Amazing Guy Decides To Build Electric Plane. Builds It. Flies It. Mic Drop.

Screencap from Peter Sripol’s YouTube Channel

If you haven't heard of Peter Sripol yet, then all we can say is, "You're welcome." To give you the gist of Sripol's can-do spirit, his pandemic project was nothing short of designing, building and flying an electric airplane of his own design. And despite his penchant for unusual solutions to common problems---like taping a water bottle to a tail strut to adjust the CG---he is anything but haphazard about the way he goes about this job. You will be impressed.

Sripol's YouTube channel currently has more than 1.3 million subscribers, and after you watch this video, which is longish but goes by in a flash---he is a great storyteller---you will surely want to add one to his subscriber tally.

The plane that Sripol builds is an ultralight high-wing monoplane with high-density foam wing ribs and aluminum tubular spars. The skins are glued in place and then covered with iron-on wing skins, just as you'd do with an R/C model. And for propulsion, well, this is an electric plane. So while some electric plane companies are big on telling you what they're going to do next when they've failed to build any prototypes as they burn through investors' money, Sripol simply gets it done.

And it flies great, too! Well, in the end it does.

And Sripol's discussion of the probability of not surviving a crash should something happen like the wings falling off is worth its weight in gold. Enjoy!