A few weeks ago I visited a ship that's been anchored in Table Bay with my Swift II FPV.
After reading up on the crew's plight, I thought it might lift their spirits if I fly out to them and drop a few care packages (peanuts & raisins / crisps & a message encouragement) with my Skywalker & APM. I invited some friends to the occasion and Glen was kind enough to document it. Hopefully it helps to show the overwhelmingly positive potential of drones.
update: Another drop on the E Whale:
Congrats to Adam Conway from Aerohive on his interview with Robert Scoble about his very DIY ArduCopter+Wifi creation!
Scoble post here.
When I gain 14 more youtube subscribers youtube will allow me to use their Live Feed Feature. When that happens i'm going to start posting 4-6 live stream youtube sessions a week. The subjects of the Live Casts will include tutorials on how to use free CAD software to make blueprints/schematics for your drone projects. The Live Sessions are going to be predetermined for the week and anyone who is interested is more then welcome to join the sessions and voice your opinions on a variety of subjects and also if your new to drones you will enjoy my Live Tutorials on Drones for beginners! Live youtube sessions allow for Live Viewers to engage in live chat with me and other users while my Live Casts is in session. It also saves all the conversation/chat to be read at a later time.
I was asked on the 'Advances in Airspeed Handling' forum to give more info on this, so here is some practical info on Pitot tubes and sense piping for Airdata measurement systems.
In general, strategically located air inlet ports are required to sense both static and dynamic air systems, feeding said pressures to the relevant sensors.
Static pressure sensing is used to compute the Barometric Altitude, and must be as immune to airflow as possible.
Dynamic pressure is related to the flow of air at the inlet of the dynamic pressure sensor, as induced by the aircraft motion through the air. This pressure is very small for low air speeds ( sub 40m/s, say) and is measured by a differential sensor. Such a sensor has both ports exposed to the static ambient air, with one port having the pressure caused by movement added to the ambient pressure. This way a low pressure sense element can be used to sense the difference between static and dynamic pressures. However, any variation on the static port input side will be seen by the sensor as a change in differential pressure, and a change in calculated airspeed will result.
It is therefore important to ensure that the static pressure sensed does not vary due to aircraft attitude, wind and wind direction, etc. Measured static pressure should only vary as a result of altitude and temperature.
These requirements place considerable constraints on the design and location of the air inlet ports for both airdata sources.
The dynamic inlet port is normally a suitably shaped orifice, facing the oncoming air. This orifice is a hole into a tube, the tip of which is rounded to coax the oncoming air to neatly part without creating vortices at the inlet. At low air speeds the 'rounding' is not critical - a hemisphere the diameter of the tube is acceptable. At high airspeeds the shape is critical, becoming more pointed. The dynamic port is most accurate at an angle directly facing the oncoming air. Pitching or yawing the tube in the oncoming air reduces the resultant pressure with ensuing airspeed changes.
The static pressure ports are normally orifices directly side on the the airflow. These are often combined co axially in a Pitot-Static Tube, with the holes spaced evenly around the circumference of the tube, at least 10 to 15 tube diameters rearwards of the probe tip. To close to the tip results in tip vortices affecting the static pressure at the hole entrances.
Such a tube can be located in the wing tip or in the fuselage nose ( pusher prop) but the static port holes must be at least 40 to 50 tube diameters from the wing leading edge or fuse nose, to not be affected by the airflow.
The picture below shows a working tube, the larger diameter one. The thinner diameter tube static sensing performance is poor due to the static inlet holes being far to close to the tip.
The static inlet holes are spaced around the tube so that the aiflow 'balances' out when the tube is not facing directly into the airflow, eg, when pitching or yawing, or with side winds. Higher pitch/yaw angles do however result in erroneous measurements.
An alternative static air sense port can be located directly on the straight sides of the fuselage, preferably two ports directly opposite each other, and joined in a T.
These pictures show the making of such a tube setup:
This is the long tube, the end of which will be flush with the fuselage sides. left and right. The nick in the middle is where the hole will be, into which the T tube is soldered.
This is the T Tube, with the scalloped end.
These are the two tubes tinned and ready for soldering
Now soldered together:
This T assembly is inserted into the fuselage, from the insight, left or right side first, and then bonded in place with the ends of the tube flush with the left and right side of the fuselage. The T piece is then piped to the static and dynamic sensors.
