Bob Diemert’s Defender in person

[-]

perotech@reddit

There would be better luck with getting the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada involved.

They recently opened a new building in 2023, and they're the closest to Carman.

[-]

There’s a documentary on this very plane. Eccentric Canadian farmer restores several WW II warbirds (not always to the highest standards, though). Designs this to destroy Soviet tanks in the Cold War.

[-]

YalsonKSA@reddit

OH MY GOD! WAS THAT HIM?

I remember seeing that documentary when I was much younger. I seem to recall that his idea was to create an aircraft that was slow and heavily armoured, but cheap, so you could just build them in enormous numbers to cope with the heavy losses you would undoubtedly suffer. I have thought about that film for so long, but I was beginning to feel I must have imagined it or exaggerated something else. But no. Here it is. Thank you for that. I must go and find it so I can watch it again.

[-]

perotech@reddit

Manitoban myself, and I'd heard from my Grandpa about a Japanese Zero in Carman, which I always thought was just a tall tale.

Turns out the restoration/sale of the Zero to the Texas Commemorative Air Force is what funded this pipedream.

The ironic thing is, in an all out war, WW2 or against the Soviet Union, the cost of the aircraft isn't the main issue.

It's the cost in funds and time to train pilots, and then once they're skilled, they're worth more than their aircraft.

[-]

CletusCanuck@reddit

Even as a child I remember thinking the aircraft looked about like something a crackpot slapped together in his garage, which is spot on.

[-]

GlockAF@reddit

it’s especially funny that it has a flat six piston engine and he is comparing it to an F-18

[-]

ManaMagestic@reddit

Messier82 has a very similar concept.

[-]

superdude4agze@reddit

Overwhelming numbers was his entire strategy it seems and it's not a bad one on paper and with simple to train cannon fodder like infantry, but in the documentary he's talking about flinging 5,000 of these at the enemy at a time like it's WWI trench warfare.

[-]

YalsonKSA@reddit

Stalin would have done it and basically did with the Il-2. But I think the whole point Bob missed was that we are not supposed to be like Stalin, which is why we would have been fighting in the first place.

[-]

Glad_Lengthiness_160@reddit

this human wave narrative is ashistorical horseshit and something I'm dissapointed to see on this sub.

[-]

TacTurtle@reddit

Fortunately now we have radio control and drones.

[-]

rodface@reddit

like a backyard A-10?

[-]

TacTurtle@reddit

Bob Semple A-10

[-]

YalsonKSA@reddit

Exactly that. The A-10 we have at home.

[-]

mexchiwa@reddit

Yep, that’s it

[-]

ansonchappell@reddit

Here's the link to the doc from the National Film Board of Canada.The Defender

[-]

WinterDice@reddit

I’ve watched only the first 15 minutes and this is the most bonkers thing I’ve seen in ages. These guys are/were the most amazing, crazy nerds I can imagine. They were really going for it.

It also seems like the narrator is mocking them a bit, referring to the two bathroom scales actuated by 2x4s in the wind tunnel as “calibrated instruments” and the pickup ripping down the road with the wing section in the bed as a “high speed test” system.

[-]

ReactiveBat@reddit

NFBC coming in clutch again!

[-]

Ypocras@reddit

And even watchable outside of Canada, very cool!

[-]

reddituserperson1122@reddit

Very cool!

[-]

Lint_baby_uvulla@reddit

I just watched that doco the whole way through. Amazing. Just amazing.

[-]

ReactiveBat@reddit

Canada should have paid this guy and the Bear-suit guy to fully design Canada's air and land defense...

[-]

Reasonable-MessRedux@reddit

I remember reading that article. He was an interesting guy and it's an interesting plane.

[-]

Lint_baby_uvulla@reddit

So I just got home from seeing my dad, and telling him about the Bob Diemert documentary, and how difficult it was for Bob to get parts and get his Zero airworthy.

Dad wanders out to the garage when mum changed topics, and walks back in carrying a Zero Tailwheel assembly!

Turns out my grandpa and his brother were WWII RAAF pilots, and ‘collected’ the tail wheels from Zeros. Grandpa even built a wheelbarrow using two of them. Dad was gifted two from grandpa, kept one and donated the other.

It made me wonder, how many WWII parts randomly turn up in people’s garages?

“Where’s your father, is he up in the roof in the ball turret again? Tell him to come down for dinner and leave the magpies alone”

[-]

waldo--pepper@reddit

He was a very interesting man. I dated his niece for a while a lifetime ago.

[-]

ZachTheCommie@reddit

Is that an F-Zero machine?

[-]

thechill_fokker@reddit

This man was eccentric but an original man. this man never gave up and actually tried to get this airplane built. Thanks for posting didn’t know this was still around.

[-]

bake_gatari@reddit

"Well, it's not working " - Bob Diemert

[-]

plhought@reddit

Lol. I heard this quote reading it!

[-]

Lint_baby_uvulla@reddit

“Good grief man, we spent five years on this”

[-]

Southern-Usual4211@reddit

Always felt like his plan was beyond callous, eh these pilots are disposable 🤷‍♂️

[-]

pdxnormal@reddit

What sizing are those tools? They're not SAE.

[-]

Brandon_awarea@reddit (OP)

whitworth

[-]

pdxnormal@reddit

Thank you!

[-]

23karearea32@reddit

What’s with wacky designs and people named Bob?

[-]

DOOM_INTENSIFIES@reddit

I knew what the link was even before clicking it.

But i wouldn't call the sole reason why NZ wasn't invaded during WW2 Wacky.

[-]

Yunicito@reddit

Ahh good old f18 alternative

[-]

-pilot37-@reddit

Wow, I didn’t know it was still around. I wonder if the remains of his other plane, the Diemert Canard, are there.

[-]

heylookanairplane@reddit

Here's the documentary on YouTube for anyone interested in it.

[-]

redbananass@reddit

I could never decide if that was a documentary or a mockumentary. Great film though either way.

[-]

ansonchappell@reddit

Also available on the National Film Board of Canada's website. The Defender

[-]

rodface@reddit

my god this is top-tier weird

[-]

fullouterjoin@reddit

r/WeirdWings/comments/k088nq/bob_diemerts_canard_defender_how_to_build_a/

[-]

tractorcrusher@reddit

That’s awesome he bought his tools (I assume?)

[-]

AggressorBLUE@reddit

Apparently theres a documentary about this thing that can be streamed for free, neat!

https://www.nfb.ca/film/defender/

[-]

MrCLCMAN@reddit

Nice find!

Red Green Builds an Aeroplane.

[-]

t53ix35@reddit

In case, like me, you have never heard of it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diemert_Defender

Quite a tale.

[-]

DavidBrooker@reddit

In my undergraduate design class, we were actually assigned to watch two different National Film Board documentaries on Canadian aircraft design projects, the other being the obviously more successful Canadair Challenger (documentary here), and had a guided discussion project on what made design ‘successful’.

[-]

SoftLikeABear@reddit

That thing really should be in a museum. It qualifies on the grounds of being noteworthy enough to warrant it's (minor) place in aviation history.