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MIT's Acrobatic Helicopter
YourHero writes: "MIT has a new toy, a remotely-piloted helicopter that's agile, stable, and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography. It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch. The release gives some basics, videos and other juice are here.
This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless" - so a nod to Kara Sprague, Alex Shterenberg, Ioannis Martinos, Bernard Mettler, and Vlad Gavrilets, who probably provided most of the labor. Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment."
not so. the Russian Ka-50 has an ejection seat - pull the handle and the rotor blades are blown off by an explosive; when they're clear the seat fires. I've heard rumors that the Comanche will have a similar feature, but there are always rumors about that kind of thing.
I don't have a link, sorry.
Is my Karma up to 50 yet? it's a slow day at work..
I don't know if it has ever been done on a helicopter per sae, but there have been ejection seats that went out the _bottom_ of the aircraft.
:)
I think the F102 (or one of the other supersonic, large-single-vertical-fin fighters) had one of these.
Just don't pull the handle during taxi.
DG
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> in the current public mood, perfect for urban > combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster > sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial > photography. So it's also good for surveying targets, dropping chemical/biological/nerve agents, and photographing the results. Maybe /bin/laden guys will even hack it to email al jazeera with exclusive footage.
Now that would be a cool thing to hack!
I'm a concientious
I used to fly radio controlled helicopters, they can be had for alot less around $1000-$1500 with full aerobatic capability check out http://www.acehobby.com/products/helicopter/index. html
the Raptor 30 is an excellent model to start with
And for all you open source nuts who want to tie in this story to the rest of /.
Autopilot.SourceForge.Net
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Unlike the academic projects, you can download our code and contribute!
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There are a lot of places in filmmaking where remote-control helicopters are useful.
For instance, all the aerial shots in 'Walking with Beasts' were done with a RC Helicopter - it is substantially cheaper, especially if you need film somewhere remote.
This thing seems way too small to fit some kind of weapon. For this to be useful in combat, it'd have to carry a machinegun or maybe a small rocket launcher. A machinegun with 1000 rounds would weigh, say, 15-20 kg, and the recoil would probably be too big for this chopper.
The recoil of a rocket launcher, on the other hand, would be minimal. Problem is to aim the pod, since you can not adjust fire during firing in the same way - since you would carry only, say, 10 rockets. The aiming problem would mean you'd probably have to include hydraulics for tilting and rotating the pod, wich means more weight.
'course, you could just pack the thing with 15 kgs of plastic explosive, fly it into a building full of your opponents of choice, and set it off.
The Hellfire missile used on the Predator UAV, for example, weighs 45 kgs. Obviously, this is too much for this litte chopper.
I wonder how this extra weight affects flight performance. Does anyone have any more info on this?
Score:-1, Wrong
This looks like a great and low-cost way for radio stations to do away with sending reporters up in helicopters to cover traffic. Back in 1993 WNBC listeners throughout New York City were listening to one such broadcast and heard the copter crash, killing the reporter and pilot. Many other such crashes have occurred over the years. With luck, this MIT copter could make it obsolete to send traffic reporters in the air.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
(Old US Army Aviator speaking here)
.5G
Every effort at creating an ejection system for US rotary wing aircraft has been met with irristable resistance by the Aviators.
One methid, firing the seat through the floor. That is fine if you are an airforce guy at FL 2 zillion, but for us the ground is about 10 to 50 feet below the aircraft when we are most likely to need an ejection seat.
Second, not many of us like having explosives strapped around the rotor head at any time.
Third, most of us are not all that confidant that the firing sequence would work every time, i.e., not trusting the explosives in the head to blow early enough for the blades to clear the path of the seat flying up through the plane of the rotor disk.
One glairing item from this story:
HELICOPTERS HAVE NO AILERONS! They might mean a "snap roll" or a 360 degree z axis roll, but there are no ailerons on a helicopter.
This is nothing new anyway, any fully articulated rotor system OR rigid rotor system, with a powertrain posessing enough power, can safely do rolls, loops, etc. Don't try this at homw with your UH-1 or OH-58/Jetranger or Longranger, they have semi-rigid rotor systems that will break if you try to maneuver at less than
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Every Saturday I go out to Palomar Flyers's Johnson Field and fly my Kalt 30 Baron r/c helicopter. I'm still a newbie, but there are always plenty of people doing things there beyond even what this MIT bird is capable of, and I put a wireless video camera on mine, and it was pretty easy, so... whats so special about this mit thing? :)
The main site is posted here. But basicly CMU is also doing this, and has gotten very far. It can track a person running around a field with a life-vest. It can also lower some object into a person's hand. This might seem easly, but this is still all autonomous. One of the big projects this is for is the Coast Guard wants these to quickly find and possibly help people in the oceans. Teams of these things can scan the ocean for people while the choper with people are just loading up. Check out the videos on the site, very cool stuff.
Al Queda could do the same thing to us from the comfort of an operator's La-Z-Boy.
Careful what we wish for...