RC fighter model UAV build in Jet engine 360+mph [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz8SjWnVSBs

by MichaelAO • 12 years ago

131 95 12 years ago

youtube.com

spikels• 12 years ago

Wow - just realized how slow most drones are.

Could something that small break the sound barrier?

easytiger2• 12 years ago

I'M

easytiger2• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what altitude they are at but they claim to be flying it faster than the sound barrier. Don't see anything to back that up.

ceejayoz2• 12 years ago

Could something that small break the sound barrier?

Why not? Missiles and rockets of similar size do.

danieldyer5• 12 years ago

Only if it were rocket powered. The aerodynamics simply don't scale well enough for something that small to become supersonic using any currently available small turbine engine.

termain3• 12 years ago

What part doesn't scale? The only thing I can think of that might be a problem is the boundary layer thickness through the intake/diffuser.

gchokov2• 12 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa-TSNeTK-A this one goes to 440mph ..

pretty impressive toys. How do you control this thing without FPV?

bigiain4• 12 years ago

Almost as fast as the ones with no engines at all... How's a 498mph glider sound?

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1609281

With a big hill, the right wind, and an appropriate unpowered glider, it looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjASRmgQWoo

alan_cx• 12 years ago

Possibly easier than piloting the real thing. No g-force, total vision, simple controls, and so on. With various fail-safes and controllers, its made much easier

Dont get me wrong, I've tried flying normal RC planes, and Im rubbish at it, it is still hard and skillfull. But, if you spend some time on YouTube looking at what people can do with these things, you'll end up wondering if they are bending physics.

TheSpiceIsLife• 12 years ago

I taught myself to fly RC planes using RealFlight[1] RC model simulator using the same transmitter / controller I used for the RC planes configured with progressive rate controls connected via USB interface.

10 hours on the sim using a high-wing trainer with lots of dihedral[2], learned how to land in a gusty cross wind, then out in to the park with my high-wing high-dihedral trainer. Took off, flew, and landed no problems - the RealFlight trainer was nearly spot on.

I then bought a model F4U Corsair, much different plane to fly, they go where you point them and don't self right or self level like a high-wing high-dihedral aircraft. More RealFlight training and then flew and landed it successfully first go to.

Lots of fun! The parks I had easy access to weren't in suburbia though.

1. http://www.realflight.com/ 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihedral_(aeronautics)

mattivc• 12 years ago

I have been toying with the idea of trying to create a small Pulsejet[1] engine and stick it on a UAV frame. It's a very simple design and shouldn't be to hard to make with, i think.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsejet

willyt• 12 years ago

You should see this stuff. http://aardvark.co.nz/pjet/ Pretty crazy. He got some attention in the news a few years ago with his DIY cruise missile project.

bigiain4• 12 years ago

Apparently these work OK: http://hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__37414__Hobbyking_Puls...

matheweis4• 12 years ago

Here's the pilot from the op flying a pulsejet ... sounds like a lawnmower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJLWMZHlD90

konstruktor• 12 years ago

That's a turbine powered RC plane, and, technically, an unmanned aerial vehicle, but it doesn't seem to fly autonomously.

danieldyer5• 12 years ago

Exactly. It's just a radio-controlled model aircraft, which have been around for a long time.

Also, it's worth pointing out that it's not a model of a fighter jet, and that this video seems to be a repost of one that's been up for five years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHWBSluUjU

ajross3• 12 years ago

This appears to be the engine in question:

http://www.jetcatusa.com/p160.html

Executive summary appears to be: 36 lbs of thrust with a (dry?) weight of 3.1 lbs and a fuel consumption of about a pound per minute. Sounds shockingly good, so I have to wonder if the compressor is basically an ablative heat shield and this is good for only a few runs.

That said: doing this stunt in what looks like a suburban park strikes me as shockingly irresponsible. This thing can easily kill someone, wreck a vehicle or puncture a roof if control is lost...

chrisan3• 12 years ago

That said: doing this stunt in what looks like a suburban park strikes me as shockingly irresponsible. This thing can easily kill someone, wreck a vehicle or puncture a roof if control is lost...

I'd be more concerned with drunk or texting drivers than a R/C jet engine killing me.

ealexhudson3• 12 years ago

On a probability basis, sure, bad driving is much more likely to kill you. That doesn't mean that jet RC flying like that isn't shockingly irresponsible.

SandB0x• 12 years ago

I'm more concerned with drunk or texting drivers than getting eaten by a tiger. Does that mean I shouldn't be worried if someone lets a tiger loose in the park?

VMG• 12 years ago

Most irresponsible behavior shown on youtube doesn't affect you personally.

aaron695• 12 years ago

doing this stunt in what looks like a suburban park strikes me as shockingly irresponsible.

Except you have no reason to think it was in a 'suburban park' other than for the reason you get to judge someone you don't know.

