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Old 07-12-2006, 01:09 AM
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airpilot
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Default College project got away from them.

I have a funny story that happened my last year of college.


At my college, some guys were making an autopilot for a model helicopter. The ultimate goal being that one could program the helicopter to fly where you wanted, and it would do so by itself. They had made a prototype gyro/gps unit for it, and were out in the field to try it out. The previous year, my friend and I had been responsible for the R/C models, because we have some experience. This year though, the guys didn't have any experience with R/C models at all. And now they were going to try to fly an R/C heli. They had been taught all the technical stuff, like how to start the thing, and one of the guys could fly airplanes in the simulator with chase view. So, they fill her up. Attach the glow booster. Mount up the starter, and let her rip. Engine turns, doesn't start. Try again, engine turns, engine starts. At this point the engine gives full throttle, the guys don't know what's going on, set the heli down. Being at full throttle, the rotor starts turning, and it starts turning fast. The heli lifts off the ground, sets a nice smooth course up and foreward, flies over the field over the trees, and is never seen again. They had indeed forgotten to turn on the power on the heli. Luckily for them, they hadn't attached their gyro/GPS unit yet. This was their degree project, so it would have been too funny if they had sent it flying 1 month before it was due! [sm=lol.gif]