longer range planes
 

Hi y'all,

I'm very new to RC planes and I was wondering if there are longer range planes than sort of the general 1000 ft kind. I think it would be cool to mount a camera and be able to fly up to about 5-10 miles away(using the camera's video). Has this ever been done? Where can I find suitable parts for it?

Thanks!

RE: longer range planes
 

Nice idea but don't think the AMA or FCC would permit it. The technology does exist, like in the armed forces. Missles, torpedos, etc. Just not in RC yet.

RE: longer range planes
 

At that point you are well past "models" and in to "UAV" land. There are a lot of UAV companies out there who do that sort of thing, and it's not as easy as you might think. Also, the FAA has been taking a real dim view of unpiloted aircraft wandering around in "their" airspace recently. (there are guys from several UAV companies in my club, and we've talked about their stuff and their dealings with the FAA. Sounds like a real hassle).

Needless to say, it's also against the AMA safty code and will void AMA insurance, but you didn't say you were or weren't an AMA member so that might be a moot point.

However, you should keep in mind what could happen if your UAV crashes in to something valuable. The UAV companies have a hell of a time with insurance.

RE: longer range planes
 

Actually, there are more civilian UAVs out there than mil. It's a growing industry, and everyone from famers to police are finding it useful to have their own "eye in the sky" for all kinds of reasons.

However, it's not something you want to jump in to on your own with out thinking all the parts through. The FCC isn't the issue, the FAA is a much bigger one.

An example, a police force in CA was operating a UAV for a while. I think it was in San Diego or LA, but I forget the details (and don't feel like googling it up). The FAA shut them down, since they were worried that it would endanger piloted aircraft. I know at least one UAV company is rather busy right now working on FAA-related issues.

RE: longer range planes
 

Hmm...I live way out in the county sort of on a farm I thought It would be cool to be able to fly around the property and the surrounding land. (A couple mile radious) How expensive is it to get a set up like that? What are some of the sites that I could learn more about it?

Thanks!

RE: longer range planes
 

I agree it would be nice to do something like that, but as Montague said it wouldn't be as easy as you think to control the plane. Trying to control a model airplane from a camera's view is not like a video game =/. I'd imagine such technology would be very exspensive. Transmitters with that kinda range is commercial, not consumer level. It'd probably be almost impossible to get a hold to. Legally that is.

RE: longer range planes
 

One problem I can see is that even though you may be able to control the plane well enough to fly it you still can not see ALL of the airspace surrounding it at that distance. If a private plane was to encounter your vehicle from an unmonitored direction and sustain damage (or worse) YOU would be liable (law suit and/or jail). You need to think long and hard before proceeding down this road. And then don't do it.

RE: longer range planes
 

Btw, the UAV guys don't "fly from the cockpit" in real time when the plane is out of sight. As I understand it most (if not all) of them use sat. links, an autopilot to do the real flying and GPS for control. Basically the "pilot" just says "fly here, loiter, fly there", and the autopilot does the real flying. Except for takeoff and landing, most of the smaller UAVs switch in to manual control for that part, but some can and do auto-takeoff and auto-land.

There are "UAVs" like the Dragon Eye that are basically electric motor gliders hand-tossed by a single Marine. But those planes do stay line-of-sight to the pilot, while looking down over hills or whatever. This kind of thing is easy to do with models, and a lot of people are doing it. But the model stays line-of-sight.

Part of the reason is that there is a noticeable lag for the signal to go from the UAV up to the sat, then back to the control center. Any other non-line-of-sight radio link is going to be too unstable to fly by in anything close to a reliable manner, the plane needs to be able to handle itself when contact is lost with the base station until contact comes back, and that means auto-pilot.

One company here did some of their autopilot testing at our field (before the AMA changed the rules about UAVs and commerical activity), and just getting the plane to fly laps within sight was a trick.

There are some commerical off the shelf auto-pilot systems out there, I think "Micro Pilot" is one of them, but they aren't cheap, and they aren't trivial to set up.

