Posted by Gareth Jones on January 11, 2013 at 3:42am
Hi
I'm looking at purchasing an Arducopter for some basic aerial surveys. What I would like to know, is it possible to get a flight time of approximately 40min-1 hour with a pay-load of about 700-900g.
Thanks,
Gareth
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There are folks with near an hour flight time but that's with a payload of only batteries. Longer flight times are possible if using batteries sequentially and dropping depleted batteries to reduce the payload. Realistic expectations for the typical copter is between 10 and 20 minutes. This isn't 100% accurate but it can give you ballpark numbers for different configurations.
To get up to an hour of flight is a lot. Most of the quads or hex copters get something like 15 or 20 minutes of flight. My hex with about 400g of extra equipment like a camera and gimbal and I get about 11 minutes of flight with a 5000mAh 3S battery. You can get an hour of flight but you'll need either a custom built or expensive commercial built Octcopter.
Replies
There are folks with near an hour flight time but that's with a payload of only batteries. Longer flight times are possible if using batteries sequentially and dropping depleted batteries to reduce the payload. Realistic expectations for the typical copter is between 10 and 20 minutes. This isn't 100% accurate but it can give you ballpark numbers for different configurations.
http://www.ecalc.ch/xcoptercalc_e.htm