11-Pound Model Plane Vs. The Atlantic, Again

Luap Nanreffeh writes "Last year, (/. Story 1, /. story 2) Maynard Hill and some retired NASA buddies tried to set a record for flying a model aeroplane across the atlantic ocean (from Newfoundland to Ireland). Their plan, using GPS, onboard controllers, and a gallon of gas, would have been the first to cross the Atlantic under FAI rules. They didn't have much luck last year, but now they're at it again. The first launch should be tonight."

direct reference to Simpson's episode DABF02

[sweeney37 (325921)]

all of us from slashdot send Charles "Lucky Hammy" Hamster our support.

good luck and godspeed, brave hamster.

Mike

Guilty

[by Anonymous Coward]

What you forget to mention is that 98% of all animals used in food consumption and product testing have been tried and convicted in a court of law of capital crimes. 8 out of every 10 murders in this country are committed by cows, sheep, bunnies, rats, chickens and their ilk.

Eating/testing is the safest way of dealing with these menaces to society.

Wouldn't it be better...

[Sir Haxalot (693401)]

instead of giving an exact date, just waiting until weather conditions are perfect to fly it?

Re:Wouldn't it be better...

[los furtive (232491)]

newfoundland also has the fame of being the birthplace of wireless communication, as the worlds first wireless transmission across the atlantic was recieved on signal hill back in 1901, so maybe that was another reason as well.

And I'm sure that the fact that it's also about closest point between North America and Europe without getting your feet wet has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But thanks for the trivia. Now quit your lollygaging ;-)

Drug running

[GreenCrackBaby (203293)]

So, how long until drug runners send little planes from Columbia to Florida?

This gives me too many ideas...

Re:Drug running

[Steffan (126616)]

What makes you think that they aren't already doing this. It's not like they'd post to Slashdot if they were successful.

Re:Drug running

[Gherald (682277)]

Which is why, by comparison, us nerds don't fare so well at clandestine activity.

Re:Drug running

[xanadu-xtroot.com (450073)]

"I can't believe what nerds we are looking up money laundering in a dictionary."

-Peter

Re:Drug running

[cdrudge (68377)]

What makes you think that they don't already? Do you think that they would advertise their technologies?

Or...

[missing000 (602285)]

A potential terrorist device?

I can see it now. Our next military campaign will be to eradicate model airplane building materials from the rest of the globe.

Re:Or...

[SmackCrackandPot (641205)]

The Japanese did try something similar in World War II. They tried using paper balloons to carry incendiary bombs across the Pacific using the jet stream [historyhouse.com]. Crazy idea, but a few bombs did get through.

Re:Or...

[WoTG (610710)]

Whatever happened to that 12 ft (or so) plane they found in Iraq that was supposed to be a potential "weapon of mass destruction". You know, that little remote controlled plane that was supposed to carry biological weapons in a aerosole spray can or something... Must have saw that video a dozen times on CNN before they got bored of it.

Re:Drug running

[Timesprout (579035)]

Thats it GreenCrackBaby. No more crack for you. We will be sending a slightly larger plane with a 'special' delivery just for you now you have gone and exposed our previously secret and ferret type cunning plan to the rest of the world.

Best wishes

Medellin Cartel

Re:Drug running

[Ungrounded Lightning (62228)]

So, how long until drug runners send little planes from Columbia to Florida?

I remember, back when cruise missiles were first being developed, thinking how a strategic cruise missile (the one with the half-ton payload and restartable turbojet engine) would make a dandy drug smuggling vehicle. Load with a thousand pounds of cocaine, fly it below radar across the Gulf of Mexico and into the door of a large barn in some remote region of the US.

The big problem would be if SAC happened to see it coming. It would look JUST like a strategic cruise misslle coming at the US over the Gulf of Mexico. B-)

They might have gotten away with it back then. But these days the US keeps an AWACS over the Gulf all the time - to look for drug smugglers. Two can play at plowsharing.

Re:Drug running

[drinkypoo (153816)]

So what you're saying is that they need to be building unmanned submarines instead.

Re:Drug running

[stefanlasiewski (63134)]

Are you kidding? Why would they try to swallow little airplanes when little balloons are much easier?

Sheesh! Some people.

Re:Drug running

[Frymaster (171343)]

drug runners? what about terrorists!

apparently hamas has already used radio-controlled model planes to carry explosives and the british, for some time, were "concerned" that the ira could used model helicopters to deliver chemical weaponry.

source is here [worldnetdaily.com]

really, somebody should call tom ridge and get him to stop these people from exporting this weapons technology to a foreign power!

