Paper Airplanes

[seg9585]

Originally Posted by EricH

No, it would NOT be cool. R/C aircraft--of any type--can be very dangerous. I actually have an R/C aircraft that would be perfect for flying in a dome (if it's repaired), and I wouldn't even THINK about flying over the stands, or Einstein, or any field that was being packed up--for that matter, over any field at all due to the overhead cables for the lights being a great target for stray planes, or the personnel on the fields risking being injured should something go wrong.

If I'm talking about my sub-1-lb ultramicro foamy not being safe to fly under FIRST competition conditions, then anything strong enough to carry a camera is going to be even worse--larger, heavier, more powerful, more likely to hit something or someone. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but if I was to endorse such an idea, I would A) call in a professional, or at least somebody with a ton more experience than I do, and B) clear as many people off of the floor as I could, and C) put flags on every cable so they were more visible to the pilot. Oh, and D) listen to the pro when he told me it wasn't safe to fly.

Also, I should remind you that R/C pilots fly on 2.4 GHz. The field can potentially (and sometimes does) operate on that bandwidth, though it's usually on 5 GHz, but an awful lot of other stuff operates there too. I wouldn't risk it.

EricH, my undergrad school (RPI) owned several radio controlled blimps and several members of our embedded control class (plus local robotics team) attended Championships (and other events) to fly those blimps. They had several sensors and could easily lift a camera. These weren't considered dangerous despite their size. Although slow, a torn blimp (due to hitting a cable, for instance) could have easily hurt bystanders as well.

In regards to EMI in the 2.4 Ghz range, most R/C transmitters use spread-spectrum techniques that minimize interference with itself and with other devices running locally. Even then, 900 Mhz crystals are still used on my local flying fields with plenty of reliability.