Fake one-wing airplane video fools public

December 3, 9:37 PMAviation Community ExaminerNate Ferguson

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A compelling video where a one-wing damaged airplane makes a safe landing is continuing to fool people around the world.

The airplane in question appears to be a Giles G-300. In the midst of its aerobatic maneuvers, presumably as part of the Red Bull Air Race series, the right wing comes off. The pilot regains control, flies what is known as a knife-edge maneuver (on its side), and plops it down for a safe landing.

This has to be one of the better fake videos. Many have remarked about the amazing quality, which is easy to explain. “Hoaxers” have had to simply up the ante with the myriad of other fakes out there.

Aerobatic planes such as this typical have a spar that runs through both wings. They are incredibly strong and the pilot is often the weakest link. Although they have tremendous power to weight ratio and can do seemingly impossible things such as hovering in midair like a helicopter, the video falls apart in key places.

As an R/C modeler when I was a kid, I lost many airplane parts and suffered structural failures. When I saw the wing come off in the video, it triggered childhood memories. The scale of the plane seems off in a few places and so is the engine noise. The bounce on the landing is model-like. One thing you do learn about scale models, though, is that they can do things real human-carrying airplanes cannot, such as landing with one wing. Not that I’ve done it.

Now, as a grownup and a pilot for real, my skepticism swells. And as a former newspaper man, I’m also suspicious of the human factors on the ground. So where’s the interview with the pilot? Why stop the video there? Where’s the Red Bull PR team?

Sure, aircraft in World War II came home with all kinds of parts shot off, but this is over the top. I’ll give the makers of the video a thumbs up for video editing. They spliced together footage of a model with the real thing. See for yourself. I’m gonna turn my attention to crop circles now.