I found this clip of a model Boeing 747 flying around inside a small sports hall, but it puzzles me. There don’t appear to be any propellers on the plane, and the “engines” are silent until the moment the plane revs up, so I assume it’s battery powered.
What is making it fly? I think the “jets” might actually have small propellers inside them, but I’ve never seen anything like that on a model plane before, and the jets appear to be empty inside (the best view is at 0:03). It seems to be lighter than it looks as well, at one point the operator lets the power stop and it just floats down to the ground.
They are quite common. They are called electric ducted fans. You can buy models using them from many different places. Here’s one for example with no airliner at the moment, but many fighter planes.
I might also mention that if you have any real interest in RC hobbies, particularly planes, www.rcgroups.com messageboard is pretty much the SDMB of RC modeling. Lots of expertise and people willing to help newbies.
BTW, the make use of very state of the art lithium polymer (LIPO) batteries, which are incredibly light and drive cutting edge brushless electric motors, providing incredible thrust with minimum weight, pushing 7-10 minute run times.
