First: This build can be followed in detail at: http://dzlsevilgeniuslair.blogspot.dk/

Long time ago I bought all the gear needed to build a small quad. I was really busy at the time so they ended up in a box and was quickly forgotten. The other day they reemerged and rather than just putting them away again i decided to quickly throw them together, at least they could sit on the wall and look cool.

I did not have any frame so i quickly lasered one out of plywood:

My intention was not to build an actually flying model, rather a fancy rack for the gear, so I made it quite small to save space on the wall. After mounting the gear I felt encouraged to take it a bit further so I actually connected everything and took it for at spin.

It actually worked pretty well so I thought that now it is a flying model the arms should be a bit longer and there should be some more features.

Really satisfied with the result both look and flying wice I coulden't stop there and made a camera pod

All in all I am surprices that what started as a quick and dirty jub turned out really well.

After going over a lot of projects here on DIYDrones I realized that there are not a lot of projects involving thrust vector vehicle control.

Inspired by among others the guys at Armadillo and by following my local heroes at CopenhagenSuborbitals I decided to master the technique of balancing a vehicle on a column of exhaust, wither it being air, rocket blast, water jet or something completely different.

Here is one of my initial experiments the Reactive Control Test Platform:

The RCTP uses 3 vanes, spaced 120 degrees apart, to direct the airflow from a single propeller. The on board IMU (ArduIMU V2) receives input from a RC system (Multiplex EVO 9 with Scherrer UHF) and regulates the thrust vector to maintain a pitch, roll and yaw attitude commanded by the RC transmitter.

Why 3 vanes? ... beacuse it is more of a challange :)

All RC signal reception, inertial processing, data logging and servo output are handled by the the ArduIMU V2 on board processor.

The TCTP MK I and II is a pre-study for a bigger and more advanced vehicle that will simulate an ascending rocket.

More pictures and videos of this and other projects on this blog:

http://dzlsevilgeniuslair.blogspot.com/

I am very interested to hear form people that have any experience with similar aircrafts.