The tube ends MUST be on a regular surface part of the fuselage, ie, not directly behind or in front of any protrusions, bumps , landing gear, etc. Also not on a tapered part of the fuselage. All these will cause vortices and pressure variations at the tube tips, rendering measurements worthless. The principle relies on a smooth airflow past the tube orifices, and if any side wind is experienced, the air enters one hole and exits the other, with little or no pressure change in the T part of the tube.
This is a picture of my SurVoyeur aircraft fuselage, showing 3 positions where I placed this tube to do measurements to see effects of the chosen position.
Location 1 is no good - was on the tapered part of the fuse and pressure changed with airspeed.
Location 2 is good, on the flat portion, and forward of the landing gear vertical struts.
Location 3 is no good - it is on the flat portion, but the landing gear vertical stut ( only 5mm thick) creates sufficient disturbance to cause significant variation of pressure with airspeed ( of the order of 0.3mbar - 1mbar = approx 8meters .)
If anyone is interested in more detailed info, let me know.
Joe
The Nampilot.
Governmental use of unmanned surveillance drones has inspired a lot of concern about privacy, but Bogota City Mayor Gustavo Petro thinks the battle's already over. In a TV interview days ago, Petro said essentially that drones are an inevitable part of our future, comparing them to the thousands of cameras already located around Bogota.
The Mayor Petro, said that city will have a pilot program with aircraft of medium and small size, which according to results would be integrated into the security system of Bogotá.
Petro said that in 6 weeks would be delivered to the city the results of these studies allowed to know the effectiveness of the system.
"At the end of these studies if we report efficiency, will be an important part of our system 123(emergency line in Colombia), Civil Emergency System Security," said Mayor Petro.
The Mayor of the Colombia Capital city said that the UAV are tools that help you to: urban perimeter monitoring, emergency support system, search and rescue, monitoring the traffic of the city, massive event monitoring.
"In addition to help us with maps and mapping, in monitoring the proliferation of waste, efficiency environmental monitoring, environmental damage," said the Petro.
Finally, the Mayor said that with this technology can support the work of organizations such as: fire, police, mobility and other.
In the other hand Tecscorp CEO, company to assist the mayoralty to develop this test plan commented that the system chosen for this work will be a new version of the UAV Chronos, which has not yet been launched to the market. In the presentation to the media Tecscorp used his pilot training module, it is expected that in the course of the next few days is to unveil the new system. Messino also said that advances in the development of new and better aircraft to meet various applications and are working closely with the authorities to meet all the technical and legal issues that are required.
This is it... all of FrSky Taranis batch #1 packaged and all ready for Canada Post pickup!
Also got to meet a lot of you for local pickup, it was busy! For one night it felt like HobbyKing in here (all remaining units exceeding the pre-orders got sold in 14 minutes after the very late newsletter!) Thanks again!
I know a lot of you (if not all of you) waited quite a long time for this shipment, well FrSky fixed the gimbal issues from test batch 1 (shipped to USA but not Canada) and now this is the time for us to also get our hands on some updated/revised units. I did test them out and no more gimbal sticking off center.
There is still a small buzzing sound on the speaker, apparently there is a Cap/reisstor? fix... (post it if you know, hard to stay up to date and ship at the same time!)
The demand is still crazy but this will satisfy quite a few customers!
For those of you who have already started to tweak and mod your Taranis Radio, please post your settings, firmware update or tweaks that you applied! I did not see a lot of threads around here but I know there is a very long one on RCGroups. Would be nice to see some here too!
Get on the Batch #2 pre-order list
Dany
Canadian company - Rinnovated Design has created an innovative concept, that is really worth seeing. Their original approach to the matter allows creators to offer a printer for no more tha $100. By the use of blender software, sound card (!) and dripping water (!!) owners will be able to print 3D parts, that are cheap as they possibly can.
more info:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117421627/the-peachy-printer-the-first-100-3d-printer-and-sc
I really like the approach of Rinnovated Design, completely out of the box thinking. It's a pitty that they don't develop drones. They could over come some present personal drones development issues :)
See for your self:
Sory if my post isn't top quality. It's my first one and English is not my main language. Anyway, hope you like the finding! :)
Hi all,
The recently released SF02 laser "altimeter" from http://lightware.co.za/ has sparked a lot of discussion in the forum thread here. I asked if I could get a sample to review, and to use on my gas powered 100cc homemade drone. They said yes, and promptly shipped one to me, so here is my first (ground based) review. I'm not affiliated with the company in any way, and they have not read nor approved (nor disapproved) of this review. If I get anything wrong, I am sure they will clarify in the comments section!
