

Eight years ago today, an RC plane became the first to fly across the Atlantic - DanLivesHere
http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=2889002ad89d45ca21f50ba46&id=ba6653a410

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iqster
I am highly skeptical.

1) 1 litre of fuel doesn't get you that far.

2) Was the entire course programmed into the plane? This is non-trivial given
that high winds would likely push a small little plane off course.

3) Article claims that GPS telemetry was sent continuously. What did they use?
Wifi doesn't work. There are no cell towers in the ocean. The only option that
could remotely work is satellite data. That costs a fortune and has heavy
equipment.

#3 is the big one.

EDIT: I am still skeptical but less so after reading the child comments. It
seems HAM radio was used to relay telemetry. Communicating with a tiny moving
object via HAM still seems a bit unbelievable. But I don't know enough on this
subject. Also, the craft was supposedly using auto pilot over the Atlantic. I
don't see how it is an RC craft ... perhaps a UAV would be a more appropriate
term. Anyways, upvoting child posts for a stimulating early morning thought
exercise :)

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gravitronic
Slightly OT, but a former coworker of mine flew gliders as a hobby. Like an
ultralight airplane without an engine, they get towed up to 10000 sq ft and
then glide.

Guess how long they can stay in the air? Hours. Gliders stay afloat by finding
hot air streams where clouds are forming, riding the plume up, then gliding to
the next cloud.

It's not what this RC plane was doing, obviously, but posting it as an example
showing how fuel can be irrelevant in the air. It's also an amazing hobby for
one to have. He has all sorts of stories about the weather changing and having
to crash in a farmer's field...

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pavel_lishin
My father and stepbrother used to do this as well. Lots of interesting stories
came out of it - having a heart-attack five thousand feet up, landing in a
farmer's field and convincing him to put down the shotgun...

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edge17
sounds interesting, care to share more of the story? :)

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ajays
Who cares if it was actively RC or not?!? It's still quite an achievement that
the plane could fly autonomously across the Atlantic.

Imagine that: in less than 100 years since the Wright Brothers took off, we
have a hobbyist autonomous plane that flies across the Atlantic. That's a huge
achievement nevertheless.

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kragen
This was an autopilot flight, not an RC flight.

This was not the first unmanned autopilot flight across the Atlantic; that was
Laima, five years earlier: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insitu_Aerosonde>

Laima took 26 hours and 5.7 liters of fuel. Her three sisters didn't make it
across the ocean.

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lotharbot
This was an autopilot flight with some RC portions. Laima also included RC for
takeoff and landing.

[http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/insitu-areosonde-
laim...](http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/insitu-areosonde-laima)

(She's a pretty bird. If you're in Seattle on the first Thursday of the month,
you can see her free from 5-9 PM.)

~~~
kragen
Yes, that is a more accurate description. Thanks for the pointer!

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jxcole
I remember reading about this a while back. Sadly, said plane was not
considered for a world record because the RC community felt that even though
it only used auto pilot for the in-air part, only RC planes that were remote
controlled for the entire voyage should be considered for records.

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adatta02
I read this an hour or so ago, it's from <http://dlewis.net/nik> which is a
surprisingly good email newsletter

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danielharan
These kinds of planes would be handy for moving small amounts of contraband...

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ChuckMcM
:-) This is what keeps DEA agents up at night I suppose.

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DanLivesHere
Here's a video of the plane's arrival in Ireland and its landing.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KEIq76JE7o>

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Tichy
If it was remote controlled, how did it survive the 3 hours without contact?

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brohee
From <http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#guidance> it was a GPS driven
autopilot

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Tichy
So it wasn't really a RC plane :-) Very cool stuff.

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eftpotrm
Well...

Within the colloquial definition, the plane is of a class known as 'RC planes'
- it's of a size and general design pattern that is conventionally controlled
by a ground based radio pilot, it couldn't be used for carrying passengers,
goods or weapons. For very sensible techincal reasons it had to run on
autopilot for much of its journey, but the vehicle itself was still undeniably
a member of the class colloquially known as 'RC planes'.

By analogy, let's suppose I purchased a retired F1 racing car for whatever
purpose. I don't have the entries, licenses and any of a number of other
things to enter it into FIA sanctioned F1 races, but does that stop it from
being an F1 car while it's not being used for F1 races?

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baddox
Also, GPS signals are certainly radio waves, so the plane is still literally
"radio controlled."

