Build Your Own Flying Lawn Mower

Ant writes "Ever seen a flying lawn mower (streaming; download 5.1 MB WMV file) before? I haven't. The WMV video file description says: 'FlyingThingZ Sky Cutter .40 V2 flying at Moon Lake's Annual Make a Wish Foundation Airshow for 2004'. More information can be found on the official Web site. Seen on Blue's News. My good friend, KaT, brought up a good question: 'Since lawns (also known as grass) live usually less than 6" from the ground, how would flying help them do their job better?'"

Comments

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

in case of slashdotting on that site and to reduce slashdotting on my site (I get 25 GB per month... i'll use about 20 this month)... tack on the filename in the 5.1 MB file link to "http://www.calcgames.org/site/pub/" and it'll be there. Please, if you have bandwidth, mirror it to your site, and PLEASE do NOT post a linky to my site.

Re:Mirror

[Dr Reducto]

I have unlimited bandwidth at school, try me:

Skycutter Vid Link

I really want to piss off OIT, maybe even bring down the outbound router. Do your worst.

Just great. Yeah, that's what I need...

[Anonymous Coward]

... to not just mow the grass, but to give my neighbor a haircut!

Re:Just great. Yeah, that's what I need...

[Tablizer]

... to not just mow the grass, but to give my neighbor a haircut!

This may be a way to speed up recruits to Iraq. Line them all up outside, and have the thing fly in low: Bzzzzzzzzzzzt, and everybody is nice and trim with a smooth flattop. It can also be used to weed out the squeamish, who duck and run when they see it coming.

This looks fcuking dangerous...

[Dr Reducto]

What's that in the sky?

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

It looks....it looks like a lawn mower!

FUCK!!! IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!! DUCK!!!

*Mower "Mows" through field of humans*

Re:This looks fcuking dangerous...

[MustardMan]

You don't duck when something is COMING RIGHT FOR you, you shoot it. Duck and cover only works with lava. Duh.

Okay, relax

[Dancin_Santa]

It's just a model airplane, not a real lawnmower.

My niece was killed by a flying lawnmower when she was 4. The thing leapt off the ground after hitting a stump and the rotation of the blades created enough lift to set it into flight. You'd have expected the automatic cutoff to kill the motor, but my brother in law held on to the thing and it just took off. She was playing on the second floor balcony when my BIL and the mower caught her upside the temple. Took her scalp clean off.

She's better now, but those first few hours were pretty harrowing.

Re:Okay, relax

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

"My niece was killed by a flying lawnmower when she was 4.... She's better now, but those first few hours were pretty harrowing."

What a recovery!

Re:Okay, relax

[nulltransfer]

My niece was killed by a flying lawnmower when she was 4.

She's better now, but those first few hours were pretty harrowing.

I, for one, welcome our new undead overlords.

Re:Okay, relax

[Bull999999]

My niece was killed by a flying lawnmower

She's better now

Huh?

I guess she just respawned.

Re:Okay, relax

[arose]

Give your niece an Amulet of Life Saving today!

Re:Okay, relax

[Aoreias]

What a recovery!

Indeed. Just a few repairs and the lawnmower was back in action later that week.

Video File

[Combuchan]

The video file is likely to slashdot the server, so I've created a mirror at http://emvis.net/skycutter40-1.wmv. Enjoy.

--sean

Flying do-dahs

[thedogcow]

Yeah, but can it mulch?

Seeing that video . . . . .

[theparanoidcynic]

Made the part of my brain that knows things about fluid mechanics shut down and the other part go get a drink. I'm beyond baffled as to why the thing not only flies, but apparently handles pretty well.

Re:Seeing that video . . . . .

[bleckywelcky]

A guy at my local flying club where I used to live had built a flying mower, although it was red, not green. Really, the thing is just very lightweight and the thrust from the prop-engine is capable of supporting the weight of the craft (ie, it could fly in a vertical position like a helicopter just fine). You'll notice that during most of the flight, the thing has a fairly high angle of attack in order to provide the lift necessary.

Actually, there was another guy (not sure if this was at the same flying club or some other place) that built a plane that looked exactly like Snoopy sitting on the top of his dog house like the Red Baron. Except, you could not tell what the lifting surface was (except for the bottom of the dog house). There were no wings sticking out or anything. It just looked like Snoopy sitting on his dog house. Pretty cool stuff.

Re:Seeing that video . . . . .

[Daniel_Staal]

Pound for pound, model airplane engines have the highest horsepower of any internal combustion engine. Realize they are basic in design, with high-quality tolerances, and the bare minimum of metal to contain and cool. All unnecessary weight is dropped: there is no battery, no starter. The throttle works directly on the airfeed, which pulls the fuel by suction. (Occasionally helped by pressurized tanks.)

They are simple. But they only have to do a simple job, and they do it well.

Re:Seeing that video . . . . .

[merlin_jim]

If you look carefully, you'll notice that the body itself is an airfoil, with two horizontal control surfaces out of the back.

I'm guessing the handle plus the square dome on top (which if you notice is completely hollow) function as vertical stabilizers.

But yeah if you look at his flight, his stall angle is very close to vertical. I'd say about a 80 degree angle of attack... indicating that the engine is in fact providing most of the lift throughout flight... he's definitely doing some fancy tricks with those stabilizers to keep the lift up. When he goes into level flight is in the middle of the video when he bounces off the ground hahaha

Re:Seeing that video . . . . .

