This PC ACTUALLY FLIES!!!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,658 words · ~13 min read
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so the inspiration for today's video is twofold one
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we wanted to build a pc for luke at his
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new job at Floatplane media inc that really reflects the values of that
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company which is fly or float
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so we obtained this literal actual Floatplane
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and then source of inspiration number two was actually a video that i did a
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little while ago building a pc inside one of lee and
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lee's cases that looks like a boat
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the only problem with that case was that when i tried to actually float it
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the thing sank and i was like you know what no no no Linus media group can do
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better than lee lee Linus media group's airplane pc is actually gonna
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freaking fly so i tasked alex here resident engineering
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wizard who i never give enough time money or tools to with coming up
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with a flyable Floatplane pc and that's exactly what he theoretically
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did we're about to find out
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kono is excited to introduce the hexgears x1 keyboard a low profile
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bluetooth mechanical keyboard with multi-device connectivity and a
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beautifully machined aluminum case check it out at the link below
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inside my beaver you're gonna find my cockpit and then there's actually two
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passenger seats back there so we're gonna rip that out and
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throw in it's gotta be at least probably like a
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pound worth of heatsink and RAM m.2 SSD
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uh i think this is probably a core i7 processor
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should be good should be good before installing the computer in it we needed
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to assemble and fly the plane this would allow for us to make sure that there
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were no issues with the aircraft before we modified it
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but also meant that Linus would need to take
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off and land without destroying it like it's been years since i've flown a model
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airplane at all i have never flown anything this big
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and i have never even spent any sim time
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with a water plane do you want to um that probably wouldn't be a terrible
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idea but let's get it let's get it assembled given this is a ready-to-fly kit
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assembly should be a pretty simple case of following the instructions
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although it quickly became clear that there were two problems one bad
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instructions is this diagram clear to you how exactly
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these little wire doodads go in here no it goes across no it goes it goes
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straight to the big hole but then i can't tell how you fasten it and two
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people not reading those bad instructions you have to go through the
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wood on this it's a pain it says remove plate so
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probably not oh
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very clearly labeled actually all right
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landing your wheels on
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seems pretty legit
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let's see if it'll be able to handle coming down about as hard as it's going to
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seems pretty strong i'm ready for insertion whenever you are
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i've got i've got three fingers in it now but it just doesn't let me get my
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fingers in too okay oh there we go there we go perfect where
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what do you mean where shone where's the picture of the velcro
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right there where as our lack of both rc
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knowledge and building ability became more clear
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so did the realization that this plane may not survive its maiden voyage this
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is going to be such a waste of money if we just like plow it into the ground
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we soldiered on though completing the build and what thanks to the beauty of
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video editing was record time maybe we could lube it up a little bit
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cool so here you push it in i'll line it up okay
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there we go i'm excited we're getting close to uh first flight yeah
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before flying though Linus wanted to try his hand in the flight sim to brush up
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on his rc skills okay oh
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nice that was sketchy that was wow
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okay we're coming in we're coming in dennis get the hell out of the way
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no no we're not coming in we're not coming in get that propeller going there
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no no just wait just wait it's not gonna stop i got that i got this come on baby
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come on in wake up
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no we lost the wheel we sheared off a a a bolt here
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and uh so all we gotta do is is find a new
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a new mount for this wheel holy crap we lift through it
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oh chapter two before putting the pc in the plane it
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needed a good coating of acrylic conformal coating from mg chemicals
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this would prevent the pc from getting damaged by small drops of water that
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might end up on it during water takeoffs and landings
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with that said it doesn't make the pc completely waterproof
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this is like not even it's more conformal coating than pcb now it's like
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swimming in it i mean you can't swim in a solid but you
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get my point i said to do three coats that's three coats look at these they look so
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beautiful they're so shiny it's like plastic RAM
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and they still smell like nail polish yeah we gotta test it with the system in
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it that's what we're doing right now yeah we gotta get the oh wait write test
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the system does the system work testing the system gave me the opportunity i've
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been waiting for so you can see here my friends the test cart 9000 has a
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convenient keyboard and mouse
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right in an ergonomic keyboarding mousing location
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it's got a HDMI and vga monitor so you
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cover all your bases there huh it's got a mouse pad for your comfort it's got
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one of these little uh ah
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who makes these again moss cable it's got one of these little magnetic cable
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holders see that test cart technology grab your usbs because they're
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conveniently magnetically cable managed i don't know i thought from lewis
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rossman all you need to know is the fan spins no and the fan isn't spinning so
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let's go ahead and press the power button there
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did you break the knock oh wait no i think it just lit up
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okay cool now that we knew that nothing crucial got covered in conformal coding
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we were ready to put the pc in the plane how do we get our pc in there so in the
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back seat yeah it's like in the back seat that's really going to hurt our
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center of gravity there yeah we need to put some like weights or
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something up in here oh now we're putting weights in the thing this thing
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was hard enough to fly in the first place although we were technically able
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to get the pc in through the front window it was very difficult to access
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so we needed to create a bigger opening scalpel
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thank you for not putting the blade into my finger
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that's good oh this is much sharper
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because the blade is thin it's actually harder to cut in a straight line though
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i guess when you're cutting bodies it's less of a concern that you go in a straight line maybe
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oh no problem oh oh it's so beautiful
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good news is our system fits bad news is the i o does not stick out the door the
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pc fit in surprisingly well meaning we could skip having any i o extensions and
