Hello Everyone,

Our company develops low cost consumer products and we are considering developing a combat system for use in all RC planes. The idea was suggested to us on an Rcgroups.com aerial photography forum, but we thought it was more suited to this forum. The system we envision allows several individual planes or teams to compete against each other using an ultrasonic hit detection system that will work in all outside conditions. The system would record the total number of hits to each plane and possibly even a total for each of their opponents. We wanted to get your opinion as to which features are most important and any other ideas you might have to make the product better. We have several product feature questions along with general product questions. We greatly appreciate any time you can spend helping us make the best RC combat system.


Product Description:

The product will be small module that could be mounted on the inside or outside of any RC plane.

Should the combat system be mounted inside the plane or outside?
What is the best method to mount it to the plane?

The system would allow for 8 different teams or individual combatants. The system would prevent you from scoring hits on yourself or on another member of your team. The system will display the total number of hits for the plane on a small two digit LED display. The display could also cycle through the other 7 teams, giving a hit total for each team.

Is 8 a good number of team channels?
Is a maximum of 99 hits sufficient for a single combat round?
Is it important to know how many hits came from each opponent or is good enough to simply track the total number of hits?

When a plane gets hit, it would indicate it by its motor speed being reduced or some other method so that pilots and spectators on the ground can follow all the action.

What is the best indication(s) for a hit to a plane?
- A loud tone? (Could it be heard from the ground?)
- The throttle being reduced for a few seconds and then restored?
- The throttle slowly being reduced more with each hit the plane takes?
- A combination of the above or another idea?

The combat system should be easy to fire to allow the pilot to concentrate on flying.

What is the best way to fire the combat system?
- Using the throttle control? (Setting the throttle to full fires the gun and then the throttle must be reduced for a few seconds before it can be fired again.)
- Using a separate channel (Do most people have free channels on their radios)?
- Continuously fire (for instance, once a second)?

What should be the maximum range for the system? A range of 50 ft has been suggested by other users. Is this long enough or too far?


Considering the description above and the features you would want, we have some general product questions:

1. Is this product something you would be interested in purchasing?

2. If you saw this product in your local hobby store, how much would you expect for it to cost?

3. How much would you be willing to pay for this product?

4. What features are most important? How would you rank them?

5. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, how would rate your overall opinion of the product?


Thank you for your time and interest. Feel free to post your replies or if you would like to correspond to me directly you can email me at: [email protected]

Sincerely,

Phil Mass
Element Products, Inc.
Broomfield, CO

Two "Teams" would be the most realistic. How many times have you heard of more than two belligerant sides in combat?

I don't see actual number of hits as important, but rather the accumulation of "Damage." See later note.

And yes, each gun should be encoded so the airplane making the hit can be identified. Otherwise how do you tell the "Ace" apart from the other fliers?

When a hit is registered a "Jiggling" of the hit plane's controls could be used, making the airplane appear to "Stagger" in the air. The amount of jiggle would be in proportion to the intensity of the hit. See later note.

Using semi conductor lasers, with either fixed gear or hand launch, channel five, normally being a toggle switch, could be used easily to fire the laser or lasers.

But since we are trying to emulate real world conditions, there should be a limmited "Ammunition" supply. A real world limit of six second's fire would probably be too short, so it shouldbe adjustable, being set to a limit of twenty seconds or so, and an indicator visible from the grould would be required for knowing when you've run out of "Ammunition."

By using lasers as guns, a very slightly divergent beam could be obtained with a very low diopter lens, and having one "Gun" on each wing they could be aimed to converge somewhere around 20 feet in front of the plane. With the divergent beam, the effective energy would decrease with distance. Just like real life.

The hit sensors, again to be lifelike, would have to be all aspect. You can hit an airplane from any direction, remember.

Now we get to the complications.

If we limit the number of planes in the furball to eight we can use a three bit code for ID, or four bit would allow 16. Seems to me eight would be enough.

Each airplane would need seven (or fifteen, with four bit coding) accumulators, each would record the intensity of "Hits" from each of the other seven (15). And being real world, we will record "Friendly fire" hits. And they will affect the hit airplane. Real world.

