We’ll find out this week how successful the FAA’s effort to register the thousands of mostly hobby unmanned aircraft that were received as gifts over the holidays was, but in the meantime the radio control model world continues to expand the limits of its technology. RC Media World has declared a German man’s 1/13th scale rendition of a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 as the world’s largest RC model. The aircraft is 17.81 feet long and weighs 150 pounds. It has fully functioning control surfaces and landing gear and is powered by four jet engines. But size is subjective and some might argue that a model of an Airbus A380 is bigger.
Although the A380 is a few feet shorter than the 747 at 15.75 feet, it weighs about six pounds more. It, too, has all the realistic bells and whistles of the 747 and is based in Germany, too. Both aircraft have been displayed at European RC meets in the past year and there are undoubtedly other modelers hard at work this winter trying to create something even more impressive.