Frankly I was doubtful whether it would work very well at all. The laser it uses is a class 1M, which means it is less powerful than most cheap laser pointers on the market, which are mostly class 2 or above. But I was assured that the secret was in the sensitive receiver optics and electronics, which meant that the power of the laser could be limited to a very low (and safe) level.
Now I use the word "altimeter" in quotation marks, because it's not an altimeter. It's more of an electronic tape measure. Point it anywhere, and it will shoot off a small infra-red laser. The time it takes for the laser light to be received is then calculated into a distance, which can be read using a serial port, USB or analog voltage. So it could be used as an altimeter, an object detector, or more intriguingly, it could be mounted on a servo and be used as a crude 2D laser range finder. It takes 12 readings per second, so that should be good enough on a slow moving servo.
Make no mistake, this is a Time of Flight (TOF) device. It measures the time it takes for the beam to bounce back. So unlike those cheap IR distance measures, it does not depend on an angle measurement, and the distance error should not be any different for close or far objects. Also, as it doesn't use sonar (sound waves) it should work over far longer distances and in many varied conditions and varied surfaces.
Opening the box, I was pleased to see a very professional bit of kit. The PCB is surface mount, and double loaded. (components on both sides). One side has a very large and powerful Actel SmartFusion Arm processor, and the other side has mostly sticky-tape components and some regulators. Pinouts are through a very small 10 way screw terminal header. Not the best option for my vibration prone plane, but I can always solder to the pins directly and run a hard wired cable lead to the connector of my choice.
You can see in the photo above, that the business end of the PCB which houses the laser diode, and pickup, is sandwitched with the optics assembly. There is a good 10mm of PCB overlapping the optics assembly. The result is a very rugged union which suggests the designer spent some time making sure that the board would stand up to a bit of abuse.
The LightWare software for USB control installed quickly and without fuss. I plugged in the SF02 and hit connect. Immediately the screen filled with a string of measurements. The software also allows simple datalogging recording to a text file, and some other parameters can be changed, but nothing very interesting.
So I started pointing it at things around the room, and the SF02 had no issues at measuring any surface I could find. I thought I could trick it with surfaces that had a 45 degree angle, or a shiny metallic surface, but it didn't have a problem with any of them. So with my plane still being about a week away from its maiden flight, I thought I would strap the SF02 to my car and drive around taking distance measurements.
The following video shows the SF02 mounted to the side of my car. I think it is a good test of what a copter or fixed wing plane would see as it rushed past varying terrain. Actually, since there are a lot of shiny cars, glass windows, and the chance of direct sunlight, not to mention bushes and trees, I think it could be classified as an extreme test.
For those that are interested in crunching the data, you can see in the video when I hit "log data" and when I hit "stop logging data". If you are nerdy enough, you can play back the data at the corresponding rate of the video, and you can therefore measure the distance to everything that I pass.
Here is the measurement data t1.txt.
And here is the video:
It was a nice sunny day today, so perfect weather to see if the sun had any influence on the measurements.
Results: Very good. Where you see a "--" in the data, the sensor did not receive enough photons to trigger a calculation. This occurs often, but not enough to be a problem. There is a longer stretch of bad data as I drive along the beach, where obstacles are more than 40m away. There are two problems that I see: The range of 40m is probably just ok for a copter, but not enough for a plane. Our laws here in Australia allow RC flights up to 400 feet altitude, so I would like to have a sensor that would be able to do that sort of distance. Naturally that may mean a more powerful laser that may then require eye protection, but maybe there is a nice tricky way of souping up the existing laser and optics to stay within the safety limits as well as having about 100m range?
The second problem is that I could not get the SF02 to work well through glass. It would work, but the range and reliability was severely reduced. Being in a gasoline powered plane, I would have liked for it to work through glass so that it would be protected from the elements, oil, gasoline, and dirt.