Re:Drug running

[cjsnell (5825)]

So, how long until drug runners send little planes from Columbia to Florida?

Kind of pointless when they can send big planes. During the 1980s, Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel flew gutted 727s from Columbia to the States, loaded to the max with cocaine. Another one of his tricks was to send large numbers of small planes, each loaded with coke, towards the US. The DEA and Customs Service could only catch so many... You can read more about it in Mark Bowden's (author of Black Hawk Down) excellent book, Killing Pablo [amazon.com].

Jimmy Buffett also discusses air smuggling in his book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty [amazon.com] .

In other news...

[Valiss (463641)]

...my neighbor tried to make his toy remote control car across the street, only to be crushed by the UPS guy.

So this is what a job market over-saturated with people with degrees and experience produces?

Or maybe they were just tired of people laughing when they told people that they worked for NASA.

I've got an idea!

[daeley (126313)]

Get in touch with the English Channel skydiver [slashdot.org] and set up a cross promotion: Skydiver Flies (and Flies Model Plane) Across Atlantic.

Q. Which reminds me of an old joke: what do you get when you cross the Titanic and the Atlantic Ocean?

A. About halfway.

Re:I've got an idea!

[thebigmacd (545973)]

It's that much more subtle if you reword it to say:

Q. What do you get when you cross the Atlantic Ocean with the Titanic?

Possible Use

[thePancreas (690504)]

Drug Smuggling anyone? Or maybe strong encryption smuggling. Can't be radar visible if it's that small.

Re:Radar and small planes.

[gooberguy (453295)]

Umm, no. Glocks are about 80% metal by weight, IIRC. They have always been easily seen by xrays. It's not like someone has invented composite ammunition, magazines, and barrels.

Why NASA's efforts failed the first time around..

[Bowie J. Poag (16898)]

They forgot to add in the additional weight of the coconuts.

Re:Why NASA's efforts failed the first time around

[jmoriarty (179788)]

They forgot to add in the additional weight of the coconuts.

The problem wasn't that they forgot. The problem was that one engineer used Metric Coconuts and another engineer used British Standard Coconuts.

This is excellent practice...

[vudufixit (581911)]

The engineering experience gained from this endeavor will only help humans create better autonomous craft for Earthbound and space-based uses. Glad they're doing this, and I wish them luck, although if they see any German guys with ladders in their backyard, get the ol' shotgun ready.

hm

[DNS-and-BIND (461968)]

Why don't they just build a dozen of these, and launch them an hour apart. The whole advantage of small inexpensive craft is the "swarm" approach.

Re:hm

[Migrant Programmer (19727)]

They launched 3 last year, and are launching 4 this year. It would be really stupid to launch them an hour apart -- oops, one storm just took out all of your planes at once.

Re:hm

[thebigmacd (545973)]

From the site I learned that before the flight waypoints are uploaded to the GPS guidance system, and there is telemetry send while it is flying, but they basically said it will fly itself once in the air.

Thanks for the links

[CracktownHts (655507)]

(from Newfoundland [gov.nf.ca] to Ireland). Their plan, using GPS, onboard controllers, and a gallon of gas, would have been the first to cross the Atlantic under FAI rules. They didn't have much luck last year, but now they're at it again. The first launch should be tonight."

You know you're reading Slashdot when "GPS" and "FAI" are assumed to require less background info than "Newfoundland".

Re:Thanks for the links

[OECD (639690)]

You know you're reading Slashdot when "GPS" and "FAI" are assumed to require less background info than "Newfoundland".

Or, oddly, Ireland [travel.ie]. Funny, "Luap Nanreffeh" doesn't sound Irish...

I can see it now.

[MegaHamsterX (635632)]

In the news today a nearly blind and deaf man was arrested for terrorist acts after his home built guided missile traveled the atlantic and started a fire at a shoreside housing complex, a terrorized elderly couple lost 16 cats in the fierce blaze.

By all other names

[jonhuang (598538)]

So this is a automatous GPS-guided long-range flying vehicle? Isn't that a cruise missle?

Admittedly, there would be some scaling up before poeple could fit a 2000lb warhead on it. But for bio/chemical WMDs, here's your cheap unstoppable delivery device.

I wish them luck, regardless.

