Slashdot Mirror

Drones have cameras, models do not.

Says who?

As one example: http://www.modelairplanenews.c...

Manned 1/3 scale B-17 Flying fortress
That looks cool!

How do you know they are tiny? Giant Scale RC Aircraft have wingspans of 84 inches (2.1 m) or larger. I've seen some planes that were physicaly large enough tp carry a person, like a Monster Scale: 87% Pitts Python weighing over 300 lbs (136kg) and powered by a 650cc engine. It's not unusual for giant Scale models of bombers to have operational bombays and drop model bombs durring flights.
With the history of Germany, it's easy to imagine some bad-actors getting their hands on a case of hand grenades, or digging up some UXO (UneXploded Ordinace) out on a military impact area, or even our good ol' friends RPG7, I'm sure a few of those could be dug up in what used to be East Germany.

A big problem with all of the tiny flying devices is that you really can't use them outside. The problem is the wind. Even an imperceptible breeze can blow these things off course, making them incredibly painful to control. The Piccolo weighs in at about 250 grams or so and it's damn near impossible to control outside.

Plus it sounds like this Epson thing is tethered because there ain't no power source on it.

What was that paper about the CIA developing a dragonfly? It worked but they couldn't use it outside because it was too light.

The main differences from traditional RC hobbyists were the onboard telemetry system, and the means of getting some of these models launched.

One of the primary programs in which I participated involved the use of a sailplane model. Rather than launching from a big slingshot, like most hobbyists, we modified an Eagle-style RC trainer with a mount to carry the sailplane, and we literally flew the stacked planes up to altitude using the powered model for thrust, then did an inflight separation (somewhat like Enterprise shuttle coming off the top of a 747 during very early shuttle program tests).

Also, the NASA folks had a pretty interesting telemetry (remote data collection) setup, which reversed the conventional use of a stock RC radio. The transmitter was mounted in the airplane, and the control sticks taken apart and hooked up to various sensors, and the receiver was on the ground, with the servos hooked up to pens on paper rolls. That way, whenever the onboard sensors moved, the pens also moved. A poor-man's remote sensing system, for just a few hundred dollars!

The results of this work have shown up in many places - from sailplane wing design to general-aviation stall prevention devices to high-visibility X-plane programs.

Granted, in 1989 when I did this work, autonomous flight was rare, and we did all this work by piloted remote control, but my point is that it was done for just hundreds of dollars per model, not multiple thousands. Yes, the government sometimes DOES save money.

Before a flight, Montgomery programs into a laptop computer the path that he wants the aircraft to follow. This information then is downloaded into the airplane's onboard computer. After placing the plane on the runway and starting the engine, he pushes a single button, the aircraft takes off, flies the preprogrammed course and then lands all by itself.

Averaged over a kilometer course, the deviation in the aircraft's position from the programmed course was typically less than 0.5 meter horizontally, 0.25 meter vertically and 0.25 meters per second in air speed, Montgomery reported.

"Carrier differential GPS is accurate enough for most purposes, so you don't need a lot of expensive equipment," he said.

Seeing as how the Maximog site didn't have much info on the UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicle) I did a little digging and found on online review of what they must be using. WattAge Hawk