[dougmc]

I'll still pick the lawnmower over the 747!

Me too, probably.

By the way, from what I understand, a helicopter can only safely land if it was moving forward at the time the engine died (i.e., not hovering)

Not quite true. If a helicopter engine dies with the copter 10 feet up, it's going to land hard or crash unless the rotors were already spun up extra fast.

But outside of that, it either needs plenty of altitude *or* forward speed to land safely. Either will do. What the pilot does is adjust the pitch of the blades (the collective) so that the forward movement or the movement of the helicopter down speeds them up. Once you get close to the ground, you adjust the collective the other way to flare your approach. Requires quite a bit of practice to get right. :) (no, I can't do it yet.)

Re:Seeing that video . . . . .

[Fizzl]

Nothing very exciting actually :)

I've built my first RC airplane recently, and thus have roamed the appropriate forums. You wouldn't believe what kind of contraptions these guys build.

I have to admit the skycutter was the best one I have ever seen. (Was linked in my local R/C airplane forum few weeks back.)

The thing is made of debron, the ultimate end-all material of indoor and other wacky fliers. It weights next to nothing and is rather durable. It is a foam, used mostly in insulation of floors and fast food packaging.

By the looks of it, I'd say the skycutter weights under 2 kilograms. Which is quite easily taken airborne with .40 cc glow engine running with 70% methanol, 15% oil, 15% nitromethane. ;P

Planes this light don't actually need any kind of airfoil. Flat control surfaces are enough to adjust where you want the lift to go.

So again -- With enough static thrust, you can fly a rock.

Nothing that amazing

[OverlordQ]

Just a small model of a lawn mower made out of balsa and foam with an engine tacked on.

Re:Nothing that amazing

[timeOday]

Killjoy! I'm amazed at how well it flies. I've never seen a lawnmower do a loop in midair before.

Wow...

[graffix_jones]

I've discovered that I really have a liking for 'Industrial Squaredance' music...

/me makes an appointment with his psychiatrist.

It's just like the old saying goes

[otterpop378]

If a lawnmower had wings, it wouldnt bump it's ... wait... that's not right.

This is NOT what I expected

[HawkinsD]

I assumed that "flying lawnmower" meant somethinglike the ill-fated HoverMow device: a British invention, I think, that eliminated the wheels on the lawnmower by making the blades create a strong downdraft. A flexible rubber skirt retrained the air cushion, and voila! a lawnmower that moved effortlessly, even over moderately uneven terrain.

It did NOT, however, cut grass effectively, since the fan-effect tended to smush the grass down out of the way of the blades.

So I was already writing the standard Slashdot "This is old news! I know all about this already" sneer in my head when I clicked on the FA.

But then I saw this startling thing of... yes, of beauty. Fastinating. Even a lawnmower can be graceful.

I am humbled.

Oh, and Fljúgandi....ehhh....sláttuvél? also.

overkill

[tverbeek]

how would flying help them do their job better?

I'm still trying to figure out how combustion engines or electric motors help grass cutters do their job better, let alone propulsion mechanisms to compensate for the weight of the motors... which require even more power to compensate for their own weight, and nuisance safety mechanisms which have to stop the engine if you loosen your grip on the controls... in a viscious cycle that deploys so bloody much energy at trimming such little blades of grass. Personally, I get pretty good results - and a nice, trivial amount of peaceful exercise - from an inexpensive, quiet, low-tech reel mower.

Re:Ha ha ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

amazingly the server is holding up quite well... i'm getting a good 10 mbps every time i download it (and i've downloaded it like 10 times just to be sure).

Early adopter...

[tentimestwenty]

I'm still waiting for the flying toaster.

Re:Early adopter...

[goneutt]

I'm still waiting for the flying toaster.

Ah, a /. challenge. First one with a working real world flying toaster gets to have his server crashed.

Close up shot of mower in flight

[Katz_is_a_moron]

You can appreciate the details.

I'm buying one right now

[atarione]

a. that thing is hella kewl

b. it will surely teach my neighbor to STFU about my lawn care habits, when it flys by his 2nd story window.

c. who needs c? a and b are convincing enough for me

Is it a bird?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always felt sorry for the people who yelled "is it a bird?" and "is it a plane?" during the intro. Do these people get excited every single time they see a bird or plane?

Re:how does this work?

[Erioll]

This thing (or a variant) has been around at LEAST 6 years (probably a lot longer, but that long at least I remember seeing a picture of it).

The way it works is that the "deck" of the lawnmower itself is the wing. It is essentially a strange-shaped flying wing. The "bars" to the handle are the rudders, and there's elevons (combination aileron/elevator) behind the deck/wing. You can easily see the engine and propellor on the front as-is.

Neat to see more pictures of it though, even if variants of it have been around for a while.

Erioll

Re:BullShit

[GMC-jimmy]

[BLOCKQUOTE][I]Will this physics book include information about how he brought his niece back from the dead?[/I][BLOCKQUOTE]

Maybe if it has lots of pictures.

Only A Quote From 'Firefly' Is Appropriate:

[Caraig]

"This must be what going mad feels like."