Air ship

[edomus]

An adult friend of mine came to me yesterday and asked if I could figure out a controll mechanism for an "airship" that he has been working on for 3 years. Would it be wise to use FIRST issue equipment? What other processors and controll mechanisms are available for completely home made RC's. any input would be apreciated.

[sanddrag]

I take it this is a radio controlled unmanned air ship. How big is it and what powers it? Any pics?

[ChrisH]

The first question is "what is the lifting capacity?". If it has been worked on for three years, there should be some idea what this number is. Obviously you don't want a control system whose weight is higher than this number.

FIRST stuff is rather heavy in relation to the R/C stuff on the market today. It is also overkill for the application, unless he wants to do pre-programmed manouvers or program it to avoid walls or something else that requires programming.

The R/C gear used for handlaunch sailplanes weighs a few ounces. In this application, the weight could be further reduced by removing the cases for the reciever and parts of the servo cases. These are designed to survive high velocity impacts with the ground. This is not something you need to worry about with an airship. Even if the bag should have a catastrophic failure, there should be enough area that it kind of floats down. So the gear should be recoverable in any case.

[Tytus Gerrish]

whatever you do......



dont let this happen

[sanddrag]

Originally posted by Tytus Gerrish
whatever you do......

dont let this happen

That is why we now use helium instead of hydrogen.

[Frank(Aflak)]

Originally posted by edomus
An adult friend of mine came to me yesterday and asked if I could figure out a controll mechanism for an "airship" that he has been working on for 3 years. Would it be wise to use FIRST issue equipment? What other processors and controll mechanisms are available for completely home made RC's. any input would be apreciated.

No. IFI controllers are way heavier than they need to be.

You could buy a much lighter controller with nearly the same features. I would also suggest a lighter battery. But the same type of electronics should be fine, and you have experience in them.

(i'm talking about the old controllers, not our nice new ones.)

Of course, If I were building an airship, i would totally use hydrogen, i mean, if its unmanned who really cares if it explodes? Hydrogen will weigh about half what helium does, and therefore you get added lift! Not twice the lift, but a little more, and thats what counts.

Heh, an hydrogen isn't THAT dangerous . . i fed a test-tube full to a candle once (result of electrolosys) and all it did was make a flash and a whooshing noise . . .

so in R/C airship quantities, it should be relatively safe . . . as long as you don't TRY to burn it or anything.