The footage clearly looks like a huge open field with no other people visible or vehicles or roofs around.

smoyer• 12 years ago

From the specifications:

Maintenance interval: 25 hours

Pretty amazing and I'd love to see the insides of this engine.

krisoft• 12 years ago

I believe this, or a very similar, engine is shown in one of the "How it's made" episodes. You can see it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3jE-PXV-68

ripb• 12 years ago

That said: doing this stunt in what looks like a suburban park strikes me as shockingly irresponsible. This thing can easily kill someone, wreck a vehicle or puncture a roof if control is lost...

What makes you think that someone who can:

1: Build this plane

2: Demonstrably fly it very well, with clearly a significant amount of experience in flying RC planes, and probably other high speed RC planes

will overlook all safety precautions and take what is likely the highest powered plane they've flown, where something is comparatively likely to go wrong vs traditional RC planes, and go fly it in their local park with people/houses/etc. around?

baddox9• 12 years ago

Some people with no experience in or awareness of the RC aircraft hobby seem to be terrified of it. It seems particularly common on HN, for some reason.

lotsofmangos5• 12 years ago

There appears to be a large aircraft hangar in the middle distance, you see it a couple of times as the camera sweeps across. I don't think you get many of those in suburban parks.

ajross3• 12 years ago

It could be. But if it is, you seem to be arguing that flying a 360 mph missile around in the airspace above an active airport is... safe?

I'm shocked at the nerve I seem to have hit here. I'm not trying to take your model rockets away here, but this is not a harmless device. I think many people here lack an intuition of how fast "360 mph" is or the kind of energies that are involved. This is getting into the speeds seen for muzzel velocities of handguns, and that engine weight a hell of a lot more than a bullet.

Dangers like that require more care than just "it looks safe to me". Where are the people guarding the range and warning off intruders? Where is the posted notification of the testing schedule?

jmj42• 12 years ago

doing this stunt in what looks like a suburban park strikes me as shockingly irresponsible.

It look like an R/C air park, actually. I live near the headquarters for two large hobby companies (Hobbico - makers of RealFlight, mentioned elsewhere, and Horizon Hobbies). One of the two (I don't remember which) built a similar air park specifically to provide a location for flying R/C jets.

The R/C club is out flying jets most warm weekend days. See it here: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0591456,-88.5519564,366m/dat...

matheweis4• 12 years ago

This. You can see what appears to be a dedicated dirt runway at 1:27.

mcbain• 12 years ago

This is where they are flying:

http://mvc-apollo68.nl/ https://goo.gl/maps/hYYQg

That's somewhat uninhabited for The Netherlands.

Koahku• 12 years ago

They also look very similar to the engines used by Yves Rossy (aka Jetman) on his wing, although they seem to be a bit bigger and more powerful. http://www.jetman.com/?page_id=242

JungleGymSam• 12 years ago

It doesn't look like a suburban park at all.

danieldyer5• 12 years ago

Sounds shockingly good, so I have to wonder if the compressor is basically an ablative heat shield and this is good for only a few runs.

The compressor isn't the part of the engine which gets really hot here; that would be the turbine. In these kinds of engines the turbine is typically made out of Inconel, which has no problems handling the ~800C exhaust gas temperature seen at maximum thrust. Preventing the EGT from exceeding a specified limit is the main job of the engine computer, so this is not a common failure mode.

The service interval on Jetcat turbines is 25 hours (some manufacturers specify 50-hour intervals, or even longer), for which the significant portion the work involved is a bearing replacement.

While the thrust-to-weight ratio does seem very good, keep in mind that the quoted weight of 3.1 lbs is likely to not include ancillaries (engine computer, battery and mounting hardware). Also, lubrication is provided by oil mixed in with the fuel rather than a closed-loop oiling system.

A thrust-to-weight ratio of 10:1 is impressive, but not out of line with what you'd expect to see from a full-sized turbojet. On the other hand, the thrust-specific fuel consumption for these engines is much worse than a full-sized engine due to the much lower pressure ratio.

kordless2• 12 years ago

Replying at the top here given the conversation down below. Having done RC for many years, been licensed to do it, and having friends that flew helicopters AND jets with a very similar jet turbine in them, I can say with 99.9% confidence that this video was taken at an RC flying field. If this assumption is correct, this has several other assumptions tied to it: a) they are suppose to be there, b) the field is permitted for these types of flights, c) they are certified for these types of flights.

Also, the shot at 4:08 appears to show the runway. The shot at the end where it's landing clearly shows a boundary between longer grass and shorter grass meant for belly landings. We had all of these things at our flying field.