RE: longer range planes
 

A couple of years ago one of our pilots set up a downlink video camera so that we could fly the plane by looking at a "cockpit" view on the monitor. This was a HUGE 118" TaylorCraft so it was a pretty docile and tame plane to fly. But when trying to fly it from the remote monitor I can safely say that it was probably one of the hardest things that I've ever done in the world of RC. The reason why is because your vision is so limited looking at the monitor. You have no peripheral vision nor can you look around to see anything else, you only get to see what's right in front of the camera. Also you can't "feel" the plane flying like you could sitting in a full size plane. I was able to line up and land, but I was sweating and shaking like a basket case by the time I was finished. The guy who set it all up had the plane's radio and those of us on the remote used a buddy box setup, and I can safely say that if he hadn't done that his plane would have been totalled many times over. I'm just pointing this out because even for seasoned experienced pilots flying remotely like this can be a very difficult thing to do, and would probably be next to impossible for a new pilot.

Hope this helps

Ken

RE: longer range planes
 

So if you were to have at least three cameras (one front, one left and one right) with three downlinks and three decent sized monitors, do you think it would have been reasonably easier to fly than the single view out the front?

I don't really care to try it, but the though of figuring out how it could be done is interesting.

I have thought that setting up a simulated cockpit with a monitor on the right, left and in front would make it much easier.

As an asside, I worked for a construction company that built a simulator to teach ship captains how to pilot a tug boat so it could guide container ships into port. The simulator had a wraparound screen that encompased about a 210 degree field of view and was about 20' tall. You were inside a mock ship's helm and there were vibration generator under the floor to add realism. When they turned on rough seas, you walked away feeling seasick and like you were really swaying side to side when you were really just standing still on a stationary platform.

RE: longer range planes
 

All of the full motion simulators use multi-screen or wraparound projection techniques. I believe some of the military ones are partial hemispheres in shape or virtual reality http://www.army-technology.com/contr...ink/link3.html

RE: longer range planes
 

If you are interested in seeing the current state of the art video links here is a link for you. The latest version is worth around $500.00 - it has some real potential but... as it has been said I think that it would be difficult to learn to fly with this sort of system.

Plan B - I'll fly the plane normally and you wear the video glasses.
(I'll bet that I can get you to be sick! ;) )

http://www.gowiththeshark.com/

RE: longer range planes
 

so it sortof sounds like you could set up somthing video whise( not saying that it wouldnt be hard) but what about the range? Maybe just 1-3miles. Can you you bump something and get range like that? I'm not really thinking about doing something like now that I see the amount of money it will take!! but where could I find controls that would reach that far?

Thanks for all the imput!

RE: longer range planes
 

First, this is not a beginners discussion. There is an AP forum where it would be better discussed.

Second - I had the opportunity several weeks ago to fly a plane that was set up FPV with VR goggles. For safety, the owner of the set up was on the master box, and I was on the buddy box with the VR goggles. He was a licensed HAM operator for the equipment. I have to say that with the correct camera and video downlink, flying FPV was one of the best experiences I've had in RC. The plane was an older 40 size trainer set up with an EVO 46. It was relatively docile, and I found it VERY easy to control the flight. I was able to fly out as far as the owner could keep the plane in visual contact. Once I got the feel for the controls, he was actually willing to let me make a VR landing, which I declined. I did fly over the runway on some approaches, and it was almost easier than doing it normally.

The wireless video technology has advanced to a scary state. It possible to put together a perfectly functioning video downlink that will operate over a few miles using commercial of the shelf technology. and it can probably be done for under $1000.

Brad

RE: longer range planes
 

There is a guy at my field who also has a video setup, and he let me fly it a bit. He has a set of goggles that work pretty well.

The plane is a Senorita with a 4-stroke on there, a very gentle flyer. Judging altitude was really hard, and I got "lost" at least a couple of times, since everything looks different up there. I didn't try anything more than a couple of passes down the runway, but the guys who have more time can take off and land on the goggles.

They always have an experienced pilot on the master transmitter and the guy on the goggles is on a buddy box for safety.

Also, he does have occasional issues with the video downlink not being as solid of a connection as you'd like, it sometimes gets static or can drop out entirely. Part of it might be his choice of antennas and such, I'm not sure, but I know he's working on it.

There is a guy in germany who took it to the next level. Goggles that have gryos built in, and a pan-and-tilt camera setup in the plane. This allows you to actually "look around", with the camera tracking the pilots head movements. The guy here is working in that direction, but he's not there yet.

It's all pretty cool stuff, but it IS advanced stuff, and it really requires multiple people to do it safely to avoid smashing things up. When it works, it's really cool.