
World’s largest multirotor makes successful maiden flight - Varcht
http://www.suasnews.com/2014/04/28563/worlds-largest-multirotor-makes-successful-maiden-flight/
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ChuckMcM
That looks like the next earthroamer RV chassis :-). A number of folks have
said to me that quad/hexcopters dont scale up to man capable sizes, this seems
to contradict that. I can imagine the engine out scenarios will be
challenging.

[1] earthroamer.com

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lotsofmangos
Ok, screw flying cars. We are now one step closer to a flying Winnebago.

Needs some jets strapped to it, wired to a button labeled 'Ludicrous Speed'.

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dm2
Some JATOs?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHOvoO-6nWQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHOvoO-6nWQ)
(action at 37 seconds)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gXfK4ypirI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gXfK4ypirI)

They can be dangerous...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hru0z9WJwKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hru0z9WJwKo)

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samstave
I prefer the far more personal version:

[http://vimeo.com/86054588](http://vimeo.com/86054588)

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awjr
I don't get why it needs massive heavy tyres. Wouldn't it be better to have a
mobile platform from where it lifted off from saving quite a bit of weight. I
mean the wheels and suspension must way rather a lot. This is a supply unit.

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jws
You may be supplying or evacuating casualties from an area covered in trees,
buildings, or enemy arms. You don't want to load and unload in a landing zone,
it takes time, men, and equipment and makes a target.

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midas007
If it's intended for tactical uses, it needs to be more robust to take more
abuse in unfriendly terrain. ;)

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jessriedel
What's the connection between autonomous flight and (no-swashplate) multi-
rotor? If multi-rotor is useful, why haven't miltaries used them with pilots?
Why are autonomous helicopters overwhelmingly multi-rotor?

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modeless
Autonomous helicopters are multi-rotor for simplicity and reliability. A
quadcopter has only 4 moving parts (not even any gears!) and that makes it
just about the simplest possible mobile robot, simpler even than wheeled
robots (mechanically).

Piloted multirotors aren't as popular because they need computer control to be
stable, batteries don't scale well, and combustion engines have slower
throttle response (not to mention hundreds of moving parts that eliminate the
simplicity advantage).

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twic
I wonder if anyone's looked into turbo-electric power trains for helicopters.
They work well enough in ships and trains. There might be all sorts of reasons
they wouldn't work in a helicopter, though.

A turbo-electric drive wouldn't magically achieve a faster throttle response,
but it might make it faster to shift the power from one rotor to another,
which might be what's really needed.

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thomaswmeyer
Just outfit it with a bed, kitchen, and a bathroom, and you have a pretty
stylin' motor home that can get you almost anywhere on this planet.

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callesgg
This quad is allot biger:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVelo_Atlas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeroVelo_Atlas)

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dm2
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jENWKgMPY)

This one might be even larger, it's kind of a hybrid configuration though.

Also, isn't a Chinook technically a multirotor?

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robotresearcher
The article mentions in passing the defining feature of multirotors: they are
controlled by rotor speed only. No swash plate.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashplate_(helicopter)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swashplate_\(helicopter\))

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dm2
That might be the unofficial defining feature but a multirotor rotorcraft is
simply one with multiple rotors.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multirotor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multirotor)

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robotresearcher
OK, I guess so. But the surge in interest in multirotors is almost entirely in
the simple no-swashplate designs with electronic attitude control.

The Chinook is a crazy machine, but does not have much in common with a
quadrotor except for the very minor feature of having more than 1 rotor.

~~~
dm2
Thanks for pointing that out though, I wasn't aware that most people
considered that term to mean that.

I have a huge interest in drones (as I'm sure many of us do) and think it
would be really neat to have a personal drone that can follow us around, can
do random tasks, and maybe even defend/guard us if necessary. I doubt someone
would mug a person with a drone following them.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdroids/the-pocket-
dr...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airdroids/the-pocket-drone-your-
personal-flying-robot)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=533a9_dfg4c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=533a9_dfg4c)

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Serow225
I'm surprised that those engines have fast enough delta-input to delta-thrust
response to make it reasonably responsive?

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danbruc
Doesn't the world already have enough war toys? Why not make something that
actually helps mankind?

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sean-duffy
Do you realise that almost all the development of early computers was to
contribute to the war effort? Usually to get things done, you have to create
things that help a subset of mankind in a specific way.

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danbruc
I realize that. And not only the computer stuff but a lot of things in
different areas from advances in medicine to rocket technologies.

But why should we continue this road? We have been living in a world where you
can no longer have any serious war for more than 60 years. There are nuclear
weapons and having a war is just the dumbest thing you could do.

You can still invade Iraq or Chechnya or Ukraine and beat down a less powerful
state but for this we have more then enough weapons, no need to get new ones.

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Theodores
You are right, plus this is an absurd over-sized gadget. I doubt you could
pack it into an aircraft carrier that easily. And if you did get it off to its
'humanitarian military duties' imagine, trundling along a road, taking up both
carriageways, I am sure that a few kids with rocks could disable those rotors
if the telegraph poles don't get there first. It has no real application hence
it is a military 'maybe we need one of these too' gadgets.

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lotsofmangos
Look again. It is less than a lane wide with the blades stowed.