All in all, a great bit of kit. I see its use best as an aid in auto-landings and FPV landings, where a precise altitude could be used to flare just before touchdown. I'm also very surprised to see it works very well detecting complex structures such as bushes, leaves, grass... Thanks to Laser Developer for sending me the sample!
I'll have my drone up in the air soon, and hopefully (if it doesn't crash on it's maiden,) I'll have some more data from the air. I'll see if I can write a text to speech program for real time altitude updates, similar to what airliners use as they come in to land! That would be cool. I'm also interested in what tasks others are putting the SF02 to work in. Leave a comment!
I think this is a first: drone monitoring via smartwatch! Kevin Hester, the Andropilot, is adding support for the cool Pebble smartwatch. It's a sunlight-readable watch that works with your smartphone. I've got one and love it.
Right now it just displays GCS data and status, but some limited control from the watch may be possible, too. So cool!
Here's a shot of the Iris production line, with some of the first batch of Developer Editions getting ready to go out last week. The first shipments started on Friday. They come in a cool box -- here's mine, which just arrived!
The Iris Developer Edition is for users who want the first hands-on experience with our next-gen autopilot, Pixhawk, and the suite of upgraded technologies, from software to radios, that are at the core of Iris. As part of this Developer program, these brave early users have access to a special support and feedback list, where they will be working directly with the engineers and software developers to ensure that the ultimate consumer experience is as good as possible. They'll also get a discount on the Iris Consumer Edition, which should be out before Thanksgiving (mid-Nov).
As these first Iris Developer units reach customers, we'll start revealing more of what's inside them and the full suite of technologies, from cross-platform ground stations and mobile apps to autopilot controlled camera gimbals, that are coming as part of the new Iris/Pixhawk platform. This reflects more than a year of development and is designed to combine fly-out-of-the-box ease of use with the power of real UAV autonomy, allowing a totally new experience in aircraft control.
Thanks in advance to the Developer Edition users, whose input will be invaluable in polishing off any rough edges and otherwise ensuring that the Iris Consumer Edition will arrive ready for everyone, expert or not.
I was sorry to see that the SkyDrone long-range FPV radio project didn't make their $80,000 Indiegogo target (they just got to $30,000), but encouraged to hear from the team that they're going to continue with the product anyway and are sticking to their end-2013 target. This could be an excellent solution to bringing high-def video and two-way telemetry to mobile devices without additional ground hardware.
Very cool. Now let's see how it handles the transitions to/from forward flight.
Ferdinand aka. EndOfDays did it again!
His latest project is an X8 with 8x T-Motor U8 with 29" propellers.
To test the motors' performance and efficiency, he fixed up an X4 quad frame from aluminum. His first test was already impressive: 4kg frame, 4kg batteries (8S) and 4kg payload = 12kg TOW - overall flight time: 44 minutes.
Follow his progress on RC Groups: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1994599
This is the quad that a friend and i are working now.
Its a Turnigy Thalon quad frame, with some mods. It has a pvc tubing landing gear.
Motors are NTM 3530 prop
drive.
FC: Naza-M with GPS
ESC HK 40 A opto esc.
It is equiped with the gopro black edition.
battery its 4s 5.8 Ah, zippy compact
I am getting 9 minutes of flight time.
The AUW its 2 kg
or
?
Hi, when i fly multirotors one of my main worries is to avoid it from crashing. Mechanically I've practically solved it because I usually fly an octocopter (motor, prop and ESC redundancy). My main concern right now is how to power the flight controller safely.
Initially I've connect all my 8 linear becs (in parallel) to my flight controller because I thought that if one fails, the rest would supply the required power. Later on I found out that a linear regulator may fail and may supply voltages higher than 5v and that would burn the flight controller.
A fuse is the easiest approach to solve this but I've read that sometimes it doesn't work well (fast enough). So i found the Crowbar Circuit.
So, i would use 2 linear BECs for redundancy and the crowbar circuit after each of the becs so in case it fails it will not burn the flight controller:
Another option:
I had the idea to use a switching BEC but i don't know if it's the best alternative. I've read that you cannot put 2 switching BECs in parallel because the voltage is generated in waves that may interference each other. So to solve this, one switching bec would be in use and if it fails, the backup switching BEC would take place.
The diagram for this is shown below:
If the SBEC number 1 fails, the Schottky diode would alternate to the SBEC number 2. I think that using 2 diodes would be better for the redundancy (i don't know if it's ok to do that). Could I use a relay instead of this diode?