Given the equipment setup, launcher, gauges, fire extinguisher, etc., I'm going with the probability we're dealing with a couple of pros who are capable of conducting this flight in a safe manner at a designated location. You jumping in here making guesses about intent and outcome is a bit shortsighted, and the FUD you are hypothesizing with is simply there to elevate interest in your comment.

ajross3• 12 years ago

Sounds like a great reply. Clearly my worry was misinformed. Thanks; for the first two paragraphs anyway.

Y'know, there was a time on HN where making a supposition like that would be met with... an assumption that it was delivered out of genuine concern and not an attempt at "FUD" to "elevate interest" in the comment. Fuck you, basically.

This whole thread makes me sad. Your post is the most informative and valuable, and it's still just ad hominem flaming nonsense.

This site used to be better.

nether• 12 years ago

I have to wonder if the compressor is basically an ablative heat shield

As an aerospace engineer, this is cringeworthy. How exactly would this compressor function as a heat shield? Is it experiencing hypersonic intake flow as part of an atmospheric reentry vehicle? Makes no sense.

voltagex_• 12 years ago

What's the correct terminology? What do you think the major tradeoff in this cheap (?) engine is?

stcredzero• 12 years ago

While the misnomer is cringeworthy, I also find it disappointing that you didn't extrapolate that he was wondering if parts of the engine ablate quickly. While the sample size is too small to be conclusive, it suggests that you are prioritizing zinging him over having a discussion.

Could weight be saved in a jet engine by making parts of it ablative? I should think this would play havoc with clearances, so it would only be applicable to parts where the exact dimensions aren't too critical, which I suspect would preclude everything near the compressor and turbine.

Also, ablative heat shielding wouldn't apply to anything not exposed to high heat, so this would only apply to the combustion chamber and everything downstream of that.

EDIT: This makes me curious about the pressures in jet engines. They range from ~pi for early WWII engines (Junkers Jumo 004) to almost 40:1 for modern ones! According to pv=nrt, modern jet engine compressors can get pretty hot, apparently. (Disclaimer, I am not an engineer!)

kator2• 12 years ago

Does it worry anyone that he looses this thing in the clouds on a regular basis? Seems irresponsible to fly it on a day where you can't keep it in view. With this much speed it's basically a flying remote controlled rocket/projectile that would kill someone instantly if it hit them.

I wonder how this thing handles loosing contact with the controller?

It's no wonder the FCC in US is getting less and less RC friendly, besides the typical "home land security" drama stuff like this in a public park could be a real problem from noise pollution to safety of other people in the area.

All this said, must be quite a rush to play with something like that, I would love to fly it in an open field deep in the desert with a clear open sky.

kator2• 12 years ago

I also noticed in the video that they had hearing protection but it was on the ground next to the fire extinguisher.

Reading the very nice detailed instruction manual[1]:

    To the avoid hearing damage, always use hearing protection when
    you are near a running turbine engine!

Along with a couple warnings:

    A flying model with a turbine can reach higher flight speeds
    than ducted fan-powered models, because the turbine’s thrust
    degrades less with higher flight speeds. With attainable flight
    speeds of over 250 MPH, you can quickly run out if flying room.
    There is also a danger of developing control surface flutter
    or mechanical overload, causing the model to fail in flight.

That said with a list price of $4,195.00 just for the engine I have to imagine it'll be a while before we see 100's of these in the air at random parks.

[1] http://www.jetcatusa.com/PDFFiles/Instruction%20manual%20V6....

pjc50• 12 years ago

'lose' has only one 'o'.

baddox9• 12 years ago

If you saw a video of someone flying a full scale aircraft without incident, would you assume by default that they are being irresponsible? I don't think most people would say "that seems irresponsible since it's basically a huge flying missile that could kill dozens of people if it crashed," even if the full scale aircraft was flying in very low visibility conditions.

kjs3• 12 years ago

Your grasp of false equivalence is impressive.

Houshalter• 12 years ago

Someone else posted this further down the thread:

In the U.S.A. the FAA heavily regulates flying of such aircraft to only approved AMA Academy of Model Aeronautics sites, in where certified turbine pilots may fly. Also, the AMA requires model aviation enthusiasts who wish to operate miniature gas turbine powered RC model aircraft, to be certified in the operation of the type of gas turbine engine, and all aspects of safety in operating such a turbine-powered model aircraft, that they need to know in flying their model.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-controlled_aircraft#Jets

fpvracing• 12 years ago

Anyone into this kind of thing may like to check out FPV racing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8510680

Not quite as fast, but just as much fun!

scotthtaylor• 12 years ago

Amazing, would love to see this advance to have a camera capable of relaying a camera feed to an Oculus Rift.

spyder• 12 years ago

Another one with 4 jet engine and onboard camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeL3LhrmeME

Aardwolf• 12 years ago

How do you control that? It goes so fast a fraction of a second mistake could be fatal, and you can't see it half the time.

frik• 12 years ago

A good eye sight is several times better than the resolution of the video camera. You need a fast reaction time and good 3d orientation sense. You can train that with simulators & video games.

bigiain4• 12 years ago

And, of course, a string of previous versions of this sort of rc plane. Without anything except that footage, I can say with 100% certainty that this is not the first rc plane that pilot has flown. I'd be quite surprised if his list of planes before this one didn't approach or exceed 100... (I'm nowhere near ready to fly something like that, and I could list 30 or 40 models I've built and flown).

jokoon2• 12 years ago

that's old

I still wonder what are the best tech available to have a camera/screen on this thing, with what latency.

bigiain4• 12 years ago

So far as I can tell _nobody_ flies FPV (first person view) with anything except regular analog video cameras and radios.

