Hello, I am looking to fly a gas or solar rc plane for 1500 miles nonstop from point A to point B using an autopilot system
What are your recomendations?
I am new to this, would it work 1500 miles nonstop?
In theory, yes it should. I’ve seen flights using ardupilot with LTE connection for telemetry etc, but I’m guessing for 1500 miles, you’re going to need satellite connectivity or something for monitoring, or are you planning to use full autonomy for the flight?
Yes thats what I am guessing, use satellite connectivity for monitoring, is that difficult? Remember is point A to point B. What do you mean by full autonomy?
Do you haveany experience?
Full autonomy - the drone can fly by itself without any control from the base station (you) if it loses connection.
I’ve no experience of this kind of distance flight, but in terms of what you’re doing - my project for this year is to build a hexacopter with a raspberry pi at its core which is connected to a bunch of sensors that can be used for image recognition, obstacle avoidance and safe autonomous flight.
Hello Frank.
Your project sounds very interesting, and thanks for your response.
My project is a little different as you can see and I have almost no experience on this, but I am eager to do it. How possible do you see it? I have a couple of questions about the Ardupilot. You plan the trip on the Ardupilot to go from point A to point B 1500 miles apart, even if theres no connection between base and the plane it will still go to the progammed point? Will it send any kind of updates? Speed, direction, altitude?
How can I dm you? I cant seem to find the button
Hi Ponymalta,
Yes, if you use the base station software for ardupilot (e.g. Mission Planner) then you’d plan your flight on Mission Planner, upload it to the drone, then let it go off and do it’s thing.
Big question though is - what are you going to use to power the drone for this length of flight time? Solar - weather dependant, ultra lightweight but probably very large and possibly too slow
Gas - are you going to get the flight time necessary; if you’re using gas - pressurised containers are I suspect too heavy?
Hi Frank,
Understood on the Ardupilot. If I want to have some kind of control what could I use in order to control the plane? I couldnt use LTE sim card because sometimes will be over the ocean with no signal and I want updates on th plane, what should I have to get that?
Yes, I think I will use gas motor. They recommend me a 4 stroke EFI. I have do some research and I ve seen the Albatross airframe is a good option. What engine would you recommend. Also, about the pressurized containers, could I use normal plástic containers for the gas? Or a kind of vacuum sealed extra thick bag?
What do you think about the Albatross? Obviously Id have to change the engine to a gas one, and use the Ardupilot with it, which are compatible.
Thanks for your support Frank.
By the way, when I say gas I mean gasoline or as you call it in the UK, petrol. You from the UK right? I am from Ecuador
Hi Ponymalta,
I’ll be honest, with a four-stroke engine running petrol (yes I’m UK) you’re going beyond my knowledge I’m afraid. Similar with the communications over the sea I’m afraid. I suspect that a continuous radio link would be too power hungry and too expensive. I’m guessing that you may need something like this RockBLOCK MK2 with Iridium 9602 Satellite Modem to send short messages back to base giving a location every few minutes or so.
Sounds an interesting project - please keep us posted on here how you get on.
Yes keep us updated and maybe with pics
I had the orange GPS module on my parrot AR 2.0 it was pretty cool at the time, just plot your way point on on the screen of your iPad and hey presto, off it went by its self, then one day I accidentally touched on an island 10 miles away and off she went, as you can imagine the panic and hilarity of a middle aged man running across the fields trying to press the home button on the iPad before it went out of range, well let’s just say it did get it back but mum was not impressed with the cow dung plastered on my jeans and shoes when I got home, I’m not sure any one is going to let you fly an amateur built unmanned autonomous aircraft legally out of line of sight any where in the world these days particularly for 1500 miles, for sure you’ll have a few govt agencies watching what your up to… suggest you start out small with some of the excellent mapping software and get the navigation sorted first but good luck and keep us posted
Blue skys
Hey, thanks Blue skys!
Hey Frank, yes definetly I will keep posted and thanks for the info!
1500miles is from Beijing to Tokyo. power is a problem.