I sat down and made a sketch after i got the idea of making a full-size Y6 with an APM2.5 and Arducopter firmware :)

A MC like seat and maybe an Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 running AndroPilot or Droidplanner on the dashboard. Or maybe even Mission Planner. Just make a mission and go for a ride :)

This is the frame for the enignes and this will be covered by a Carbon fiber body.

I guess there will be some hard-core calculations for engine dimensions, weight and propellers. But imagine how cool it will be to ride this Air-Scooter in Stabilize or other modes!! Maybe this is an idea for a Kickstarter prosject??? I would love to start the building and testing of this future scooter! :-)

Everytime i launch my X8 it's never any problems. That was until i mounted a bigger propeller. I went from 13x6 to 14x9.5 and my plane "suddenly" went out of my hand much faster than before! The result is a painful hand and a lot of thinking :) Maybe some of you guys should think twice before you hand launch your new X8 or similar...

Now i'm considering several options:

1. Build a catapult

2. Hand launch engine off and throttle up after the wing has left my hand

3. Build a device where i can take off in a 30 deg. angle just by using the propeller power itself?

4. Any other ideas??

Here is a short video presentation of my Skywalker X8 UAV using 3g broadband internet for video and telemetry.

Onboard my X8 i have this ZTE MF60 3g/Wifi router which handles the communication for the APM2.5 and the Raspberry Pi model B. I didn't wanna use the Dronecell because i will place the load away from the APM2.5. I could have put a 3g USB adapter in my Raspberry Pi as well, but the Pi have more than enough to do transcoding the video-stream, so i use a Cisco Wifi USB adapter in my Pi to communicate with the 3g router and GCS.

The telemetry from my APM2.5 is sent to a Serial 2 Wifi converter which then is connected via Wifi to the 3g router. I then connect to my APM2.5 using TCP from Mission Planner.

The Raspberry Pi are using VLC Player for Linux to transcode the videostream from the Microsoft Lifecam webcamera to a resolution of 352x288 at 500kbit/s and 10 fps. If you want to use the same solution just change the hostname and port to you needs in the command below. I use Dynamic DNS (client configured in my Raspbery Pi) since mye 3g router gets a dynamic IP adress on every new connection.

Command in the Pi for starting videostream:

"sudo -u pi vlc-wrapper -I dummy -vvv v4l2:///dev/video0 :v4l2-width=352 :v4l2-height=288 :v4l2-fps=10 :sout='#transcode{vcodec=MJPG,vb=500,fps=10,scale=1,width=352,height=288,acodec=none}:std{mux=ts,access=udp{ttl=10},dst=mydyndnshostname.domain.no:2000}' :sout-all :sout-keep"

At my GCS i start VLC using this command in a .CMD file to recieve the video from the X8 and re-stream it to the Mission Planner:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" udp://@226.0.1.150:2000 --sout=#transcode{vcodec=MJPG,vb=500,fps=10,scale=1,width=352,height=288,acodec=none}:duplicate{dst=http{mux=mpjpeg,dst=:8080/},dst=display} :sout-all :sout-keep

In Mission Planner you just enter "http://localhost:8080" in the "SET MJPEG Source" when right-clicking the Hud. I have a 6GB per month dataplan in my 3g router and my calculations says that this can give me more than 52 hours of videostream. My sim card is a non-firewalled APN.

For now everything is powered from a MaxAmps 11000mah LIPO  This is a high capasity battery and the weight is only 825gram. My plan is to have 2 of those in my X8 for a really long range flight.

Right now i'm using a Sanwa 35mHz radio, but i waiting for my Turnigy 9XR and 433mHz modules from Hobbyking. I don't use 2.4gHz because of the 2.4gHz in my 3g router.