I'm guessing that's at least partly for cost reasons, but mainly because you don't even need to ask the "what latency" question. Even though iPads/cellphones/OcculusRift have much better and higher resolution screens than most of the inexpensive hobby FPV gear around, the lag as you digitise/compress/decode real time video streams is both too long and too variable.

Remember John Carmak's rant about being able to get packets to London quicker than he can get them onto his screen? Imagine trying to control a ~400mph toy plane when you aren't sure if you've got 15 or 200ms of latency at any time? That'd represent "seeing where you are" something between ~10 and 200 feet behind where the plane is right now.

stephenitis• 12 years ago

Thanks for referencing the John Carmak "rant". I missed this. anyone else interested. http://superuser.com/questions/419070/transatlantic-ping-fas...

jokoon2• 12 years ago

aren't there uncompressed low latency solutions ?

owenversteeg• 12 years ago

The engine is http://www.jetcatusa.com/p160.html. Only costs $4200, which is not too far out there in comparison to quad/hexa/octo setups.

rdlecler1• 12 years ago

Super cool, and I can't imagine how you could fly this. This is going to scare the hell out of the FAA and Homeland Security. I expect the FBI will start paying the turbine company a visit.

ceejayoz2• 12 years ago

These have been around for many years. The FAA already regulates them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-controlled_aircraft#Jets

In the U.S.A. the FAA heavily regulates flying of such aircraft to only approved AMA Academy of Model Aeronautics sites, in where certified turbine pilots may fly. Also, the AMA requires model aviation enthusiasts who wish to operate miniature gas turbine powered RC model aircraft, to be certified in the operation of the type of gas turbine engine, and all aspects of safety in operating such a turbine-powered model aircraft, that they need to know in flying their model.

matheweis4• 12 years ago

This is an old video; the original is from over five years ago: http://youtu.be/dTHWBSluUjU http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-jets-120/9133201-fast-rc-...

Either it's a rip off or somehow "Jukin Media" got the rights to it... It never ceases to amaze me when old stuff goes viral like this. Maybe it's the keywords stuffed in the title, 'cause UAVs are a pretty hot topic these days, but this thing is not a UAV.

yehat• 12 years ago

Exactly my thoughts. This video is in my favorites for quite some time and was also surprised how it become "new stuff" without reference to the original upload or other resource. It is still cool of course, but not UAV,just RC jet ;)

thisjepisje• 12 years ago

How is this not an unmanned aerial vehicle?

phil21• 12 years ago

Because UAV has certain connotations in normal parlance. It's like saying that strange plane you haven't seen before is a UFO. A technically accurate but useless description if you want people to understand what you mean.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

Interesting discussion, clearly the size and speed crosses the 'scary' threshold. I wouldn't worry too much about that however as the risk is small, people invest a lot of time and effort into building models and that investment means that it is very very painful for them if they crash them. In many ways the modeller has more invested in the outcome than onlookers or the folks in the area.

That said, its an amazing to me this guy can keep his head 'in the plane' which is to say at that speed can fly the plane to its orientation rather than his own. When I've flown model planes there are always times where I'm turning the wrong way because I've mixed up the front back / left right controls given a particular plane attitude and direction. (and yes crashed a couple which made me feel horrible and so I stick to vehicles :-)

Next up I hope someone can build a FPOV version so they can fly it from the "cockpit". That would also make for a great video.

nojvek• 12 years ago

Lag and latency would be an issue

baddox9• 12 years ago

That said, its an amazing to me this guy can keep his head 'in the plane' which is to say at that speed can fly the plane to its orientation rather than his own.

If you think the orientation skills in this video are impressive, you should check out the professional 3D RC helicopter pilots!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuDptulCpK0#t=37

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PptMrBFAO-A#t=28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDxaJTjCFhE#t=16

jgable• 12 years ago

You got that right. I tried RC heli flying for a little bit. Spent several hours flying in the sim and several more flying the real thing, and could never comfortably do a nose-in hover. Very humbling. These professional RC hell pilots are incredible.

jpeg_hero• 12 years ago

we need more women in the uav industry.

good careers to be had here.

RC fighter model UAV build in Jet engine 360+mph [video]

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