Newbee, here's why

HI again, Thanks for all your help and advise. But I want to make a few things clear, because I am concerned that some people think I have bad intentions with my heli (or plane). I'm not a drugdealer or a terrorist! For God's sake! I tried to stress that I would only use the vehicle for legitimate purposes, but I didn't want to clarify my plans immediately, as they are "business ideas". Well, in order to remove all suspicion, I will now explain what the purpose is. (Once again, forgive me for my bad English!) The purpose is to survey tropical forest concessions from the sky at a very low cost. It is part of a plan for sustainable tropical forest management. Since the terrain I'm talking about is also quite rugged, I need a flexible vehicle that has autopilot capabilities (because the terrain doesn't allow for continuous visual contact). When I said the plane must be able to carry a payload of a few kilograms, all I was referring to were cameras to map the terrain, a GPS system, and paintbombs to target high value trees in the concession so that the mapping can be made more efficient. I hope this removes all suspicion. But I won't say more (djee, there goes my cheap plan!) So please, continue to give advise! I would be very grateful. Thanks again!

Reply to
ez
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Then you may want to have a look at the ScanEagle. Now a joint venture between Boeing and Insitu. Check out:

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Just so you know who your competition is and what they can presently do.

Reply to
Fly Higher

Thanks fior the honesty. There was an article about use of U think electric gliders to probe atmospheric stuff in some mountains. Models make cheap survey vehicles, without a doubt.

I certainly suggest thinking electric, the downside - low power to weight and duration - is rapidly becoming less and issue with teh advent of brushless motors and Lithium batteries. They provide a more or less vibration free platform - and the motors can be switched off totally for photography - and are relatively simple to start in adverse conditions - plug in and switch on!.

As far as the gudance goes, you will need a microprocessor of some kind, able to read servo inputs, and gyro, gps and maybe flux gate and barometric inputs, and a heck of a lot of software development.

One thing that may help you if locations are remote and outside FCC/CAA/etc ergulations, and thgat is =use of e.g. 27Mhz equipment and a socking great power booster. Up to 10 miles range might be possible with that.

I don't see the plane as much of an issue: The ones in the magazine were adapted sailplanes, hand launched and landing in a net I think. The real issue is the software and stability systems. I would NOT expect it to be something you would expect to get reliable without a year or two of development. That buys a lot of helicopter time.

However, once developed, nothing about teh planes would be that expenisve - maybe $1000 per plane maxiumum. That means you could afford to waste a few, particularly if you could recover the avionics..

good luck.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Thank you for finally being honest about what you wanted to do. It's perfectly understandable that you want to protect your idea, but you could've given us some clues, rather than leaving it completely up to our imaginations.

Most of the people here are familiar with your standard line-of-sight flying, and the equipment necessary to pull it off. You'll probably be on your own as far as the autopilot and such, but I'm sure that people will help you in whatever way they can now that your intentions are clearer, though.

For sure it's not going to be cheap, especially if you want any intelligent autopiloting beyond straight and level flight. To have the capabilities you want, you definitely can't make the plane expendible.

The first step is to choose a plane big enough to handle the payload. Bruce Tharpe's Super Flyin' King is probably the biggest commercially-available payload-carrying plane I know of.

Reply to
Mathew Kirsch

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