What do you guys think? Will it work? Any idea is very welcome! ;D
Does anybody have the part list to do a crowbar circuit for the APM? I think it should supply 5v and 500mA, is that right?
Best regards
Woohoo!
Ok, upgraded my TBS Disco to 4S today, along with CF 955 props from RCtimer (balanced). Since I also had it in pieces the other week to change from Moongel to Zeal, I thought I'd better re-run compassmot.
And got 0% again! I had expected a worsening of the score, given the increased voltage, but no - I ran it 4 times, and got 0% on all tests. Ran throttle all the way to 100%, pausing for 5 seconds at each 10% increment (only 955 on MP, so my throttle radio calibration needs re-run) and all was well!
*Note: Picture is from very first test when I stopped halfway through...I managed to delete the "full throttle" one (taken on 3rd run) instead of this one <facepalm>.
Hello All,
I have had the great pleasure to talk to the guys from RangeVideo and hear their story regarding the RVJET they have created.
Enjoy.
1st post. Nothing novel revealed, but it's friggin CBS, the big league. Personally would have been ecstatic just to get that close to Molly Wood.
http://portlandtribune.com/pt/11-features/161579-flight-plan-set-for-diy-drones
by: PHOTO BY JONATHAN HOUSE - Patrick Sherman, left, catches the drone, while Brian Zvaigzne, holding the goggles and the controller, looks on. The two men were flying the drone near a natural area in Wilsonville.
Patrick Sherman and Brian Zvaigzne want to make a couple of things clear about their drone.
First, they fly drones as a hobby, not a business. Sherman and Zvaigzne don’t get paid for any of the activities they engage in. (It’s an important distinction).
Second, they are not spying on anyone on the ground. “Our drone can’t see through walls or windows, and it cannot hear what you are saying,” Zvaigzne says, noting that drones sound like “flying lawnmowers,” so they are not going to be sneaking up on people.
The two Tigard residents and drone hobbyists plan to make a zany presentation titled, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Drones,” at 11 a.m. Saturday at Portland’s Mini Maker Faire in OMSI’s north parking lot.
Sherman is an administrative analyst for the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Zvaigzne is a small-business owner.
Although they have a website, www.Roswellflighttestcrew.com, Sherman and Zvaigzne say because they aren’t paid for flying the drone, they do not need a license from the Federal Aviation Agency to fly the radio-controlled aircraft, but they must follow certain guidelines.
Portland’s Mini Maker Faire Saturday and Sunday is a “showcase of invention and creativity,” says Andrea Middleton, OMSI events director.
Middleton noted that the event is called a “mini faire,” because the original Maker Faire in the San Francisco area features 800 to 1,000 makers.
What has impressed her most about the more than 100 participants in the Portland event is “the sheer variety. We have robots, rockets and crafts — we even have a guy who has wrapped his car in yarn.”
The event is family friendly, and will be enjoyed by late elementary school and high school students and adults, she says.
Sherman says that after their presentation Saturday morning, the two men will set up their equipment and give people “drone rides,” by letting them put on goggles and follow the drone’s progress as it flies over the Willamette River.
They are expecting a group of like-minded people to be at the OMSI event, Zvaigzne says, adding that the faire will be made up of “extreme do-it-yourself people. If you can make it, people are doing it.”
by: TIMES PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE - Brian Zvaigzne and Patrick Sherman have used the drone they built to aid first responders and perform scientific research.
Zvaigzne and Sherman first became serious about radio-controlled aircraft about two-and-a-half years ago. They built their “hexicopter,” a six-rotor helicopter, from scratch, using a bright yellow upturned Rubbermaid mixing bowl, six motors, propellers, a flight controller and other components, most of which were purchased online.
“A couple of years ago, local hobby shop owners looked at us funny when we asked about parts, but now they stock them,” Zvaigzne says.
The craft is powered by a lithium-polymer battery that is standard for radio-controlled cars and airplanes, Zvaigzne says, adding that their drones can fly five to 10 minutes before the battery needs to be recharged.
A key component of their drone is a camera, made by FLIR Systems, the Wilsonville company that began making infrared-imaging systems in 1978. Many fire departments across the nation use FLIR cameras to find people trapped in burning buildings.
