Moderator Comment by Chris Anderson on May 25, 2011 at 4:18pm

Impressive stuff. I'm struck by how much the ground stations and flight-sim integration look like the APM software suite. Glad to know we're on the same track as the pros!

Comment by d-creator on May 25, 2011 at 4:48pm

Chris, maybe this is an APM software who knows...

Comment by Sky Monkey on May 25, 2011 at 8:50pm

Kirill,

Nice job!  I enjoyed viewing your photos.  Keep up the excellent work.

 

Moderator Comment by Kirill on May 26, 2011 at 12:27am

Chris, you're right! When I saw all these, I also noticed that the APM is very similar to pros equipment, however the cost of APM is much more affordable. I talked to different people who represented their companies and found out that the prices start from $10k - for small simple quadcopters.

Developer Comment by Mark Colwell on May 27, 2011 at 12:44pm

Thanks, any news about hydrogen or solar power systems?

Moderator Comment by Kirill on May 28, 2011 at 12:23am

There were no planes with solar power system at all. However, there was one plane with hydrogen powered engine (you can see its photo in this blog post). I talked to its developers, they said it's just a project to test power system, actually, the plane has no stuff such as autopilot or video camera. I think, it will be difficult to set up any other equipment in this plane, because almost all inner space is reserved for power system.

Comment by Flávio Henrique P. de Oliveira on May 28, 2011 at 4:33am

does anyone know the website of the last quadcopter?

Developer Comment by Mark Colwell on May 28, 2011 at 9:39am

Thanks for show update, I suspected the H2 unit would be to heavy, but you have to start somewhere,It will only get better.

Maybe, lithium could be use as fuel someday, it is very energy dense, but not as dangerous as H2 or Sodium. Sorry to here that no solar plants were present.

We need a break thru in nano solar materials science that can amplify incoming photons for free.... and as a by product causes thermal cooling as electrons are ejected super fast as soon as they are created.

Moderator Comment by Kirill on May 29, 2011 at 11:27pm

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. An only reason of why there were no solar powered planes, I can suppose, is that it was mostly commercial exhibition aimed at companies' promotion, searching new customers and increasing sales. Actually, there were no research projects, just commercial.

However, I think some day solar or H2 powered planes will be used as wide as LiPo powered now.

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