I've decided its time to get serious. I've announced my new 5 year project: To fly an RC airplane 3,000 miles to cross the United States.Most of the flight will be FPV style, but 90% of the trip will be made with an auto-pilot engaged. I'm going to be looking to you all for awesome code/content to help me make this journey.Check out the announcement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKcQ_gBB_Lk
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Epic. Cross state legality will probably slow progress for this but once you get support and attention I hope people will rally to your cause.
3,000 miles is quite long :) but are you intending to do it in one trip or stages?
Most of the autopilots out are now up to doing this but For 3,000 miles might be difficult. Your focus needs to be on efficiency of the airframe. If your can get that optimised then you will go further faster per hour.
Composite construction, glider-esque design is what your airframe needs to be but fitting the autopilot could be difficult. In particularly thin circumstances you could use the an open source autopilot such as APM to re-develop it into the form factor you require enabling you to use the codebase without worry and still fit it all in.
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I am very interested in the entrepreneurship side of this project.
Hope you go the distances ( I mean the learning and the milage).
I will fallow your work with interest. You have my vote on this ....
3,000 miles is quite long :) but are you intending to do it in one trip or stages?
Most of the autopilots out are now up to doing this but For 3,000 miles might be difficult. Your focus needs to be on efficiency of the airframe. If your can get that optimised then you will go further faster per hour.
Composite construction, glider-esque design is what your airframe needs to be but fitting the autopilot could be difficult. In particularly thin circumstances you could use the an open source autopilot such as APM to re-develop it into the form factor you require enabling you to use the codebase without worry and still fit it all in.