This Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Is Huge Yet Tiny, Took 2,400 Hours to Build

We've recently discovered a scale replica of the huge Airbus A-380, and that was pretty impressive. But let's face facts: there can't be that many people on Earth that grew up dreaming about flying a passenger airliner.

With the new Top Gun movie in cinemas, we were all reminded of a series of other cool planes out there. For anyone who feels addicted to speed, you can only go so fast while still on the ground. Most people will never go faster than 186 mph (300 kph) in a car or motorcycle during their lifetime. Just a select few will ever exceed 248 mph (400 kph).

Even if you switch to an airplane, you'll rarely go faster than 600 mph (965 kph). To go any faster, you'd have to be onboard a smaller aircraft. Technology has come a long way since the first plane took off.

Just before World War I, Maurice Prevost pushed a Deperdussin Monoplane to 126.61 mph (203.75 kph). By 1949, we had access to planes that could go as fast as 469.22 mph (755.13 kph). Reportedly, the first man to ever hit Mach 1 (1234.8 kph) was Chuck Yeager in the rocket-powered Bell X1. We kept pushing the boundaries of physics year after year.

On the 28th of July, 1976, captain Eldon Joersz and Major George Morgan went for a high-speed attempt in the legendary Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. They managed to hit 2,193.2 mph (3,529.6 kph), which is about three times the speed of sound.

But there have been claims that this titan of the skies could go as fast as Mach 3.5 (2,685 mph/ 4,321 kph) if required. So it's not hard to understand why anyone who grew up looking at fast jet planes would have considered this to be the G.O.A.T. And this leads us to our most recent discovery: a remote-controlled version of the famous stealth fighter.

The 1:1 plane was 107.4 feet (32.73 meters) long, with a wingspan of 55.6 feet (16.94 meters), and was 18.5 feet (5.63 meters) high. With plenty of onboard fuel, the gross takeoff weight was about 140,000 lbs (52,253 kg). Now, let's have a look at this 1:7.5 scale replica.

It has a wingspan of just 7.87 feet (2.4 meters) and a length of 13.45 feet (4.1 meters). Takeoff weight is just 80 lbs (36 kg), with 2.64 gallons (10 liters) of kerosene onboard. Yes, that's right. This thing runs on kerosene because it's powered by two Frank Turbines, which produce 70.55 lb (313 Nm) of thrust. By comparison, the real thing used two axial-flow turbojets with afterburners, delivering 32,500 lb (144,567 Nm) each.

Those 10 liters will only be enough for a short 10-minute flight. But that seems like enough when you hear the sound this thing makes. This is a one-off build that required Walter Blass to work for 2,400 hours over two years.

Meanwhile, his son Matthias is the one doing the flying, and we imagine it must be a knees-weak, sweaty-palms kind of experience. After all, this thing cost over €20,000 ($20,453 at current rates). Of course, you can find RC Blackbirds at a much lower cost, but they won't be anywhere near as impressive as this one.