I can't understand how a foam wing with a simple RTL autopilot (not including GoPro) costs $1,250, but that's what Lehmann Aviation from France is now offering. What am I missing?
From Gizmag:
Like the Swinglet CAM UAV, the LA100 follows a pre-programmed flight path, but unlike the Swinglet, the LA100's flight path can't be customized or overridden by remote control. This is because the aircraft is targeted specifically at users with no piloting background. After a few minutes of capturing footage from a height of 80 to 100 meters (262 – 328 ft) with no input from the user on the ground, the hand-launched LA100 returns to the launch site for a horizontal landing.
With the ability to fly at speeds of 20 to 80 km/h (12 – 50 mph) for periods of up to five minutes, the LA100 has a range of up to 0.5 km (0.3 miles). It can also fly in winds of up to 45 km/h (28 mph) and in temperatures from -25° C to 60° C (-13° F to 140° F). The UAV has a wingspan of 92 cm (36 in) and length of 45 cm (18 in). Made mostly of foam and carbon fiber, the LA100 weighs around 850 g (30 oz), including a mounted GoPro camera.
A camera can be mounted on top of the wing to capture oblique images or at the bottom of the wing for vertical images. It can also fly with two GoPros on board at the same time. However, buyers will have to supply their GoPros as they aren't included in the purchase price.
The LA100 is priced at €990 (US$1,275) and will come ready to fly from December, 2012. Lehmann Aviation says it plans to roll out hardware and software upgrades for the LA100 on a regular basis.
The video below shows the LA100 and some of the aerial images captured with it.
LA100 UAV from Lehmann Aviation on Vimeo.
Comments
It's not much higher than a $500 arducopter.
Leigh, I don't at all question the reason why POV cameras are popular. I was a relatively early adopter too. But I went with the Contour. I use it in a lot of situations, and I have never ever wished that it was square. That's my point, just the shape of the thing.
Well, I also can't stand the video from the GoPro because there's way too much barrel distortion.
But the only advantage that I can see to the square shape is when using it on a chest rig, and I've never wanted to do that. I'm sure the video of my gas tank on my bike wouldn't be very interesting. ;)
As for the price of this airplane, I think some people are forgetting the cost of developing the software. How much would APM cost if you had to amortize the thousands and thousands of hours of developer time that went into the firmware at >$50/hour? Not to mention all the hardware that was crashed during development.
Compare this to the price of one of many other multi-rotor controllers or helicopter flybarless controllers. It's basically like you're buying a flight controller, with a cheap foam airplane thrown in for free. I'm not aware of any commercial airplane FC's with waypoint capability. But the DJI Wookong-M with multi-waypoint capability is $3000. And for TradHelis, the Ace One Multi-Waypoint system is a staggering $11,300. You can get an APM system flying a heli for about $400 total with Ardupilot.
All of a sudden this airplane doesn't sound so bad.
It's not that this, or any other flight controller is overpriced. It's that Ardupilot obviously benefits from the fact that the software is "free". Now, I don't mean to say that I plan to go out and buy one of these airplanes. I just think that people shouldn't be casting stones at others. Nobody should be pointing at other people's systems and saying "that's too expensive". There's a lot of work that goes into this stuff. And for sure, there's always people pointing at APM saying it's too expensive, because they can get the same thing made in China for $90.
If you weigh it's value, vs how much time you'd invest getting a DIY wing to do the same, I'd say its a deal. @Leigh, your wing took two hours, and $500; but for an entry level guy trying this blind, it would probably cost a couple grand in miscellaneous purchases, and countless hours of net-learning. What's that guys time worth?
$1200 for a turn-key solution isn't that bad, regardless of the simplicity of the hardware. The value is in what it does, without any time invested in it.
I have completed my UAV swift a few weeks ago. Apart from the black color, it looks (and probably is) exactly the same. I have a keychain #16 cam included (not the quality of the gopro, but much more aerodynamic).
I kept it under 250 euro, ready for autonomous flight.
Last week I programmed it to follow a course through some dirtroads and took my old dirtbike out of the shed. I launched the plane, had it make 2 loiter circles while I got on my bike and took off. It was difficult to follow at first, but when I got the hang of it,I passed it and it filmed me nicely while I was driving the bike, tx turned off in my backpack.
Travelled a total of 7.9km with 778mAh out of a 3S 1000mAh battery. At the endpoint the plane went into unlimited loiter, I got of the bike, took my tx, switched it on and landed the plane.
Heck, I can offer this for 500 euro if anyone wants :-)
If you look at the Lehmann homepage you can see that this system is basically a downgraded version of their other platforms which are able to be programmed with waypoints, telemetry etc.
It´s most likely they try to get into the "mass market" which seems to be developing...
I would guess they even do not make much profit with that system.
Man, this really highlights the tragedy of the GoPro form factor. A flying brick, literally in this case. I just don't understand why they lead the market, the shape is so terrible.
Looks like a high-tech boomerang to me. No RC at all, so it's basically like throwing a rogue drone in the air on purpose... Why didn't I think of that?
Notice surface texture, Many spots with new tire "hair", May act like shark shin to reduce drag ;-)
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