Posted by Gary Mortimer on January 4, 2010 at 12:55pm
A dozen aspiring pilots at the University of North Dakota can't wait to never get off the ground. Following a shifting military strategy that calls for more and more unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supporting troops on the ground, U. of ND is offering the first four-year degree for UAV pilots hoping to take the sticks in a field expected to swell to a $20 billion industry over the next decade.http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-01/u-north-dakota-offers-first-four-year-degree-uav-pilotingHow does it affect you at DIYdrones I wonder????Well it means the FAA will have a civilian qualification to ask for when you ask to fly commercially in the future perhaps? Europe is beginning to slowly pull ahead in allowing commercial UAS in regulated airspace, not far not high at the moment, but its starting.Airlaw changed in the UK in December and no doubt similar things are happening in other parts of the EU.I was thinking about adding a post about SOP's we are currently writing ours for UK and RSA, should DIYdrones Ardupilot users not have standard operating procedures that follow good practice and encourage safety??
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on December 29, 2009 at 3:01am
This gets ever more grown up, well worth a look......Here is our unofficial and unauthorized Attopilot-compatible GCS. It is free and open source, and features:Standard "T" flight instrument layout.Standard aviation industry units.Over twice as fast as the official GCS replaying log files, and a similar level of performance improvement with live telemetry.Integrates with Google Earth to provide realtime UAV tracking.Generates time-stamped KML files from live telemetry or log files (or parts thereof).Smooth, precision graphics with simulated instrument inertia to enhance readability and reduce operator fatigue.A useable attitude indicator - fast and smooth.High-contrast colours for outdoor use.Adjustable font sizes, zoomable display.Tightly integrated with the Failsafe PTZ, providing joystick control of pan, tilt, zoom and trigger.Able to continuously monitor telemetry link integrity.NEW: Speech synthesis for enhanced situational awareness - watch your UAV instead of a computer screen.NEW: Choice of metric units. Can even have a combination of aviation and metric units.http://www.millswoodeng.com.au/fd_gcs.htmlRead more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on December 24, 2009 at 2:07am
There must be several countries just about to start the big day now!!Safe travelling for those heading out to see family.I hope Santa brings whatever part from Sparkfun that you wanted ;-)CheersG
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on December 20, 2009 at 2:00am
Anybody flown one of these, small but interesting looking, covers the ROG thing that lots of people seem to want.http://www.alienaircraft.com/k105.htmBigger would be better, but then somebody could scale it up ;-)
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on November 29, 2009 at 12:34am
Chris might pull this post down fast when he sees it!!I am getting increasingly angry at the attitude of UNAV towards Ardupilot, most people know I don't use an Ardupilot, I'm not clever enough to put one together, but I like the project.http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1030817&page=19I will let you guys read and decide.
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on November 22, 2009 at 9:47pm
I can't tell you exactly where it is, but I can tell you there are only 75 in South Africa and we managed to fly bang over the top of it at first attempt yesterday.There is a good reason for only posting a low res image as well.All in all a very exciting use for sUAS in Africa and exactly what we set out to do. There will be stacks of environmental uses for sUAS
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on November 8, 2009 at 10:26am
Had a very pleasant afternoon picnicking and an Atto flight in the Kamberg, take off at 6500' on a hot day.The flying wing goes a little quicker in the thin air!Deep joy.
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 25, 2009 at 10:24pm
Very lucky last week to get the chance to fly one of these fantastically scfi machines. The chaps were over from Germany on a UK tour and I somehow cracked an invite.
Thats all of us looking very serious, I think an important thing to note is that there were four real helicopter pilots there!
That's the venue.For 18,000 euros you certainly get a capable machine that was very easy to fly in some wind, it was at least 15 knots above the trees and the machine just stayed pinned where you left it in the sky.I took the chance to maiden a slightly different Manta as I think I may have mentioned elsewhere ;-)
Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 23, 2009 at 3:43pm
Its got tilt, and records, but no video out as far as I can tell, could be wrong.But it does have a continuous mode, if it takes good enough images it might be worth a punt for stitches, but I'm guessing it will be as equally horrid as those that came before.Slightly more infoThey seem so close to making a useful product!
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 7, 2009 at 11:07am
Not long left to enter round two, the round of doom! Only three entrants so far!Above the league table combining scores for rounds one and two, Bill and Chris have an identical time this month so I think equal points are the only fair way to go.
Read more…Moderator
Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 5, 2009 at 9:52am
As I fly lots of airframes I thought it might be a good idea to have a standalone tracker, so I put an Xbee in a box with a EM406 and its own battery. Very simple to setup using the meshing Xbees, makes me wonder if I added another and put it on a pole at a distance if it would not make a simple repeater, does anybody know.Having its own power means that it will continue working should there be any issues with the airframes power, that does mean quite a bit of weight though.So far I have only completed walking tests and the range appears to be about 350m, if that gets upto 500 when one of them is in the air then I will be happy it will do what I need.After following these instructions http://www.humboldt.edu/~cm19/XBee%20setup.pdf to setup the two Xbees.I found Earth Bridge to listen to the GPS and interface with Google Earth.
Posted by Gary Mortimer on October 2, 2009 at 9:13am
Still a couple of weeks to run on this round which other than for a few brave souls seems to have proved impossible!Next time lets try and break that Stanford record in 300' steps. If you don't have a clue what I'm on about, watch the video above and listen to the guys from Stanford on the Podcast for some advice.G
Read more…