For the damage simulation, an easy and practical method would be to limit control throws. As the total in the damage accumulators increased, the available percentage control throw would decrease, to whatever damage accumulation was decided to be a "Kill." At which point complete control would return to the flier. Suggestion would be flashing lights, one on top and one on the bottom of the airplane to indicate "Kill" to other fliers, and the pilot of the "Killed" plane. These lights, and return of full control could also bethe out of ammunition indicator. When you're no longer able to do any fighting you want to get away, don't you? And the internal system would still show whether it was a kill or "Winchester."

Since the decreasing control of the plane could lead to real flight problems, and we don't want our "Real world" simulation to include real smoking holes in the ground, there must ba a "Bug out" capability. I'll leave that up to you, but it must be there, a way to regain full control of the plane at the pilot's command.

The price has to be low enough for many people to want it. If only three people in a given area are willing to pay the price and fly it, how often will even two of those people be at your flying site at the same time? At $100 I don't think it will sell. $50, it might be popular.

Finally, whatever price you charge, the system must be highly shock resistant as in spite of our not wanting them, mid-airs and smoking holes do happen.

Just some quick thoughts on your proposal, hope they help.

Bill.

8 Does seem as a good amount of channels, and 99hits should be sufficient for a 5 min. round.
You may want to make that an extra feature for more money to make the controller keep track of which opponent hit it.


In my opinion, the best idea is to let the user decide. In other words, have all of these features put in the combat unit and lat the consumer configure it themselves.

An example is to have the user program the chip is to...
- make the plane either make a tone and lose engine power.
- have a servo moved to a preset channel to make the plane go out of control and make a tone
- etc.


Throttle control may not be the best idea as most pilots at my club keep throttle on high. A possible better idea is to have it plugged into a servo port and assigned to a switch.

The range may want to be variable as this system could be used on larger aircraft as well. A good distance would probably be variable from 10-100 ft.



1. I would be interested in purchasing if it could possibly reduce the rick of a mid-air.
2. Considering the suggestions above, I would hope for it to cost about 50-100 US dollars
3. I'm willing to pay up to 100 US dollars each
4. My most important feature is the scoring system and when ranking scoring system, range, targeting system, plane reaction, and firing system. They would go in order: Scoring System, Firing System, Targeting System, Range, and Plane Reaction.

I fly combat on a national level and travel up to 12 hours in any direction for contest and fly in 100+ rounds a year, quite frankly the product describe here does not interest me much. If aerial combat were to better depict real combat I see a completely different aproach to a product such as this.

One way is that with each succesive hit the throttle channel full throttle potential is reduced, for probably up to three hits or the proverbial 3 strikes your out. the abiblity for the throttle to still be controlable to idle must remain at all times just the full throttle potential reduced.
The ability for the throttle hit positions to be user programmed would also be needed.

Second way would be to activate some type of linear sliding pin, as the pin moves along its linear path up to three distinct positions, it releases a rolled streamer. they could be of three differant colors first yellow, then red, and ultimately black. streamer ends remain attached to the aircraft and by various colors showing it becomes a real game of hit/run or team action to help defend your buddy who is about to loose it. without shooting him down. The streamers could be made of a durable nylon and part of the unit and rerolled prior to each heat.


This type of combat would not be blind where as the winner was unknown by the large spectator gallery you would hope to draw. This type of combat would actually grow to a sport where real frontline fighters of any size and scale would not be at risk. Fighter jock tactics would have to be honed as you must fire with thought and precision, knowing exactly at that instant how well you are developing. This is what I envision a product could and should be................

Hm, I would like it to be a bit cheaper (Like, you can reduce some features for an "entry-level" one, for people loke me who want more cash in their piggy banks.)

You guys can quibble over the semantics but anything that WORKS would kick the dog out of this streamer crap. I am tired of building stuff and getting it hit and I am tired of looking at ugly planes. Just think of the possibilities of building something cool to fight with.

I do however think it is important to log the hitter as well as the hittee........


Whether it was a wiggle or a throttle drop wouldn't matter as long as it was something that made it obvious that the target had been hit.

I would pay a hundred at a drop of a hat and I know at least 7 guys that would follow. Damn it would be fun....