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."

Comments

Re:Awww

[kin_korn_karn]

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..

Free Software helicopter autopilot

[tramm]

We're building a GPLed helicopter autopilot and stabilization system. It's built entirely with Free Software and all the designs are available under the GPL. There is a realtime sensor board that controls the servos and monitors the accelerometers and gyros. It also tracks engine stats and acts as an engine governor. The entire package fits on a standard model helicopter airframe.

Unlike the academic projects, you can download our code and contribute!

Will Hopefully Replace Traffic Copters

[Schlemphfer]

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.

The Comanche rumour is BS, and other corrections

[GMontag]

(Old US Army Aviator speaking here)

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 .5G