RC flight crowd, you must see this!!!

http://hackaday.com/2013/11/15/collective-pitch-thrust-vectoring-on-a-rc-plane/

I won't argue that it's impressive, but I'm not sure how much fun I'd have with something like that after the first 10 minutes.

Watched a kid playing with something like that at an airfield here. He was dancing it all around in just a few feet. Thought watching the planes that were actually flying around were more interesting myself.

But, to us each, our own personal poisons!

I think it's cool that he can now combine rotary and fixed-wing aerobatics.

The plane itself is impressive enough, although not my proverbial "cup of tea". To be honest, I'm more impressed with the mental agility it takes to keep up with something like that. After flying my relatively slow trainer, I sometimes feel like my brain is on fire, especially if I'm working on any sort of 3D maneuvering. My son, however, flies a much faster prop driven fighter model with no issues at all, despite having only a few month head start on me as a pilot. The only think that shakes him up a bit is the EDF jet we have, but that's because its very fast, very twitchy and very small.

I guess it must be the elasticity of a young mind.

I want to put some lights on it and fly it in remote areas of New Mexico.

Its more like a helicopter with fixed wing's and control surfaces. Cannot fathom keeping something like that in the air.

Meh, color me only semi-impressed. It's a profile "plane" that's lighter than a popcorn fart. With the exception of the stuff that requires reverse thrust, like the nose-down hovering, I've seen all that done by full-bodied 1/3 scale Lasers and Extras, outside.

Follow the link to the guys with the Vampire model and their homemade afterburner. The sound it makes is amazing.

my face just melted... unreal

Not sure you can even call it a "plane" anymore.

It would keep me entertained for a while...

It's a variable pitch prop with the motor assembly mounted on a gimbal that allows it to yaw relative to the airframe. No helicopter swashplate; the hackaday writeup is wrong. That setup would be straightforward to map using a modern 6-channel radio (although a 7 would allow some cool flaperon mixing). Very cool stuff, and incredible talent.

Wow

The thing is that not only is the motor mount able to move but the prop. is able to reverse pitch like an aerobatic helicopter. So how do you control those two extra functions that quickly as well as normal aircraft controls. I can see that you could mix them but that's not what's happening, otherwise he couldn't slowly drift down with the nose pointed down, then stop inches off the carpet, and then gain altitude with the nose STILL down. He has to have real time control of both functions.

I intend my next plane to be 3D capable but I think I could be entertained for a very long time learning to fly that one to it's max.

Graefin10 wrote: The thing is that not only is the motor mount able to move but the prop. is able to reverse pitch like an aerobatic helicopter. So how do you control those two extra functions that quickly as well as normal aircraft controls. I can see that you could mix them but that's not what's happening, otherwise he couldn't slowly drift down with the nose pointed down, then stop inches off the carpet, and then gain altitude with the nose STILL down. He has to have real time control of both functions. I intend my next plane to be 3D capable but I think I could be entertained for a very long time learning to fly that one to it's max.

with the helis, the radio is programmed to hold throttle, or its programmed to mix with the throttle channel, which actually controls the pitch. when the first vario pitch systems came out the pilots had the forward/reverse pitch on a switch with the regular throttle control via the throttle channel.

With the 3-phase motors everyone is using now, the motor controller drives it at an exact speed. Many motor controllers have a built-in governor, basically. You would use a heli-transmitter (sprung throttle) and map collective to it. You could optionally map the motor controller to the throttle stick too for more responsiveness (more RPM when moved off center).

The yaw is simply mapped to the rudder.