I have been toying with getting involved with RC aircraft for work and play. After some research, it seems one can have a DYI UAV with video feeds and even thermo ability.
Check out this hog hunt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32v4KBHMb7k
More info on their system:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1478852
Any RC folks here who can ad input into this interesting subject?
I sold off all of my r/c stuff several years ago so I’m not up on the new stuff from the last 8 years or so, but my recommendation would be pick something up that’s a good stable platform (some kind of trainer so that it’s easier to have several people fly) and if you’re interested in target detection/identification, something low and slow. You could even look at some kind of powered glider if the engine noise spooks the hogs.
The expensive stuff will be the electro-optics. Building a plane is cheap comparatively.
Also, I wouldn’t get a helicopter. They’re a lot harder to fly r/c than airplanes. I’ve never had much success. My dad was a fighter pilot but got his rating and quite a few hours in a UH-60 over at Al Jaber so he has quite a bit of experience flying both fixed and rotary wing aircraft in real life. He also had a harder time flying the rotary r/c.
Now if you can get something with some sort of autonomous flight capability you can really do some cool stuff. I don’t know how widespread, or even affordable that type of stuff would be in the civilian market without writing your own code and building your own electronics. Throw a .308 on an autonomous helicopter and pop hogs from your back porch. You could even setup up some type of SMS alert where the thing would take off at night on some pre-determined racetrack pattern, send you a text message if it catches something on thermal, and you could task it to shoot from an iPhone with live video. This is all above me but I’m sure someone could pretty easily write the code or do something snazzy with an arduino setup.
Air recon with a thermal capability offers a lot of promise in terms of finding pigs. It would be a quantum jump in the traditional Central European custom of cruising back roads looking for tracks after a snow fall. Hogs move around a lot , and just finding them is a major part of success . The German would find the pigs & quickly organize a drive hunt. A good crew could selectively shoot a lot of pigs in a short time.
Here are some other sites you might want to check out.
http://diydrones.com/
http://www.draganfly.com/
http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/
http://www.rangevideo.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=8
http://www.micropilot.com/
http://uthere.com/index.html
http://www.readymaderc.com/store/
Cool stuff. I have not done a lot of R/C in the last 10 years (just a small amount) but several years ago started (just started, did not go further) to get back in to it. Electric is where it is at. They have full size pattern planes running on electric motors now.
A large size trainer with electric motor would be a good place to start. And the new 2.4ghz radios (not the backyard ones, but the full range ones).
Just got my ‘son’ a remote helicopter. The twin rotor models with gyros start at $50, ain’t computerization grand!
Have you looked at the 3 and 4 rotor flying ‘robots’?
Cheap toys are pretty fun, but from what I saw if you want range and the ability to carry a competent optics package, you are talking thousands.
I did see some of planes that had trainable optics that were slaved to a video visor, kind of like an Apache helmet. That looks really cool.
I still think a powered blimp would be the ultimate. Longer loiter and slower flight.
Amazing that you can build in your garage what the CIA only dreamed about 20 years ago.
Can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Bingo…
The issue with R/C planes/helicopters is that as soon as the craft is out of sight, you as the “pilot” have no good way of knowing what exactly the craft is doing.
It would be much simpler and cheaper to use a powered dirigible.
There would be several benefits to using this set up…
(1) It would be easier to secure the payload to the craft without needing an insanely large aircraft
(2) There isn’t much that can go wrong with a dirigible. As long as the hull remains intact, it will maintain altitude fairly well. With an airplane or a helicopter, it can go from a couple thousand feet to ground level in about one minute…
(3) The dirigible could cruise for several hours at a time, while the helicopter or airplane would need to be refueled every half hour at most, and more likely every fifteen minutes or so.
(4) It would be much easier to pre-program the flight pattern of the dirigible, as it is much more forgiving if the pilot messes up a little bit.
That DIYdrones.com is awesome. Waypoint a route in GPS and the plane/copter will follow it and then come home? I’m going to have to start my own aviation set-up for EOTWAWKI.
Damn this stuff is expensive, but would be a blast to play with. I like the idea of using a blimp for the obvious reasons. Now wait for the various state legislatures to put the kibosh on this.
It is some pretty interesting stuff.
I have no practical experience with it guys I just used to be a RC buff when I was younger. And I frequently look at the new stuff that has been coming out.
This is an old site not updated in a long time but I first stumbled across it it in early 2001. A lot of things have changed since he first started this project. You could probable buy all the stuff off the self now days.
But he does bring valid concerns.
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/diary.shtml