bdtsr:

Perhaps you should reread my posts because I did not advocate him building a monster. I was saying, and will continue to say, that we should support his enthusiasm and show him the way to achieve his ULTIMATE goal. No one benefits from slamming anyone else down, except for some overgrown egos.

If done correctly, there is nothing wrong with experimentation. How do you think the industry became what it is? We should be talking to this guy and explain the sfaety issues, ways to ensure safe operation in case of failure, and where to begin. There are numerous places where one can purchase highly advanced autopilots for only 4 or 5 thousand dollars and have no real restrictions on them. There is enough material on the internet to gt things running........look at all the AIAA student competitions going on. It is ignorant to think we are not going to breed terrorism by helping someone through the stages, especially when we all agree that he is going in too deep to start with and even if he ultimately built a platform and flew it with an autopilot, it would come crashing down a minute later. Hard enough to fly as it is. Someone should have explained to him that he should start light either way and work from there as he develops, if at all. Any terrorist group could grab a student, any where in the world (Yes- even the US) and for a sum of cash they would put together this system without asking the ultimate aim of it. Even so, a light plane hired and filled with materials unknown could be flown even easier into a building cheaper, easier and certainly more accurately than an autopilot. Dealing with terrorism is not a case of being paranoid of everything. It is a case of looking intelligently at the material presented and dealing with it intelligently.


Dream again......teach and learn.......show the way.