hey rc aircraft guys, need some help

[Chairboy]

Using a Mini-ITX, with the weight and (significant) power issues is really unnecessary.  Use a microcontroller like an OOPIC, BX-24, basic stamp, or whatnot.  The microcontroller can directly manage your servos, so there's no extra weight for servo controllers needed.

If you use the horizon stabilized autopilot from FMA and just steer it using rudder, you don't need more processing power then that.  It significantly drops your costs, increases your payload, the time on target, and more.

$500 is ambitiously low, and you've made some design choices that pretty much automatically push you over that hump without even getting started.

If you want to control them and get telemetry, you have a two way radio serial link.  Your plane beams back its position, direction of flight, etc constantly.  If you want to re-task it, you either give it new coordinates to orbit over the link, and it then uses the GPS to set itself up, or you give it steering directions manually over the link.  

You handle takeoff and landing manually, and that saves you a bundle.

[indy007]

Originally posted by Chairboy
Using a Mini-ITX, with the weight and (significant) power issues is really unnecessary.  Use a microcontroller like an OOPIC, BX-24, basic stamp, or whatnot.  The microcontroller can directly manage your servos, so there's no extra weight for servo controllers needed.

If you use the horizon stabilized autopilot from FMA and just steer it using rudder, you don't need more processing power then that.  It significantly drops your costs, increases your payload, the time on target, and more.

$500 is ambitiously low, and you've made some design choices that pretty much automatically push you over that hump without even getting started.

If you want to control them and get telemetry, you have a two way radio serial link.  Your plane beams back its position, direction of flight, etc constantly.  If you want to re-task it, you either give it new coordinates to orbit over the link, and it then uses the GPS to set itself up, or you give it steering directions manually over the link.  

You handle takeoff and landing manually, and that saves you a bundle.

Actually I was saying it was cheaper since I've got a mini-itx board laying around & a phidgets controller, plus a borrowed GPS. You were right though, too heavy overall. Haven't worked with an OOPic in awhile. This should be interesting.

[Hangtime]

Whelp.. the other thing you could do is teach your ground team to actually fly the model. Auto stabilization (gyro type autopilots) is cheap. One guy flies, the other mans the camera downlink and camera servo motor controls..

Anything much more sophisticated than that.. and yah hit the two grand number for each airframe.

Dunno how much that'll cost in steaks and beer tho.