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TAM 5 Has landed

Posted by Hemos on from the the-little-plane-that-could dept.

bzant writes "TAM 5 The model airplane, (see our previous story), has successfully landed in Ireland. This was the second plane they launched. Other than some slow speeds and a concern over a lean fuel mixture the flight seemed to go as planned."

2 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing by arvindn · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#leader

    Who is the leader of this project?

    Maynard Hill is an American, born in Pennsylvania in 1926. He has been an avid modeler all his life. He has contributed technical advances through his 23 world records. He has contributed as President of the AMA and delegate to international model airplane meetings. Maynard has designed and contructed all the models for this project in spite of the fact that he is legally blind and nearly deaf. Apart from the goal of setting a new record for straight line distance, one of Maynard's objectives is to demonstrate that people with handicaps can overcome them.

  2. Re:Hell of an achievement. by zelbinion · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mod the parent up. This is an amazing accomplishment.

    As a R/C modeler myself, the specs of this plane are basically what I learned to fly on. Think: standard trainer with an O.S. 61 engine. This sort of plane can typically fly about 20 minutes on a tank of gas, and never more than about 800 feet in altitude, and never more than about a mile and half away. Things you have to worry about are:

    1. Running out of gas.
    2. Having the temperature conditions change the performance of the engine, causing it to stall. (It is not uncommon to tweak the fuel mixture on a model airplane on nearly every flight through an afternoon of flying.)
    3. Such a small plane is susceptible to fairly small gusts of wind that can make if fly off-course, flip it upside down, etc. Anything more than about 15mph wind, and most model airplanes get tricky to fly. Especially if it is gusty (i.e. not a constant wind speed/direction)
    4. Battery life - standard R/C batteries will last for about 2-4 hours max.
    5. There is no way to restart the motor if it quits
    6. Things can (and often do) come apart in flight. These things are made of balsa wood and heat-shrink coating. I've had planes explode in flight, wings come off, tails come off, etc.

    Now, take a model airplane that is only about 5 feet long and with a wing span of 6 feet, and operates as described above, and modify it so that it can:

    1. Fly continuously for 40 hours.
    2. Fly through day and night in a variety of temperature and moisture conditions and not have the engine quit, or have to adjust the fuel mixture (since you can't do that in flight on the TAM models)
    3. Navigate 1900 miles by itself, negotiating mid-Atlantic weather, variable wind speed, variable wind direction, variable air density, temperature, etc, with NO help from a pilot.
    4. Somehow provide power for all of the electronics for 40 hours
    5. Somehow fit 5.5 pounds of fuel, plus standard R/C radio, plus a home-grown GPS auto-navigation system, plus an alternator for the electrical equipment, plus two telemetry data systems, plus the computer to run it all into a plane that only weighs 11 pounds (think: two bag of groceries) and not weaken the structure so much that the whole mess DOESN'T fly apart on you.

    Now do that while legally blind and def.

    All I can say is: Wow.
    (okay, I had a whole bunch of four-letter words to say, but they aren't appropriate in this situation...)