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TAM 5 Has landed
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."
At least give your audience a brief two sentence re-cap, state the goal of the endeavor, and give a reason why we should click the link (it's commonly refferred to as a "blurb" in journalism). Slashdot is now popular (and commercial) enough to have editors that can at least follow the basics of journalism. You are making OSDN look bad. Step up and be big boys, for Christ's sake.
This is really a cool project, and while it might seem like a geeky hobby thing, I think it's much more important than that. I think we'll se R/C helicopters that move around on their own used for surveillance and as a support for police and firefighters pretty soon. I mean, these things already exist. The flight over the ocean shows that they can handle long distance flights as well, at lest in 50% of the cases :-)
Martin
http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#leader
Nope, the next step is to kidnap the baby of the guy who flew the thing. Using a remote control getaway car, of course
No but, yeah but, no but...
This is great news, but like all pioneering events, it's just the beginning of a brave new future. Someday, regularly scheduled model airplane flights over the Atlantic, as well as to other destinations, will be a commonplace occurance. In the future, everyone will have unmaned aerial vehicle service available right in their backyards. Soon, inexpensive GPS programmable reusable UAV's with automatic colision avoidance will be available to anyone for less than the price of an automobile at stores everywhere.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That's a LOT harder than you'd think. Even over interplanetary distances there is a lag between transmission and reception that can be potentially catastrophic - radio waves can only travel at c, so as the distance to your radio controlled toy increases you get corresponding increases in the time taken to get a signal to or from it. In the case of the moon, you have:
Distance between the moon and earth(d): 384,500 km
Speed of light(c): 299,792,458 m/s
d / c = 1.283 seconds
So you end up sending a signal and a second later your rocket/whatever responds. Obviously not a situation in which tight maneuvering is possible.
The problem is even worse to other planets - delays to Mars run into several minutes. To do anything complicated things send out there have to be as autonomous as possible with any control from Earth being little more than "go here", "do this", "go there" and letting the machine work out how to do it.
After several thousand years of persistent research and development, we have finally upstaged the carrier pigeon. Too bad that, in the meantime, radio was developed.
Seriously though, it's a great accomplishment. Sure, the military or decent-sized corporation could and have done this without breaking a sweat. Yet the general public has an important role here: pushing technology further ahead. It isn't futile to do things the leaders have already done, because it forces them to keep innovating that much more. Inspiration for all the hobbyists out there!
...
Actually, if you nose around a little the site details the fate of all four previous attempts. In text it says that 1 and 2 were quickly lost due to mechanical problems or miscalculations. For 3 and 4 it actually shows on a map how far they had progressed before last contact. A different shot of the same map shows TAM 5 reaching its destination. All in all, a very cool project -- a substantial goal accomplished through ingenuity and persistence. Thanks /. for tipping us to the TAM project.
Now that Ireland is clearly within range to launch an UAV attack on the US, we can expect the invasion to happen shortly.
I cant see it surviving the return trip carrying loads of duty free Guiness
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Reading some of the commentairies I get the fealing not everybody graps the full level of the achievements made here.
Imagine having to make / design one of these suckers yourself!
what do you need:
Plane (duh)
Controls: GPS, computer, satelite link!, electric controls + receiver, battery etc
fuel!!!: lots of it. its only like 3000 miles or so. (40 hours of flying)
now fit it within these specs to be able to call it a "model airplane":
max 5 kg
max size 2x2 meter
max engine cap. 0.6c
(there are several more limitations)
Hope every one graps the achievement here.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
hmm, whats to stop anyone making one of these things and kitting it out with an explosive or biological warhead? can radars pick these things out as being targets without seagulls etc. raising false alarms?
Model aircraft engine $50
As above to JAN spec with testing $15000
Model aircraft fuselage $50
As above, built by Lockheed, say $25000
Home made navigation system $1000
As above, built by Martin Marietta... oh, just make the whole thing a round $100000.
Yes, folks, the threat from model aircraft carrying drugs could kickstart the entire US tech economy, just like Star Wars was going to in the 80s.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
This was a great project. I know we've all had daydreams of building autonomous flying machines, and I wonder how many of us have also daydreamed of a small autonomous submersible? I think that a tiny submarine would be just as exciting to see cross the Atlantic although a bit slower.
The primary benefit of a vehicle that uses the water as its transport mechanism is that it can't crash! It could stay a few dozen meters below the surface for optimum travel speed and emerge from the water at intervals to update its position by GPS and wire that and other data such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and the like back to the crew on land.
Once nice side effect of traveling in such a dense medium is that a great deal of instrumentation weight would be okay since it's easy to make things float in water. The same cannot be said of the air! That means it might be possible to use a device like a gyroscope to keep track of heading while under the surface. Try loading something like that onto an RC airplane and you'll need some big wings.
That seems a lot easier than trying to have the plane land itself, or landing it remotely (and by remotely I mean from the wrong side of the Atlantic).
This would be the fifth plane they have launched, read the website:
#1. Crashed due to a steering servo issue
#2. Fuel system problem
#3. Bad weather
#4. LOST
I'm from Ireland and I mapped the precise gps coordinates to a map which seems to suggest the model plane actually didn't quite reach dry land at time of post. Maybe it has now but latitude 53 degrees, 27.67; and longitude 10 degrees, 4.20 is in the Atlantic ocean just a mile or so off the coast og county Galway - so close you could see the emerald hills (if it's not too misty)