HighAltidude

Hey Guys,

My friend and I are planning to send a high altitude balloon into 30km photography mission.
Our payload will be in a form of a RC airplane in order to navigate itself back to launch point.

We're taking in consideration that things can go not as planned,
and while we're planning to have the aircraft fly autonomously back to us,
we want the option of taking things into are own hands in order to navigate it manually.

I need your advice in few recommendations:

1. Recommended cost effective RC Transmitter with at least 6 channels
2. Recommended antenna booster (can i use regular wifi boosters?)

Another important thing - I'll appreciate your opinion about the ability of controlling an aircraft that is ~30km from me.
Suggestion will be highly appreciated about our setup and mission.

Thanks!

pilotpete2

Your first consideration is getting approval from your governments equivalent of the FAA. for launching a high altitude balloon.
Pete

HighAltidude

Hey pete, thanks for the reply.

We are in contact with the local Ministry of Civil Aviation.
We had a little of explaining to do since they didn't even understood what our meaning by "sending balloon into space".
We contacted a university professor who addressed us to a person in the ministry who's job is approving unusual requests.

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

30KM will be far beyond the capability to see it. Your biggest problem will be getting a picture back so you could steer it.
I think you should concentrate on getting the autonomous mode to work

HighAltidude

hey dirtybird, thanks for the reply.

Our main goal is to have the aircraft navigate autonomously back to us,
but we would like to have the ability to take the controls into our own hands in case of malfunction or such.

how far we can go with manual controls in your opinion?

lets say we can extract the inner antenna from the flight transmitter,
use SMA pigtail in order to connect it to a 5 watts booster and use flat surface directional antenna,
how far we can go with this kind of setup?

furthermore, can you suggest us a transmitter with good value to money?

thanks you

dirtybird

My Feedback: (5)

Your cheapest radio would be the 9XR from hobbyKing with FR=SKY module and their long range receiver. How far you can go will depend on your antenna. But remember the higher the gain the more precise you will need to steer it.
Fifty years ago I got a command to the moon with 2 watts but I had a 85' parabolic antenna and a computer to steer it

HighAltitudeBeta

Hi, I am the friend.
I have thought about building a tracking antena rig based on self location and aircraft location, as long as we have its coordinates it will be pointed right at it.

Respect the moon transmission.