yet the as37 still managed to haul two pack passengers around just not very fast Stark felt his little airplane was a bit underpowered so he built another version but this time sporting a Porsche Engine with 100 horsepower always tweaking and trying out new things this time the props were mounted in front of the Wings it's believed around 20 as37 plans were sold to home builders but only two were built and sadly none of them are flying any longer both surviving air frames can be found in museums in France thank you for watching hope you enjoyed that and I highly suggest you check out my next video on this other amazing [Music] airplane

Channel: Aircraft Adventures

Views: 347,979

Keywords: strange planes, Weird planes, Patchen Explorer, thurston teal, IAI Arava, Starck AS-37, Jabiru, Jabiru Twin, Miles Aerovan

Id: XZ29JDBNmKg

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024