Ohio College Building Indoor Drone Pavilion

First time accepted submitter Greenargie points out this story about an indoor flying pavilion for drones being built at a college in southwestern Ohio. An indoor flying pavilion for students to test and fly drones will be built at a college in southwestern Ohio. Sinclair Community College officials say the 40-foot high pavilion resembling a traditional aircraft hangar will be built adjacent to a building in Dayton that houses some of its education and training programs in unmanned aerial systems and aviation. The indoor pavilion will allow students to fly drones without having to deal with weather issues or Federal Aviation Administration restrictions on flying them outdoors, said Andrew Shepherd, director of Sinclair's unmanned aerial systems program. Congress has directed the FAA to integrate drones into civilian manned airspace by next fall. The agency currently allows unmanned aircraft to be flown only under controlled conditions.

Comments

Why do we call remote quadrotors "drones"?

[i kan reed]

Did it just become cool to call every unmanned aircraft a drone, after we started murdering people with them?

No one called toy helicopters drones 8 years ago. No one.

Re:Why do we call remote quadrotors "drones"?

[tlhIngan]

Did it just become cool to call every unmanned aircraft a drone, after we started murdering people with them?

No one called toy helicopters drones 8 years ago. No one.

Because a modern quadrotor is much more functional than an RC helicopter.

There is so much electronics in one that they literally do fly themselves. Push a button and they lift themselves off the ground and hover there automatically - something that no RC helicopter can do without continuous input by the pilot.

So while you fly an RC helicopter, you pretty much just direct a drone - want it to move forward? You command it forward and it obeys (even figuring out "forward" - yes, a modern drone can determine which way you're pointed and determine that to be forward regardless of orientation).

And drones with this capability cost under $1000.

It's also why we see more incidents around - learning to fly is a skill and you generally have to practice it (with both time and cost). With a drone, you push the button that says "Fly" and short of sudden gusts of wind or eddies, they sit there in the air waiting for your command.

And yes, there are projects that turn RC helicopters into drones, but they generally are far more expensive and limited. Quadrotors require a computer anyways due to their instabilities so it doesn't take much more effort to add in flying software.