About

Gender

Male


Location

Conroe, TX


About Me:

I am a personal aviation entrepreneur dedicated to the proposition that flying is the ultimate expression of freedom. An electronics engineer by education and early career, I was active in the data storage industry for a long time. But my first love has always been aviation, having passed my private pilot check ride 4 days after my 17th birthday.


Please tell us a bit about your UAV interest

It's ironic that coming from the data storage industry, my job was to preach the benefits of having redundancy and fault-tolerance. "If it moves, it fails." Regular helicopters rely on achieving and maintaining mechanical perfection for reliability. What if they were designed more like enterprise storage systems? THEY CAN BE.


Hometown:

Chicago Suburbs


Activity Feed

Brad Hughey replied to Kate's discussion Flight time vs. battery life
"Charles Linquist said:
2. Use larger props, which are more efficient and will lift more grams per Watt.  20" props can get you 10g / Watt. But don't forget that the larger frame and props will add weight.  You won't be able to fly as fast, either.…"
May 3, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"@Peter Dobber - You've made an excellent point . The bottom line: how to achieve lifting platform reliability?
Conventional single-rotor helicopters are reliable because they set a goal of attaining and maintaining mechanical perfection. Think of a…"
Apr 30, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"@ George Kelly - Part 103 is a beautiful thing indeed. Keep it under 254 pounds empty, don't fly it like an idiot, and all is OK with the g-men regulators. That's subject to change, of course, at the first incident caused by a sufficiently talented…"
Apr 29, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"Rob!Thanks for your kind words. I've been focusing on my day job for a while to continue my self-funding. In this thread I have tried to stay in the theoretical realm. Talking about what I am (or anyone else is) planning to do would just spur a…"
Apr 29, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"@John C Hansen - You're asking a lot of good questions, but at the heart of the matter is the universal engineering axiom: compromises must be made. The two essential attributes of an airfoil shape are the coefficients of lift and drag. The Cl…"
Apr 28, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"@Gary McCray - Thank you for your kind words, Gary. When it comes to control, it's poles and zeros, baby, poles and zeros. For a time I was working on a passive variable pitch prop, but the IP protection ecosystem is truly crowded with players. When…"
Apr 27, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"@John C Hansen

Nobody hijacked anything; it was a technical discussion from the start, not a marketing one. My assertion was (and still is) that for a given disk loading, an electric multicopter can have a higher FM than a single-rotor helicopter…"
Apr 25, 2017
Brad Hughey replied to Marcos Costa's discussion 30lbs Thrust Quadcopter - Motor and Propeller
"Thank you for your kind words, Chris. Yes, I have thought about this.
Control authority is all about how much of the total thrust you can change and how fast. Consider the case of a conventional cyclic-pitch-controlled helicopter as an example.
A…"
Jan 9, 2016
Brad Hughey commented on John Arne Birkeland's blog post Just a normal day in the park
"Here is a link to Dr. Pounds' excellent paper on the subject:
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/33767/1/33767.pdf
Based on rather rigorous mathematical analysis of quadrotor dynamics, his conclusion is "...the system exhibits an unstable oscillation when…"
Sep 6, 2015
Brad Hughey commented on John Arne Birkeland's blog post Just a normal day in the park
"Just for the record, I am convinced that commercialized manned electric multicopter flight isn't just possible - it is inevitable. I too applaud the intrepid souls who are pioneering this area. They are heralding the future. However, if you study…"
Sep 6, 2015
Brad Hughey commented on John Arne Birkeland's blog post Just a normal day in the park
"Here's another example of the fact that there's more to a large-scale electric multicopter design than merely having enough thrust vectors to add together. The basic problem is rotational inertia, of both the propellers and the airframe. As Mr.…"
Sep 5, 2015
Brad Hughey replied to Jochem de Vries's discussion Reading material for multirotor systems?
"Hello and Welcome Jochem,
This will get you started:
Basic Rotorcraft Aerodynamics
The dynamics of control are well spelled out here:
Paul Pounds Modelling and Control...
My favorite reference text:
Dr. Leishman's _Principles of Helicopter…"
Jun 25, 2015
Brad Hughey replied to Michal Rus's discussion Quadcopter with down facing motors/props
"Thanks. I just saw this. Yes, Dr. Pound's conclusion is that a center of mass just slightly above the lifting plane yields the best dynamic control configuration. The primary mission for the engineer is to make design compromises based not on theory…"
May 26, 2015
Brad Hughey replied to Brad Hughey's discussion The Case for Large-Scale Electric Multicopters
"Hi Gary,
Thank you for your kind words. I have not been very active the last two years due to budget and personal considerations, like the logistics of moving from Illinois to Texas. But I have far from given up. In fact, I am more convinced that…"
May 24, 2015
Brad Hughey replied to Thomas Stanley-Jones's discussion 16 Motors?
"The theory is all summed up here. Assume a FM of .60 to get started. Your mileage may vary.
Lifting With Propellers - The Real Math Deal"
May 20, 2015
Brad Hughey replied to Kate's discussion Flight time vs. battery life
"Thank you, Gary.  You're too kind."
Jun 3, 2014
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