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."

Comments

Help us out a little

[mao che minh]

Alluding to the fact that there was a previous article isn't enough. The TAM5 link is a map and a bunch of coordinates - what is all of this? The "previous story" linked too turns around and links to yet two previous stories.

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.

Re:Help us out a little

[grug0]

Dude, wait for all the extra info in the dupes.

Congratulations!

[martingunnarsson]

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 :-)

Amazing

[arvindn]

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.

Re:Wow

[DataCannibal]

Nope, the next step is to kidnap the baby of the guy who flew the thing. Using a remote control getaway car, of course

Just the beginning

[ch-chuck]

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.

Fantastic

[cybermace5]

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!

When does the invasion begin?

[DrXym]

Now that Ireland is clearly within range to launch an UAV attack on the US, we can expect the invasion to happen shortly.

Somehow

[Timesprout]

I cant see it surviving the return trip carrying loads of duty free Guiness

Hell of an achievement.

[dr.Flake]

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.

Re:Hell of an achievement.

[zelbinion]

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...)

How about something marine?

[cvk]

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.

Re:Landing most impressive

[General_Corto]

According to a National Geographic article from last year's attempts, the landing is handled by a local pilot:

Pilot Paul Howey and others will be in Ireland waiting for the plane to appear on the horizon. They will head out to the bog and, if the plane comes in, take over manual control and land it.

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).

CORRECTION

[jsimon12]

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