“We are incredibly fortunate that FLIR is in Wilsonville. We make videos explaining how we do things, and they stumbled on our website and provided us with one of their cameras,” Sherman says.
The camera allows the drone to record both in visible light and thermal images, and it is the latter that is so crucial.
“The camera can see the heat coming off objects, which is useful when the drone is participating in search and rescue missions, because it can spot the humans right away,” Sherman says.
Research and rescue
“Drones have gotten a bad rap from stories about military drones dropping missiles on people,” Sherman says. “But our interest is in scientific research and helping first responders.”
In April, Sherman and Zvaigzne flew to West Virginia to work on a University of West Virginia river-restoration project.
The Cheat River is a native brook trout stream, and the trout thrive in colder water, “but you can’t tell just by looking at the river where the cooler springs, seeps and tributaries come in. We flew the thermal imager over the river and found those places with extreme precision,” Sherman says.
As for helping first responders, it is in the realm of public safety that the two men and their drone have made some great strides.
They flew the drone during a controlled burn of an apartment complex in Longview, Wash., and assisted Portland Fire & Rescue with a controlled woodland burn in North Portland.
by: TIMES PHOTO: JONATHAN HOUSE - Rather than buy a drone, Patrick Sherman and Brian Zvaigzne of Tigard decided to make their own.
On Aug. 7 and 8, Sherman and Zvaigzne worked with Eugene Fire and EMS, on a three-story burn house, a river-search scenario and a hazardous-spill scenario.
During the spill exercise, the fire chief directed them to fly over a nearby stationary train, and in an unplanned demonstration of the drone’s capability, it detected that one of the rail cars was emitting heat.
“We zeroed in on the car and switched to thermal imaging. We then were able to read the placard on the car and discovered that it was carrying molten phenol. We inspected the valves on top and there was no leaking. It was perfectly safe,” Zvaigzne says. (Phenol is
always shipped hot).
In this situation, no laws were broken and the railcar did not pose a hazard to anyone. But in real, potentially hazardous conditions, without the drone it would have taken “a dozen firefighters an hour to get the same information it took us two minutes to get. Hazardous material spills are a deadly threat to the public and first responders,” Sherman says.
Original article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-campaign-event-visited-by-mini-drone-a-922495.html
Just when the scandal surrounding the Merkel administration's bungled purchase of a multi-million euro surveillance drone was beginning to fade, the Internet activist Pirate Party has managed to draw attention to it once again.
A Christian Democrat (CDU) campaign event taking place on Sunday in the eastern city of Dresden was interrupted when a miniature drone started circling above the audience. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière, who were on the stage alongside several other CDU politicians, looked on with amusement as the 40-centimeter (16-inch) aircraft came crashing down at their feet.
Soon after the event, the Pirate Party released a statement confirming it was responsible for the stunt. "The goal of the effort was to make Chancellor Merkel and Defense Minister de Maizière realize what it's like to be subjected to drone observation," said Markus Barenhoff, deputy head of the party.
The unnamed 23-year-old Pirate Party member who was operating the drone from a nearby hide-out was quickly located by the police and briefly taken into custody for disturbing the event. "The deployment of the drone served the purpose of capturing Chancellor Merkel and the other CDU politicians on camera," he said upon release.
The aircraft was being operated by remote control from a nearby hideout.
De Maizière came under fire earlier this year amid reports that his Defense Ministry had tried to cover up a scandal over the bungled purchase of a multi-million euro surveillance drone. The aircraft proved uncertifiable for use in European air space. Among other deficiencies, the drone, known as the Euro Hawk, was found not to have a proper collision-avoidance system.
The Defense Minister is considered one of Merkel's closest allies and has been tipped as one of her possible successors.
"Though the crash landing wasn't part of the plan, we did achieve what we wanted," Pirate Party deputy head Markus Barenhoff told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "The intention was two-fold: firstly, to draw attention to the government surveillance scandal, and secondly to put de Maizière's Euro Hawk failings back on the agenda."
The party was also likely hoping that the drone might manage to help its current abysmal poll numbers take flight. Support for the pirates is hovering around 3 percent.
Whether it will be enough to win over more voters to the party remains to be seen. But it did inject a bit of lightness into an afternoon on the stump. "This kind of event is supposed to be fun, after all," concluded Stanislaw Tillich, the Christian Democrat governor of Saxony who hosted the rally.