Re:By all other names

[oGMo (379)]

So this is a automatous GPS-guided long-range flying vehicle? Isn't that a cruise missle?

So, a cat is a 4-legged mammal with hair? Isn't that a woolly mammoth?

Nope, invalid logic.

Website is pretty disappointing

[Sanity (1431)]

The website is somewhat disappointing, and for some perplexing reason they want to keep their autopilot system closed source. If they had even the slightest flair for the dramatic they would set up a page which tracks the plane's progress in real-time on a map from their satellite telementary system.

All in all, I was much more impressed by the Balloon 1.0 [vpizza.org] project, even though an unpowered balloon isn't half as cool as a powered and automatically guided RC aircraft travelling such a huge distance unaided.

Does anyone have any good links for other projects in a similar vein which aren't so coy about the gory technical details?

Re:Website is pretty disappointing

[Migrant Programmer (19727)]

If they had even the slightest flair for the dramatic they would set up a page which tracks the plane's progress in real-time on a map from their satellite telementary system.

If you were around last year, you would know that they do. It's just not up yet, because the plane isn't "up" yet either.

The Spirit of Butts Farm?

[Sialagogue (246874)]

"The airplane(s) we launch this month will be called 'The Spirit of Butts Farm' - Check back later to learn why."

Sounds to me like a blatant ploy for sponsorship dollars from RIM. . .

I can picture it now...

[Valiss (463641)]

After they make the flight and decide to sell the plane:

"So, you boyus used to work for NASA, huh?"

"Yep."

"Well I dont really know if this is the kind of plane I'm looking for. You say it get's 3,000 miles per gallon?

"About that."

"I'm really in the market for something that gets more like 4,000 miles to the gallon. Plus it looks real used, what with all the bird crap and scratches on it. I'll give ya 50 bucks."

"But we made a world record with this!!"

"Yeah but the paint is chipped. 60 bucks is my final offer."

"Fine, we'll take it. There's oour retirement!"

The NASA version...

[Hawthorne01 (575586)]

"Oh, wait, 11 *pounds*? Damn, we did all our calculations for an 11 *kilo* plane!" (sound of a spash)

Let the heckling begin!

[YetAnotherName (168064)]

From the website: "The airplane(s) we launch THIS month will be called "The Spirit of Butts Farm"

No, I'm not making that up. Check it yourself, if it's not slashdotted already.

And at the finish line....

[SoVi3t (633947)]

Some poor Irish guy is gonna be standing on the beach all alone, get nailed in the head with a model plane, and get REALLY confused.

He's already confused....

[simetra (155655)]

if he's standing on the beach instead of sitting in a bar.

Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

Links to other projects

[jetmarc (592741)]

Here's a company that sells all equipment necessary to autonomously fly a model plane. Obviously you can define several GPS coordinates, and the plane will go pass them all.

http://www.micropilot.com/

Here's an open-source effort to autonomously fly a helicopter. Heli's are more difficult to manouver than planes.

http://autopilot.sourceforge.net/

GNC

[deblau (68023)]

Let's start with navigation. They may be ex-NASA, but unless they applied for and received GPS PPS capability, they're navigating with SPS only, which is only +/- 100m with 95% confidence. Normal flight rules allow human pilots to use GPS [faa.gov] for lat/lon determination only and not altitude, especially not for precision approaches. 50m +/- 100m isn't what you want to see on your altimeter. Normally, GPS should be backed up by something like LORAN [faa.gov], which has accuracy of 100ft, but even that isn't reliable over much of the North Atlantic due to poor coverage. The best system involves the use of GPS/LORAN-C in combination with some sort of inertial navigation system [faa.gov] (INS). But you have to remember that gyroscopes precess, and that magnetic headings can be off by as much as 45 degrees [fsu.edu] in the North Atlantic due to magnetic deviation.

Realize that even as reliable as GPS is, satellites can give false information. There's a system to counteract this problem, called RAIM, but it requires 4 birds to be visible to detect a problem, and 5 to remove the faulty signal from nav calculations, assuming you have a redundant, GPS-compatible, digital barometric altimeter on board. Otherwise, you need 6 birds visible.

