I have been working on and off towards a VTOL aircraft for a few years now. All of this work has been kept off of the record, but I had the very first successful VTOL Flight and transition with this aircraft yesterday and am very excited to share these results. This method of VTOL is not a new concept, and was mainly inspired by X-planes of the past and the more modern Latitude Engineering's Hybrid Quad Rotor UAV.
Separate Lift & Thrust VTOL Aircraft were attempted in the early days of aviation, but gas powered engines and no flight control computers meant that they were unreliable and unstable. Now with the advent of powerful electric motors and advanced flight controllers like the Pixhawk, we are able to make these vehicles practical.
The Aircraft was assembled using the RMRC Anaconda as the base airframe, mated with a 3DR X8+ Power system. While my hardware and aircraft design knowledge is great, I have next to no knowledge of being able to edit software code. If anyone would like to assist in developing code for such an aircraft, it would fulfill the missing piece of the puzzle. Ideally for VTOL aircraft to be completely practical, the entire flight with transition and back should be automated and not rely on piloting skill.
I hope you all enjoy this, I will try to make more tests and videos as we continue to improve the aircraft-
Comments
http://youtu.be/bIKIh04r7mk
I didn't receive the email other than this notification. Feel free to email me again. I'd be more than happy to help in any way. I am also currently working on a VTOL project as well. Similar size and design.
I don't know if you still log on here, but I sent you an email and hadn't heard anything back. I am building something like this for a UAV lab mechanical engineering project, and was hoping I could pick your brain. Are you still around?
How about an update on your project. Make any progress?
Very Cool! Hope you find your programmer!
Cool concept.
I have been thinking of separating hover and propulsion motors for quite a while. The additional weight and the deteriorated aerodynamics are challenging. How to you intend to minimize drag of the hover props in forward flight?
These guys have realized a similar concept also based on APM/Pixhawk a year or two ago:
http://www.wingcopter.com/DE/Aktuelle%20Version.html
You might share experience concerning the transitioning software code.
I am looking forward to your performance numbers like payload, cruise speed, endurance and range!
Very, very cool, thanks for posting.
Fantastic!!!
Very interesting project! You should ask wingcopter autors as well... it seems they've managed to put both copter and plane codes in an APM
Love it!! Great work.. How do you find the Anaconda? Do you have problems slowing down when reverting to QUAD mode with stalling?
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