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instead just drill some holes in the side of the plane for usb Ethernet and
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Thunderbolt oh not bad
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not bad at all oh
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okay yeah it came out clean perfect nice
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oh crap so there's the pontoon mount
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i was trying to widen the hole slowly and just rip the whole thing out
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shoot to keep the pc in one place we decided
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that the best option was to put zip ties down through the pcb attach a washer on
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the other side then use another zip tie to tighten it down after installation in
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its super cool new case we just needed to make sure that the pc had survived
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the operation what could we have possibly broken over the last little bit
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here yes
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oh okay have me freaking out a little bit there
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let's see if the wi-fi still works wi-fi is still working so we managed to
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not unplug that crap okay all right all right
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okay all right the first flying computer
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other than all the other flying computers can you can you see it in there
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here oh it's coming for you
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can you see it see the computer in there well you can
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see the i o i don't know you can kind of see it it's kind of hard
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to see actually yeah whatever it's in there trust me
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okay
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oh that gust let's just go for it
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we're up and away oh my god the weight
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the weight the balance is uh is look way off you want to fly by
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i'll give you a flyby
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you know what i was actually probably wrong to make those adjustments to the
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elevator
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never mind i was right to make those adjustments to the elevator that just
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saved us
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come on baby
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no oh crap okay well um
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that wasn't what i meant to do i was trying to bring it over to the road and
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the wind just pushed me right
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this was actually my backup plan in case i lost confidence and i didn't want but
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i was going to do it on that side where they're kind of taller
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so wow
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seems totally fine yeah i don't think we took any damage
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coming into the grass there because like i said i had already cut the power
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if you see the flies hell yeah brother
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they said it couldn't be done wait who was the one who said it
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couldn't be done that was us wasn't it uh luke seems to be on to us
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i called him and said we needed to meet
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tomorrow for a video thing and maybe it was i said the fact i said
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it was Floatplane related maybe he'd put two and two together but he's like
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oh is it that plane that's in the office so i lied to him i said no it's not so
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we're gonna have to be like ha ha yes it was got you
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so it's last minute preparation time we have finally mounted the pontoons
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making it properly a Floatplane can i hold it up for a second
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are you are you guys good can i just hold it up for a second
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ah and we're doing some last minute prep while luke waits for us upstairs so
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we're trying to get a gopro mounted inside the cockpit which would be super
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cool like actually looking out through the cockpit and then alex is trying to
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figure out the uh the servos and rubber bands and
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whatnot that
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we need to hook up here we lied to you
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so i did call it haha yes it was
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shut up we made a working Floatplane
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it flies it does fly really of course it flies
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this is Linus tech tips and there is a full quad core
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machine with m.2 SSD 32 gigs of RAM
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and Thunderbolt 3
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inside that's amazing functioning computer functioning plane wanna go fly
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it yes all right let's go so he went into the warehouse to borrow
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a speaker for a wedding yeah like a bluetooth speaker and he saw the plane
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after all those i even stopped at it was like whoa
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that's cool i wonder what that's for who's working
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on this and the stupid thing is that i thought i was being so clever
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telling you it's Floatplane related yeah yeah
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i know we just gave this to you but there is a very good chance that it will
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not survive the day i have never done a water takeoff or landing and i have only
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even successfully landed a plane
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sort of once should we just go for it or what
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the water's really still it's nice that all these trees are around here yeah
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there's one duck that's kind of in the way there so i kind of wait for him to
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yeah maybe get out of there you could probably turn that way
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yeah i want to take off directly away from me though just because it's a
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little easier bring it back to control sure
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okay actually hold on
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hold on yeah oh yeah he's gotta run you know what let's just
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do it whoa okay
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alrighty then oh wow this is actually this is a very
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small pond this is a much smaller park than i had
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last time
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it is gusty it is gusty today
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if there was any doubt that it's gusty let me
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set your mind at ease about that
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there's some chop there's some chop in the air
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no no i'm not that low it's okay
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the wind just picked me right up there did you guys see that
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that was not me on the elevator
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oh wow
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not the smoothest landing of all time
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the massdrop xakg k7xx red edition
15:11
open-backed headphones feature its predecessor's legendary sound and build
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quality which made it a big hit with the audiophile community and some
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improvements so the highs are getting boosted by an innovative flat wire voice
15:24
coil mids are getting brought up to better balance the range and the lows
15:28
were raised by three decibels for a more immersive sound this was a collaborative
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design with mass drop and akg and includes a custom ruby red color way to
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help the aesthetic really pop from the competition it features a 10 foot
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detachable cable and you can check it out now at the link in the video
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description so there you have it the world's first
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Floatplane no no it's yours the world's first Floatplane pc for co a
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Floatplane
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now let's make sure the computer still works at some point but i'm sure it's
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fine i'm sure it's fine we just we just tested it before we came out
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yeah no i honestly i don't even think so yeah
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we got the i'm glad we put the tape on though i'm really glad we put the tape on so guys
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if you dislike this video oh right go subscribe over on Floatplane
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go go support Linus tech tips or actually we got tech deals and bit wit
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over there as well uh if you guys dislike this video you can hit that
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shorts like this one on our community forum it's great you should totally join it
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yay you saw it here first folks flying computers yeah