3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on December 24, 2012 at 9:09am

That's awesome! Mark Bennett has some context over at in ArduPlane User Group:

Yep, James May and the team did a great job of flying the Slingsby all the way across to Lundi. Over a 22 mile distance it landed 20 feet off the GPS co-ordinate. Bloody marvellous! They had to launch from a specially designed cradle slung under a heli to get the height. The calcs ran to 8000 feet for the launch but with good weather they took it up to 10,000 feet. The Slingsby had plenty of height when it got to Lundi. It had to circle to lose height to drop onto the final co-ordinate. A credit to all you guys that have developed the kit.

Comment by Timothy on December 24, 2012 at 10:36am

I must say this looks like a nice aircraft, does anyone know if their plans they made or even a kit of the aircraft they made are available anywhere?

Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on December 24, 2012 at 10:44am

Yes there are loads of kits made, let Google be your friend its a scale glider that has been made many many times ;-)

This flight sort of has the spirit that used to be very present around here. Its a yardstick and that's the sort of language May would understand.

Moderator Comment by Nathaniel Caner on December 24, 2012 at 11:13am

Spot on! What a great inspirational piece to reach out to a wider audience. It's nice to see a story about Drones that puts a positive light on what is possible with an Amateur 'Toy Aeroplane'. Far too often we see the negative stories that the media latches onto here in the USA. Congrats to James and his crew and thanks to the BBC for bringing us such inspirational work.

Regards,

Nathaniel ~KD2DEY

Comment by John Wiseman on December 24, 2012 at 11:40am

I think it'd be a lot of fun to look at their logs--maybe someone from 3D Robotics could reach out to them?

Developer Comment by Pete Hollands on December 24, 2012 at 11:53am

The logs might be interesting: - Clearly the PID's were not correctly tuned. The plane was osicillating from right to left to right etc for the entire journey.

They altered the standard kit, and rebuilt new wings which had a much better glide ratio than the original.

Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on December 24, 2012 at 12:01pm

Looked to me like they didn't mix in a little rudder to cope with the adverse yaw. Not sure what the AP would have been doing, maybe driving to an altitude and keeping the nose down and perhaps travelling a little quick. Still matters not really they did what they set out to. Well done the UK CAA for allowing it.

3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on December 24, 2012 at 12:23pm

YouTube link:

Comment by Rodolphe Jobard on December 24, 2012 at 1:31pm

Congratulation to the Team! They transformed this tiny island in a perfect aircraft carrier. 

Rodolphe

Comment by Richard Boyhan on December 24, 2012 at 2:52pm

Way cool video. Really enjoyed it. Logs would be neat to see.

Comment

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