Awesome. I fly very small remote controlled airplanes and a tiny drone. I am a bit nearsighted and I fly my airplanes and drone relatively close to where I stand (10 to 75 feet). A friend flys a few large RCs, but I don’t think that size matters for having fun. I live in the mountains in Central Arizona, and I like to hit the flying fields just as the sun is starting to rise in the morning - beautiful time to fly.
BTW, 60 years ago my father and I used to spend a lot of time building our RCs. To be honest, now I buy incredibly inexpensive planes from China.
Yeah, I think I lean toward simplicity as well. I would be way too anxious trying to fly that work of art the guy built. I am glad someone out there does it though—it's a joy to watch.
I wonder at what point you put in a flight control computer. I could imagine with a plane that size it's easy to put some big forces on it with heavy inputs.
It essentially already has one. Probably only self-levelling, but has some extra programming like delayed flaps, wheel-up sequence (first up the wheels, then close the doors), blackbox feature, etc. Likely using a version of Ardupilot [1] that's already in use by everyone. Maybe INav [2], but I'd wager on the former. There's more than one computer in there, too. The receiver is likely double-redundant (2 receivers, each with 2 separate receiver circuits, one 900MHz, the other 2.4GHz). I have planes costing 400 EUR that have dual-bandwidth redundant receivers (costs 40 EUR, a joke).
ELRS (radio), Ardupilot (Flight Controller), EdgeTX (Radio OS), and Mission Control (Ground Station SW) are serious tools used by many in the hobby. Them being open means there's a lot of competition and a lot of features. But also not amazing UX :)
It sounds like it's electric powered. As much as I love brushless motors, I think a model of that scale and quality would have deserved actual jet engines.
Tyler Perry owns the airplane and the property. He has said that he does not fly turbines due to the fire risk in a crash. His property is surrounded by forest. If he were to cause a forest fire, the negative publicity could have a major impact on his career.
Thank you for inadvertently answering a question I had, which was who owned that estate.
I'll preempt future comments that lithium batteries can catch fire too. I agree with that statement but still think the risk is mitigated by not going with gasoline fuels.
RC-scale tiny turbines are sort of a boondoggle. They are loud, dangerous, and quite frankly reliability disasters. Expected component lifetimes are in the hundreds of hours, most folks overhaul them every 20-50 hours of use, and they fail in the air with shocking regularity (just check youtube).
It's one of those "impressive that it works at all" kind of things. If that's what you want to see in the air, then do it. If you want to watch your one-off custom plane that represents hundreds or thousands of hours of labor fly, you push it with a fan.
For anyone not familiar, most of this channel is funded IIRC by Tyler Perry who absolutely loves the RC hobby. You can see his estate in some of the wide shots (especially in the air). He had a custom made RC plane runway and workshop built on the property.
Awesome. I fly very small remote controlled airplanes and a tiny drone. I am a bit nearsighted and I fly my airplanes and drone relatively close to where I stand (10 to 75 feet). A friend flys a few large RCs, but I don’t think that size matters for having fun. I live in the mountains in Central Arizona, and I like to hit the flying fields just as the sun is starting to rise in the morning - beautiful time to fly.
BTW, 60 years ago my father and I used to spend a lot of time building our RCs. To be honest, now I buy incredibly inexpensive planes from China.
Yeah, I think I lean toward simplicity as well. I would be way too anxious trying to fly that work of art the guy built. I am glad someone out there does it though—it's a joy to watch.
On the other end of the spectrum is probably this guy's slope soaring videos: https://www.youtube.com/@SlopeRCGliders
Those RC glider videos are so beautiful, thank you for the link
I wonder at what point you put in a flight control computer. I could imagine with a plane that size it's easy to put some big forces on it with heavy inputs.
It essentially already has one. Probably only self-levelling, but has some extra programming like delayed flaps, wheel-up sequence (first up the wheels, then close the doors), blackbox feature, etc. Likely using a version of Ardupilot [1] that's already in use by everyone. Maybe INav [2], but I'd wager on the former. There's more than one computer in there, too. The receiver is likely double-redundant (2 receivers, each with 2 separate receiver circuits, one 900MHz, the other 2.4GHz). I have planes costing 400 EUR that have dual-bandwidth redundant receivers (costs 40 EUR, a joke).
ELRS (radio), Ardupilot (Flight Controller), EdgeTX (Radio OS), and Mission Control (Ground Station SW) are serious tools used by many in the hobby. Them being open means there's a lot of competition and a lot of features. But also not amazing UX :)
[1] https://ardupilot.org/ [2] https://inavflight.github.io/
My first thought was, "You could probably fit a couple of toddlers in there with cute little pilot uniforms."
A bunch of mice to simulate passengers.
It sounds like it's electric powered. As much as I love brushless motors, I think a model of that scale and quality would have deserved actual jet engines.
Tyler Perry owns the airplane and the property. He has said that he does not fly turbines due to the fire risk in a crash. His property is surrounded by forest. If he were to cause a forest fire, the negative publicity could have a major impact on his career.
That property is gorgeous and Tyler pulls out all the stops for his builds. That channel (Ramy RC) has quite a few of them.
Thank you for inadvertently answering a question I had, which was who owned that estate.
I'll preempt future comments that lithium batteries can catch fire too. I agree with that statement but still think the risk is mitigated by not going with gasoline fuels.
If it had been gas-powered motors, I would have agreed with you. The electrics sound close enough to my ear like actual jet engines though.
RC-scale tiny turbines are sort of a boondoggle. They are loud, dangerous, and quite frankly reliability disasters. Expected component lifetimes are in the hundreds of hours, most folks overhaul them every 20-50 hours of use, and they fail in the air with shocking regularity (just check youtube).
It's one of those "impressive that it works at all" kind of things. If that's what you want to see in the air, then do it. If you want to watch your one-off custom plane that represents hundreds or thousands of hours of labor fly, you push it with a fan.
AFAIK the only existing small jet engines for RC planes are much too small for this one.
They've been scaling these things up over the past decade. The JetCat P1000 can exceed 200lbs of thrust.
What they really for this kind of build are RC turbofans, which are extremely uncommon. This thing puts out over 300lbs of thrust at full throttle:
https://www.frankturbine.com/en/FT1500.html
There are certainly turbines available that could power the model. He chooses not to.
Would there technically be any issues with remote controlling a real A380?
For anyone not familiar, most of this channel is funded IIRC by Tyler Perry who absolutely loves the RC hobby. You can see his estate in some of the wide shots (especially in the air). He had a custom made RC plane runway and workshop built on the property.
...And here I am scouting for remote meadows to fly my 7 and 10 inch prop fpv drones...
The large ones dust crops out here where I live. Pick a field, ha ha.