Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually the GPS which you mentioned for number 4 would multi-task quite well for these three also. GPS gives positional references in three dimensions and with GPS you don't need a compass.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So GPS also returns the relative angles of the unit? Good to know.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

but still, no news press? admitadly, they miss things, but they seem pretty on the ball on people crossing oceans and lakes and the english channel.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

It is not interesting enough to help with Ratings or ad revenue, so they probably ignored it.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The artical describes the engine and fule. There is no mention of Solar Cells.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

Batteries would not return as much power for their weight as fuel would. Gasoline really is a wonderful fuel source: portable, easily obtained, efficient, relatively stable, and of a tolerable level of toxicity. It is not only fortunate that certain processes led to it's widespread abundance, it is essential for the industrial development of humanity.

GPS only returns 'facing' based on movement. Since the plane will not always move in the direction it's facing (wind), I suspect they also had a compass on there.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The artical describes the engine and fule. There is no mention of Solar Cells.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yea. 5.5 pounds of fuel I believe.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Globe and Mail, a canada-wide newspaper, had it on 2nd page.

Anything to please the newfies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

And the fuel was Kerosene I believe. And after it's trip from Newfoundland to Ireland, it still had enough to fly for about 4 more hours, I think.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

National Georghapic.com covered it. I also saw it on CNN the other day before this thread started, btu I haven't been able to find the link again looking for it.

Re: OT: Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't know if it's the same thing, but I saw an article about these giant unmanned planes that were designed to stay aloft at very high altitudes on an indefinite basis! They were really flimsy and lightweight looking, with a huge wingspan and loads of really big propellors. They props were driven by solar power from panels covering the wings.

They were conceived as a cheap alternative to orbital satellites for things like weather monitoring, recon, and all those other things they use satellites for. Cool idea.

EDIT: As for controlling the transatlantic effort, you could
(a) fly a normal aircraft alongside it and use a normal controller from there.
(b) program it to follow a signal from a transmitter attached to a trained bird or something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ August 18, 2003, 16:59: Message edited by: dogscoff ]