Guidance seems to be relatively straightforward: figure out where you are (with 95% confidence), and aim toward your next waypoint. Here's a quick overview of what that entails:

1. Determine lat/lon for you and the waypoint
2. Determine true (ground) course
3. Determine magnetic course after correcting for the aforementioned deviation
4. Determine magnetic heading after correcting for wind
5. Determine compass heading after correcting for onboard instrument magnetic interference
6. Issue commands to the flight control system to head that way

The wind correction is non-trivial. Last I checked [wisc.edu], winds in the flight route were generally sustained at around 15 knots, and varied by a full 180 degrees relative to the course. This plane flies at about 40 knots. Grabbing a calculator and doing some trig, wind correction could be as much as arctan(15/40) = 20 degrees. Onboard interference is typically up to 10 degrees in GA aircraft. Here's a concrete example: if you want to fly due east (090) in the North Atlantic with a 45 degree deviation and winds from the south at 15 knots, with onboard interference of +10 degrees, you'd have to fly a compass heading of 165! That's almost due south.

That leaves flight controls. You need to maintain proper attitude, keeping in mind that there's gonna be turbulence. In order for any magnetic navigation system to properly realigned (remember gyroscopic precession?), you need to be flying straight and level, which requires extensive compensation for unsteady flight dynamics. It's not as simple as saying "pitch up" when your speed gets too high or your altitude is too low. What if you get inverted? It can happen. Even human pilots don't do so well flying instruments only -- see the NTSB findings [ntsb.gov] in the JFK junior crash. Maintaining stability and control over dynamical systems is a hard problem, which is why many colleges offer entire majors in CDS.

Disclaimer: I am a Space Shuttle [nasa.gov] enthusiast and a student pilot (hopefully, that will change in two weeks). I know that NASA have the expertise to overcome these problems, and I'm willing to give these engineers the benefit of the doubt. I wish them good weather and no system malfunctions.

Re:No need for GPS

[javiercero (518708)]

Yeah, what onboard sensors would be those, intuition and luck?

Re:No need for GPS

[Wesley Felter (138342)]

Based on the first two responses to this post, you'd think people had never heard of inertial navigation. With MEMS accelerometers it ought to be pretty light, too.

Re:No need for GPS

[FuzzyDaddy (584528)]

Never heard of 1/f noise?

Trying to integrate the output of an inertial sensor twice to get position IS dead reckoning. For very short travel times, it would work fine - but for very long flights, the integrated noise from the sensor output would give you enormous accumated position and velocity errors.

Re:No need for GPS

[javiercero (518708)]

Yeah, we have heard of them.... except that most inertial units nowadays use GPS too, you know you goota get some sort of reference for your error and drift. Most new inertial units combine the accelerometers and gyroscopes to give you altitude, pitch and yaw, plus acceleration, plus GPS to combine that into the Kalman to get rid of dead reckoning.

It is a tad hard thing to do when you do not have a human navigator on board to do the corrections....

Re:No need for GPS

[John Carmack (101025)]

>Based on the first two responses to this post, you'd think people had never heard of inertial
>navigation. With MEMS accelerometers it ought to be pretty light, too.

Pure 3 axis inertial navigation with a strapdown inertial measuring requires extreme precision. MEMS inertial units aren't even in the right ballpark. Mechanical stable platform inertial systems that actually rotated inside the vehicles didn't require awesomely accurate sensors, but they are big, heavy, and not as reliable.

It is a useful programming exercise to write a simulation of a strapdown inertial system and play with bias, noise, and nonlinearity errors (add cross axis coupling and acceleration effects for micromachined gyros for bonus points). Pick reasonable ranges and quantize to 12 bits, then integrate at 100 hz or so. You can start the simulation motionless, but in a minute it will be cruising along at 60 mph in some random direction, hundreds of feet from the start position. An hour later, it will be heading for Mars.

The low end inertial systems that have been moderately soccessful are done by removing gravity from the equation and just doing 2D navigation, and often using other sensors, like magnetometers instead of rate gyros for heading, or odometer readings instead of double integrating accelerometers. Double integration of interrelated noisy sensors with an implicit 1G acceleration is really more demanding than it would initially seem.

The only reason you wouldn't want to use GPS in an ocean crossing is if you are afraid a Bad Guy might be jamming the signals.

John Carmack

Re:This is as interesting as rocketry

[Doesn't_Comment_Code (692510)]

'd think more geeks would be into it, especially with all the equipment you get to work with.

But DANG would this be an expensive hobby! If you can get some financial backing or sponsorship it would be ok. But that's a lot of high quality, lightwight devices. And we all know that
high quality + heavy = expensive. And
high quality + small and light = super-expensive!

And the thing that really gets me, is that once you load up your huge investment into a tiny plane, you send it out to its almost certai