The new hotness right now is dynamic soaring across the heliopause with a solar ion 'wing.'[0] Supposedly this can achieve 2% c , in the same way RC gliders use dynamic soaring to achieve speeds far in excess of the wind speed.[1] [0] [link] [1] (headphone warning) [this video]
RC gliders reach speeds far beyond the wind speed.
> did not land, did not eat, did not drink and did not stop flapping My understanding is that these incredible distances are achievable less by "flapping" and more by leveraging small adjustments to harness the incredibly powerful forces found among and between air currents and waves as they traverse across the ocean. For example, here is an unpowered remote control glider achieving measured speeds of 548+! mph using nothing but natural energy harnessed from wind and gravity. [this video] [link]
RC glider hitting 548 mph using only wind and gravity.
You can also extract energy by moving between two fluids in relative motion. If you count that as sailing, this is the fastest sailing vessel. [this video]
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
3 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.